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Show section of curiously eroded and faulted red, buff, and white rocks called the Needles. On the ground it is a seemingly endless labyrinth of little valleys above which tower great sandstone domes and pinnacles. From the air it is an amazingly intricate pattern of green, yellow, buff, pink, and red. On August 23, 1859, Dr. J. S. Newberry, geologist to the MacComb Expedition, wrote the following description of this area as seen from the top of a butte located about a mile south of the mouth of Indian Creek: The great canon ( Grand Canyon) of the lower Colorado, with its cliffs a mile in height, affords grander and more impressive scenes, but those having far less variety and beauty of detail than this. From the pinnacle on which we stood the eye swept over an area some fifty miles in diameter, everywhere marked by features of more than ordinary interest; lofty lines of massive mesas rising in successive steps to form the frame of the picture; the interval between them more than 2,000 feet below their summits. A great basin of sunken plain lay stretched out before us as on a map. Not a particle of vegetation was anywhere discernible; Canyon, Dark Canyon, Fable Valley, and Gypsum Canyon. Near their junction, Dark and Wooden- shoe Canyons are 2,000 feet deep, while the lower end of Gypsum Canyon is more than 2,300 feet deep, and at least one high point on the rim of Gypsum Canyon within a mile of the Colorado River is 3,527 feet above it. From the pine and aspen forested Elk Ridge there are grand views down into the canyons on all sides and out over Beef Basin and the Needles to Junction Butte to the northwest; over the Grand Gulch Plateau, Natural Bridges National Monument in White Canyon, the Tables of the Sun, and Red Rock Plateau to Navajo Mountain in the southwest; down 2,200 feet into Cottonwood Canyon which separates Elk Ridge from the Abajo Mountains and up 2,600 feet to Abajo Peak, elevation 11,357 feet. Elk Ridge is a delightfully cool forest island in a rough iridescent sea of deserts and canyons. Needles area.- North of Elk Ridge lies the Indian Creek country which revolves around North Six Shooter, a great monolithic guide post. West of North Six Shooter and southeast of the junction of the Colorado and the Green Rivers is a fantastic 162 Figure 87.- Junction Butte and Grays Pasture Plateau from south of the Needles. ! |