Following the Cairns

 

It's been a while that I was in this space the last time. Truth be told, I wasn't in the mood to write a new blogpost for a few weeks. Every now and then I need to step away from my blog and that's what I did.

But now I'm here and I want to take you back to the Southwest. We're almost done with our trip of December 2024, only a few days are left and some of them were mainly spent driving. We had to cover quite some distance to eventually get home again. I wrote about Arches, Canyonlands' Island in the Sky and Dead Horse Point, and today we're going to Canyonlands again, but this time we're visiting the Needles District which is South of the Island in the Sky. It's quite a way to drive into Needles which might be one of the reasons that there are way less people. This has always been my favorite part of Canyonlands National Park, with an abundance of hiking trails. We wanted to hike the Slickrock Trail - and that's exactly what it was, a hike mainly across slickrock, the trail being marked by rock cairns.

This was the way up to the plateau. 

From up here and along the entire hike we had a 360º view across Canyonlands and its surroundings.

I took an idiotic amount of pictures and it was hard to select the ones for this post. I hope you have the stamina to look at a lot of photos.

You bet I couldn't leave those trees alone.

Here you can see that we really needed those cairns to follow, otherwise I'm sure we would have lost our way completely.

The views were simply amazing. How can one ever tire of this?

It always fascinates me that this hostile environment is enough for trees growing out of nothing. Their roots and bark made me stop over and over again.

The La Sal Mountains were still visible on the horizon.

You turn around a huge boulder and boom! another great view.

Our faces tell that we thoroughly enjoyed this hike. My contribution to Nicole's Friday Face Off.

View after view after view - and cairns and dead trees, of course.

Our shadows might be big here, but we are so insignificant in the vastness of this desert.

The texture of the slickrock was interesting and so was what remained of some shallow leftover puddles.

Our eyes were constantly watching for those cairns and our feet would follow. This entire hike is not particularly long, just 2.4 miles, but it took us forever because we stopped all the time to enjoy the amazing views - and take pictures, of course.

The soil here - as well as in many other places in this area - is very interesting. It's a living soil called cryptobiotic soil crust, an important part of arid and semi-arid ecosystems. They are composed primarily of very small organisms, created by living organisms such as algae, cyanobacteria and fungi. Cryptobiotic soil resists erosion by wind and water and absorbs water more quickly than regular soils and also have higher nitrogen. Thus they provide ideal conditions for desert plants to germinate and grow. However, cryptobiotic soil crust is very fragile and small pressure can break the crust. Humans can have a major impact on these delicate crusts. In all the parks I've seen signs to please stay on the trails and not walk on the soil - now, please guess how many footprints (and even tire marks) I saw on the soil? A footprint crushes and compacts the soil and it can take several decades or even longer for the cryptobiotic soil to recover. There will be erosion which exposes the roots of desert plants and eventually kills them. New plants have difficulties to getting established. With scarcer plant life, the animals that depend on these plants become threatened. It's a downward spiral. If we humans would be more considerate, look up from our phones and don't make everything about ourselves, this ecosystem might have a chance to persevere. (Sorry for the preaching.)

A cairn, a dead tree and the vastness of the land...

I noticed the wavy shape of this rock, a bit different from the other slickrock. A tale of geological history.

Do you see the spire-like rocks on the horizon? This is what the Needles District gave its name. 

We finally arrived back at our car by the side of the road. We both were in need of a restroom...

Yes, we made sure to shut that bathroom door!