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A Dreamy Journey Through Unforgettable Utah

Read, rest and remember or look forward to exploring lands so beautiful and bizarre as to seem unreal.

Julianne Will
11 min readMay 5, 2020
Moon over Arches. Photo by the author.

The exotic landscapes of Utah’s grand national parks have merited comparisons to ancient times and other worlds. Soaring red spires, deep crimson caverns and peculiar geology all light fire to visitors’ imaginations and reveal the quirky, dynamic magic of Mother Nature.

When you cross into Utah on Interstate 70 from Colorado, all signs of civilization end, save for the occasional lonely fence stretching out into infinity. Vast expanses of short golden grass with a smattering of desert shrubs give way to layers of light beige sandstone bluffs cast in shadowed hues of pale purple and blue. These are the Book Cliffs, so named because the ridges on top resemble books stacked horizontally on a rocky shelf 1,000 feet above the desert floor. Stretching 250 miles west from Grand Junction, Colorado, to mid-Utah, this is the longest escarpment in the world, formed over time by the forces of erosion. This remarkable feature is soon joined by the Roan Cliffs, whose darker peaks roughly parallel the Book Cliffs in their march across the bleak landscape.

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Julianne Will
Julianne Will

Written by Julianne Will

I'm a professional writer with deep experience in journalism and marketing. I'm also a world traveler and the cofounder of Journey Here Travel. Fernweh is real.

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