Located near the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, Petrified Forest National Park is part of an amazing geological region. Here you can see the colorful Painted Desert badlands next to mesas, buttes and hoodoos that have been sculpted by wind, rain and time. It’s a sight that will leave you in awe. Photo by JT Dudrow (www.sharetheexperience.org).  

Whoa! ⚡️  Mother Nature puts on a show, creating this dramatic lightning shot at Colorado National Monument. Photo courtesy of JT Dudrow (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Red Cliffs National Conservation Area in Utah protects a unique transition zone – the meeting of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin Desert and Mojave Desert. Where these distinct landscapes overlap, unusual plants and animals have evolved, including flowers like the dwarf bearclaw poppy and Shivwits milk-vetch that grow nowhere else on earth. Explore the area’s flora, wildlife and spectacular desert scenery with more than 130 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. Photo by Bob Wick @mypubliclands

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is located on the Colorado Plateau in the pristine and spectacular canyonlands of Utah. A beautiful drive along Cottonwood Creek Drive takes you to Grosvenors Arch – a rare double natural arch that is one of the most unusual features of the Grand Staircase-Escalante. Pictured here is the Milky Way glittering in the sky as seen from the front side of Grosvenors Arch. Photo courtesy of David Lane.

The Colorado National Monument rises more than 2,000 feet above the Grand Valley of the Colorado River. Towering monoliths exist within a vast plateau and canyon panorama. You can experience sheer-walled, red rock canyons along the twists and turns of Rim Rock Drive or hike some of the park’s more than 40 miles of maintained trails. Check out more amazing pics of America’s National Parks: http://on.doi.gov/1P55dPN. 

Sunrise over the monument by William Woodward (www.sharetheexerperience.org).

Located on the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument is a geologic treasure. This remote and unspoiled monument contains 280,000 acres of diverse landscapes – including the colorful swirling stone of the Wave (pictured here). For more stunning pics of the Wave and other parts of Vermilion Cliffs, check out our Steller story at http://on.doi.gov/1Nm62AW.

Photo of the Wave with the Milky Way shining overhead by Max Seigal (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Arguably some of the planet’s most unique and spectacular geologic features are the narrow slot canyons of the Colorado Plateau — and the grand-daddy of them all is Buckskin Gulch in the BLM-managed Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness/National Monument. Straddling the Utah/Arizona border, this 13 mile long canyon is 400 feet deep and sometimes as narrow as six feet — not just at the bottom but all the way up to the canyon rims (thus the name “slot”). In places you can’t see the sky when looking up; only the sun’s indirect glow bouncing off the scalloped rock walls & creating an ever-changing colorful tapestry. Logs wedged between the narrow walls 20-30 feet above the stream-bed are a reminder to avoid the area during the summer monsoon, when flash floods combined with no escape routes make the canyon unsafe for hiking.

Photo: Bureau of Land Management