The Sand Hills, Pt. 2

Continuing on past Jarvis I thought that this stretch of road looked familiar.  Then I remembered this is the sandy stretch where the boys and I bogged down in the sand and spent some time getting out.

We sailed past Joe's Tank on the last visit because of the time we spent getting unstuck and because we were a little gunshy about getting stuck again.  I took a closer look this time around and was struck by how the rock formations resembled those at white pocket.

Here, as at the previous tank I stopped at just before Jarvis, the slick rock collects the rain and funnels it toward a dam.

A little detail on the foundation of this shack.

There are quite a few of these big round tanks scattered over the area.  Made of big steel sections, they are bolted together with hundreds of bolts.  

Eventually the road meandered past a notch in the cliffs which afforded a southeast view.  Marble Canyon again, with Badger Canyon on the near side entering directly across from Jackass on the other side.  Both canyons offer relatively easy access to the Colorado River.

Right in the middle of the picture is a small plane that just took off from Marble Canyon airport.

I wanted to reach the east side of the plateau to look out over the Paria and it looked like the road continued on toward Powell's Monument, the flat-topped formation, and the Paria Needle, just to the left.  Well, the road did go that way and then right in the middle of the road was a wilderness marker, cutting me off still well short of the rim.  According to the map I still had a half-mile or so to go and it was getting late and hot, so I'll postpone that trip for another day.  Maybe.

I did get far enough to see Navajo Mountain.

I went back home over the Kaibab and stopped to take this picture of  House Rock Valley and the western edge of the Vermillion Cliffs.