Fantasy Canyon

Southwest of Jensen, in the center of a huge oil and gas field, is an area known as Fantasy Canyon. It's a bit daunting to get there, with the first leg of the journey along the Redwash Highway. Highway may be optimistic, but eventually you get to Utah Highway 45. A few miles south to Glen Bench Road #3260 and you're on a fairly well kept gravel road. Some parts of the road are over clay, so if it's been raining.....don't go. About 70 miles into high desert brings you to Fantasy Canyon.

The first impression is....well, ok. but as you follow the path through the formations, you can only gasp at the shapes.

These shapes are made of sandstone, siltstone and shale. the difference is in the size of the grains in the rocks. Sandstone has the largest grains, then siltstone, and finally shale, with the sizes ranging from about 2 millimeters down to particles so fine as to not be seen by the naked eye. These layers of large rocks, sandstone, siltstone and shale have been compressed into solid rock over eons, and slowly, eroded into these awesome shapes!

As layers of soft stone erode more rapidly than harder sandstone, floating formations are left to the mercy of the elements.

Some shapes look to have been made by ancient creatures and then inexplicably left...

Is this a remnant of a Eocene Epoch building?

As we made our way out of Fantasy Canyon and turned east on an unmarked road that a local fellow told us about, we saw a herd of wild horses calmly eating amongst the gas and oil lines. Primarily gas, these steel pipelines snake across the landscape in every which direction.

The car registered 102 degrees F as we headed off into the unknown.

But eventually saw a landmark in the distance.

The Deseret Power Cooperative Bonanza Power Plant is a coal fired facility and supplies power to much of eastern Utah and western Colorado.