Nature’s LandScape, San Rafael Reef

To describe the landscape of America is to feel it, see it, experience it and be in it. I can’t begin to express the richness and variety that lies in each state. Depending on that time of year, the fall been one of my favorites especially in areas with loads of foliage. One of my favorite destinations has been in North Carolina and exploring the Blue ridge Parkway. While this is a very popular place to go to during this time of year, beauty they say is all around us, so today, let’s talk about landscapes. 

Today, Let’s talk about San Rafael’s Reef in Utah.

They call it the San Rafael Reef, a 30 mile long barrier, a sandstone wall at the eastern edge of nowhere. For centuries, only the most intrepid travelers found their way through its narrow slow canyons and into the forbidding landscape of the San Rafael Swell. The early Spanish Explorers detoured 20 miles to avoid this wall. Then, in 1957, Congress decided to increase the nation’s interstate highway system. Interstate 70 would be built through the Reef.

Engineers and surveyors used body harnesses and ropes to work as high as 400 feet above the canyon floor. Crews excavated 3.5 million cubic yards of rocks from the area where eight miles of road cost $4.5million.

In November 1970, the way was opened for two lanes of traffic from Fremont Junction to the Colorado State Line. Two more lanes were finished in the mid- 1980s. You will ride through the Reef in about five minutes, entering a wild and spectacular landscape.