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<br />N'I <br /> <br />(;REEN RIVER, UrAII, TO IIITE, UTAII <br /> <br />pI <br /> <br />view from the rim as among the most spectacular on the Colorado Plateau. To the southwest is the "Rock <br />Forest" or the "Land of Standing Rocks," a maze of pinnacles, towers, mesas, and canyons (Beaman <br />photograph 747). The distant view to the southeast shows the spires, pinnacles, and lins of the Needles. <br />All of these strangely eroded features are formed in the red and hulrsandstone of the Cedar Mesa Sandstone <br />Member of the Cutler Formation. <br />The oldest rocks exposed in dills along the Green River here are part of the Hermosa Formation, <br />overlain by slopes and ledges of the Rico Formation. Basal beds of Cutler li)rm the canyon rims in the <br />lower reaches of the Green. <br />Spanish Bottom, just below the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, is the logical place to <br />camp and rest bdi)re running the thundering rapids of Cataract Canyon. Below the confluence, the <br />Colorado /lows along the axis of the Meander Anticline, a major structural feature. Rocks of the Hermosa <br />and Rico Formations arc highly fractured along this fold. Above Spanish Bottom, the skyline is made <br />ragged by irregular pinnacles carved from the Cedar Mesa Sandstone Member. We could see these <br />pinnacles Irom various points on the river. <br />Rapids in Cataract Canyon are more impressive than most encountered upstream, After getting through <br />about twenty fair-sized rapids in Cataract, we reached "The Big Drop," about half a mile below Calf <br />Canyon, \Vithout question, it is the most notorious rapid in this part of the canyon, The crew of one of <br />our two boats was thrown out when the boat plunged into a large hole at the base of the drop. The boat <br />did not overturn, but the motion was so abrupt that no one remained aboard. <br />Gypsum Canyon, coming in from the cast I~lrther downstream, was explored liJl' liltH miles or more <br />by the Powell party, Our photographs at camera stations 754 and B21, about three-and-a-half miles up <br />Gypsum Canyon, record the cfrects of massive rock falls from the canyon walls, <br />Gypsum and gray shale of the Paradox Member of the Hermosa Formation arc exposed from the <br />vicinity of Calf Canyon Rapids (Beaman photograph 7'l9) on downstream to below GypsulJI Callyon. <br />\Valls of Cataract Canyon tower nearly two thousand feet above the river in the vicinity of Beaman camera <br />station 758. Mille Crags, onl'vl ille Crag Bend, are striking li,'atures that li>rlll ajagged skyline of sandstone <br />crags cut from the Cedar l'vlesa Sandstone Member of the Cutler. Beaman photograph 7G,1 shows the <br />crags Irom the opposite shore of the river. This station is now /looded by the waters of Lake Powell. <br />The fi:mrth segment of our trip ended just uplake Irom Ilite Marina, On the opposite shore arc <br />well-preserved prehistoric Indian ruins, described in thcjournals of the Powell expedition. On a sandstone <br />lil<:c nearby, an inscription was made by a member of the Powell party oll.June 27, IB72. (This locality <br />was revisited at that time by some of the Powell expedition members when, after completing the river <br />trip, they traveled overland from Kanab to retrieve the CailOllita, which had been cached at the mouth of <br />the Dirty Devil River nearby.) <br /> <br />I)' <br /> <br />'f <br /> <br />A <br /> <br />'s. <br /> <br />It <br /> <br />;an <br /> <br />1,13 <br />