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 about 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.[7] 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