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Holoscenes - Textures of the Earth The Black Hills Chesapeake Bay Death Valley Lake Tahoe and Northern Sierra Nevada The Grand Canyon Mount Whitney and Owens Valley Utah's Canyon Country Yellowstone Park Yosemite and Mono Lake

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				Utah hosts many of America's most scenic desert parks. Canyonlands, Arches, Natural Bridges, Hovenweep, Capital Reef, Horseshoe Canyon, Escalante, and the Lake Powell / Glen Canyon National Recreation Area are all located in the southeastern corner of Utah. The Colorado River cuts across the land from the northeast to the southwest, where the Glen Canyon dam impounds the river at artificial Lake Powell before allowing it to flow into the Marble and Grand Canyons. Author Edward Abbey wrote passionately about this region, but his polemics against "industrial tourism" served to advertise the region's recreational attractions more than any chamber of commerce could have hoped. Today, Moab (at the upper right of the map) is a mecca for adventure tourists who come to climb the cliffs, drive off-road vehicles, hike the slickrock country, raft the Colorado, and mountain bike in the beautiful, rough terrain.
	Utah's Canyon Country Click to enlarge 1024x768 (219K) (load time is 50 seconds with a 56 K modem)

				A map of the Grand Canyon has difficulty conveying the size of the feature. Flowing from the northeast to the southwest, the Colorado River runs 277 miles through the canyon -- at its deepest, the river bed is 6000 feet below the rim, and at places the rims are 18 miles apart. The canyon's depth causes different climates at the rim and the river bed. The north rim at the right center of the map is the high, forested Kaibab Plateau that receives rain and snowfall, while the depths are hot desert. A popular recreation area with spectacular scenery, Grand Canyon National Park encloses most of the canyon. Trails allow visitors to descend to the river bed either from the busy South Rim or the quieter North Rim. John Wesley Powell's 1869 expedition was the first to traverse the canyon's entire length by boat. Their four-week trial fighting rapids while suffering from scarce provisions gave the world its first glimpse of the canyon's geologic treasures. Modern rafting expeditions regularly retrace Powell's route through a billion years of exposed geologic history.
	The Grand Canyon Click to enlarge 1024x768 (206K) (load time is 40 seconds with a 56 K modem)