Canyonlands National Park - The Needles

The photos of yesterday's park visit start with a close up of the soil crust.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_crust
The rangers make a big deal about protecting it, but don't always say why.  The Colorado Plateau is primarily sand, either loose or as sandstone.  If nothing were present to hold the loose sand, then it would blow around and either bury plants or undermine the plant roots, both making it harder for plants to root and grow and survive.  The crust is a combination of different microscopic structures that glue the sand together and keep it in place.  Actually critical for life of the high desert.

The Needles section of Canyonlands was about 80 miles one way from our RV park.  This time of year, they only get about 450 visitors a day (100K per year).  Island in the Sky gets 200K and Arches gets 1 million.  Much of the justification for the particular parks we picked for visits on this vacation was to visit the "less popular" places.  The truck thermometer at 1pm was at 95 degrees, but Terri and I were sure the temp on the Pothole Point rocks was at least 105. 

Terri wanted to get a pressed penny for the area.  The parks visitor centers didn't have the machine, but we were told there was one in town.  We found it and did a little more shopping, but wanted to get back to the RV to walk the dogs.  By the time we got back to the RV, the truck reported 103 in the shade.

It was Terri's birthday, so we had a nice steak dinner at the RV.

20 new photos posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/rosser.tom/RVVacation2010#