Let us follow the paved road from U.S. Highway 163 all the way to Dead
Horse Point, which was set aside as a state park in 1957. The park has a
visitor center, museum, modern campgrounds and picnic facilities, and
piped water, which is hauled all the way from Moab. An entrance fee of
$1 permits us to drive across the narrow neck to a parking area near the
point proper, which is protected by stone walls and is provided with a
ramada, benches, paths, and sanitary facilities. From Dead Horse Point
we get breathtaking views in several directions, including a loop of the
Colorado River called the Goose Neck, 2,000 feet nearly straight down.
[Illustration: CANE CREEK ANTICLINE, looking northeast toward the La
Sal Mountains from Dead Horse Point. Colorado River cuts across
crest at middle right, above which is Anticline Overlook. (See fig.
31.) Jeep trail and part of Shafer dome lie below. (Fig. 13)]
How did such a magnificent viewpoint get such a macabre name? Dead Horse
Point was named for a sad but colorful legend concerning a band of wild
horses that once roamed the high mesas. The point is really an embryo
island separated from the mainland by a narrow neck barely wide enough
for the present road. In the early cowboy days the island was used as a
natural corral in which wild mustangs were penned up behind a short
fence across the neck so that the better ones could be sorted out and
driven to mines in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. A band of horses
corralled too long without water allegedly died of thirst within sight
of the river 2,000 feet below, hence the name of the point, or at least
so one version of the story goes. Some versions allude to the wranglers
as cowboys; others, as horsethieves.
To the northeast we can see the Cane Creek anticline—an upward fold of
the rocks—behind which loom the La Sal Mountains (fig. 13). A cutaway
view of a typical anticline is shown in figure 14. A better view of the
Cane Creek anticline can be seen from Anticline Overlook, as shown in
figure 31. From our vantage point at Dead Horse Point, we can see much
of Hatch Point, including Anticline Overlook, by looking east and
southeast. Spectacular views of the northern part of Canyonlands
National Park lie to the south, southwest, and east. Looking southwest
(fig. 15), we see most of the rock formations exposed in
Canyonlands—more than can be seen from any other vantage point in or
near the park. The names of the visible rock units shown in figure 15
can be compared with the complete list in the rock column (fig. 9).
Parts of Shafer dome, a “closed” rounded anticline, are visible in the
lower left of figure 15 and in the lower right of figure 13. Its general
domelike shape is outlined by the bluish-white Shafer limestone, a
marker bed which also caps the bench on the peninsula within the Goose
Neck of the river. This limestone, which here forms the top of the Rico
Formation, is not shown in the rock column (fig. 9) because its exposure
is limited to the Shafer dome and the Cane Creek anticline and its name
is used only locally by prospectors for oil and gas.
[Illustration: CUTAWAY VIEW OF ANTICLINE, or upfold of the rocks.
From Hansen (1969, p. 31). (Fig. 14)]
[Illustration: LOOKING SOUTHWEST FROM DEAD HORSE POINT toward Island
in the Sky on right skyline, Orange Cliffs on left skyline, Colorado
River and White Rim Trail below, and Shafer dome at lower left.
Sketch from photograph shows names of rocks. (Compare with fig. 9.)
(Fig. 15)]
[Illustration: Fig. 15, cont.]
Note that the White Rim Sandstone Member of the Cutler Formation,
referred to hereinafter simply as the White Rim Sandstone, becomes
thinner toward the right (northeast) in figure 15 but is absent entirely
in figure 13, just a short distance to the northeast. The gradual
disappearance of recognizable beds of this type toward the northeast,
including the disappearance of some limestone beds containing marine
fossils, are examples of what geologists call facies changes. Here the
changes result from the fact that while strata were being deposited in
or near ancient seas that lay to the southwest, beds of different
character were being laid down on land by streams emanating from the
northeast. This will be gone into in more detail in discussions that
accompany illustrations to follow, particularly figure 27, fig. 31, and
fig. 35.