westbound & down

Westbound & Down

Beauty is a relative term. This is my experience of beauty;

beauty of a new caliber.

I present my trek westbound & down.

Arkansas

o Lake Ouachita State Park

Texas

o Palo Duro Canyon State Park

New Mexico

o El Morro National Monument

Arizona

o Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

Link to Travel Map

Lake Ouachita

State Park Mountain Pine, Arkansas

Surrounded by the Ouachita National Forest, Lake Ouachita is known for

its scenic natural beauty and the clarity of its waters. These pristine waters

form the largest manmade lake within Arkansas's borders. Named one of

the cleanest lakes in America, 40,000-acre Lake Ouachita is a water sports

mecca for swimming, skiing, scuba diving, boating, and fishing. Angling

for bream, crappie, catfish, stripers, and largemouth bass can be enjoyed in

open waters or quiet coves along the lake's 975 miles of shoreline.

Palo Duro Canyon

State Park Canyon, Texas

The second largest canyon in the country lies in the heart of the Texas

Panhandle. Visit Palo Duro Canyon State Park; experience the canyon's rugged

beauty and enjoy its colorful history.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park opened on July 4, 1934 and contains 29,182

acres of the scenic, northern most portion of the Palo Duro Canyon. The Civilian

Conservation Corps of the 1930's constructed most of the buildings and roads

still in use by park staff and visitors.

The Canyon is 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide, and has a maximum

depth of more than 800 feet. Its elevation at the rim is 3,500 feet above sea level.

It is often claimed that Palo Duro Canyon is the second largest canyon in the

United States. The largest, the Grand Canyon, is 277 miles long, 18 miles

wide, and 6,000 ft. deep.

Palo Duro Canyon was formed by water erosion from the Prairie Dog Town Fork

of the Red River. The water deepens the canyon by moving sediment

downstream. Wind and water erosion gradually widen the canyon.

Early Spanish Explorers are believed to have discovered the area and dubbed the

canyon "Palo Duro" which is Spanish for "hard wood" in reference to the abundant

mesquite and juniper trees.

El Morro National

Monument Ramah, New Mexico

El Morro National Monument is located on an ancient east-west trail

in western New Mexico. The main feature of this National

Monument is a great sandstone promontory with a pool of water at its

base.

As a shaded oasis in the western U.S. desert, this site has seen many

centuries of travelers. The remains of a mesa top pueblo are atop the

promontory where between ~1275 to 1350 AD, up to 1500 people lived

in this 875 room pueblo. The Spaniard explorers called it El Morro (The Headland). The Zuni Indians call it "A'ts'ina" (Place of writings on the rock). Anglo-Americans called it Inscription Rock. Travelers left

signatures, names, dates, and stories of their treks. While some of the

inscriptions are fading, there are still many that can be seen today,

some dating to the 17th century. Among the Anglo-American

emigrants who left their names there in 1858 were several members of

the Rose-Baley Party, including Leonard Rose and John Udell. Some

petroglyphs and carvings were made by the Ancestral

Puebloan centuries before Europeans started making their mark. In

1906, U.S. federal law prohibited further carving.

Sunset Crater Volcano

National Monument Flagstaff, Arizona

Sunset Crater is a cinder cone located north of Flagstaff in U.S. State of Arizona. The

crater is within the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. Sunset Crater is the

youngest in a string of volcanoes (the San Francisco volcanic field) that is related to

the nearby San Francisco Peaks.

The date of the eruptions that formed the 340-meter-high cone (1,120 ft) was initially

derived from tree-ring dates, suggesting the eruption began between the growing

seasons of A.D. 1064–1065. However, more recent geologic and archaeological evidence

places the eruption around A.D. 1085. The largest vent of the eruption, Sunset Crater

itself, was the source of the Bonito and Kana-a lava flows that extended about 2.5

kilometers (1.6 mi) NW and 9.6 kilometers (6 mi) NE, respectively. Additional vents

along a 10-kilometer-long fissure (6.2 mi) extending SE produced small spatter

ramparts and a 6.4-kilometer-long lava flow (4 mi) to the east. The Sunset Crater

eruption produced a blanket of ash and lapilli covering an area of more than 2,100

square kilometers (810 sq mi) and forced the temporary abandonment of settlements of

the local Sinagua people. The volcano has partially revegetated,

with pines and wildflowers. The crater is the namesake for the Sunset Crater

Beardtongue (Penstemon clutei). Since the last eruption of the volcano is a recent

occurrence, it is considered dormant by volcanologists.

E. M. Timme

June ‘15