Iconic Rocks Jutting Out of  the San Rafael Swell

Travelling either east or west on the Interstate 70 between Salina and Green River in central Utah you will come across a couple of pinnacles jutting out of the high plateau of the San Rafael Swell.

It's the San Rafael Swell that is responsible for creating the Ghost Rocks and the I-70 freeway cuts right through the swell from near the Freemont Junction almost to Green River. The I-70 ascends Ghost Rock Summit, which is the highest point of the I-70 freeway inside the San Rafael Swell and also where we find the Ghost Rocks themselves. At the summit is there truck rest area and a viewing area overlooking the Little Grand Canyon of the San Rafael River. The Ghost Rock Summit is named for the 2 unusual Ghost Rock formations nearby.




Called the "Ghost Rocks" as there are actually 2 separated pinnacles one being Ghost Rock West and the other naturally Ghost Rock East. The naming of these 2 pinnacle features is buried within folklore. Most stories relate to a cowboys looking for cattle who came across these features then paused for a minute as the early-morning fog shrouded the base of the peaks so that all the cowboys could see were the pinnacles protruding above the fog base, which made the cowboys think of ghost-like figures floating in the air.

But also note that the rocks are primarily white in color just like Casper the Ghost. Not that I am saying that the average cowboy of the late 1800's read comic books about a "friendly ghost" but the term "ghostly white" makes one wonder if that might be a more relevant term.



Anyhow these rocky pinnacles were viewable for many decades only to a few locals as this area of central Utah was extremely remote up until the construction of Interstate freeway system. The Utah portion of the Interstate 70 was not completed until 1970 making the I-70 one of the last major segments of the Interstate freeway system to be completed. The Colorado portion of the I-70 is the very last portion of the Interstate system. This is through Glenwood Canyon and that segment was not completed until October 14, 1992.

When the plans for I-70 were finally made, the route of the freeway would be right across the San Rafael Swell. At that time (late 1960's) the area west of Green River was still so remote that the survey crews had to use 4 x 4 jeeps to survey parts of the route and in the process came across herds of wild Mustangs. No! Not the Ford auto but 4-legged wild horse variety.

To get a better idea of how remote the area was in the late 60's/early 70's a story has come out that during the highway's dedication ceremony (as told by an engineer who surveyed the highway), that when a group of engineers was approached by a sheep rancher and he asked what they were doing. The rancher then had a ROFL moment when it was explained that they were building a freeway. What the sheep rancher did not understand was that this freeway would change the local people’s way of life mostly for the worse.



So, in 2002, the mayor of Richfield, Utah was interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper about what changes they had I-70 brought to the Sevier Valley. Previous to the completion of the I-70 these were isolated farming/ranching communities, whose residents were unaccustomed to the crime and other detrimental effects that a transcontinental highway can bring. The residents of Richfield, Utah soon started to refer to the I-70 as the "Cocaine Lane". In the interview the mayor of Richfield stated that the I-70 is a mixed blessing. He stated that the Interstate 70 is a boon to the hospitality industry and has made Richfield more accessible to other cities within and outside of Utah. However, the new Interstate 70 has brought types of crime previously not known to our city.

A major change in the rural lifestyle of this central Utah area came about after the completion of I-70, when many residents started to lock their doors for the first time. An interview with mayor of Richfield resulted from an event that served as a horrible "wake-up call" for the residents of peaceful rural Utah in that they were "no longer isolated from crime". In Richfield a panic soon ensued after the citizens witnessed Utah Highway Patrol troopers arresting a suspect and removing him in handcuffs, then removing plastic bags and ice chests full of body parts from the trunk of his car. The body parts were of a woman, later a dead male was also found hidden in the trunk, he was still intact. This event caused a mini frenzy of people checking on their neighbors to be sure that their neighbors were not one of the victims.

Metro crime (Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and so on) now can easily move along the interstate freeway freely into the small towns and villages of rural Utah. Even the Ghost Rocks are not free from this metropolitan urban filth. The Ghost Rocks now have that urban graffiti signature of stupidity!


Both of the Ghost Rock formations stand out from the remainder of the mountains and mesas nearby. The Ghost Rocks themselves are listed as being at 7,420 feet (2,262 m) at the top of the rocks (Ghost Rock West). For Ghost Rock East from the rest area parking lot my GPS registered 2066 meters (6,772 feet) elevation while at the top of the rest area just under the base of Ghost Rock East my GPS registered 2221 meters (7,287 feet). That makes Ghost Rock East around 230 feet tall from the base but due to the rocks shape and color it stands out well among all the other peaks in the immediate area.

I guess that climbing the rocks is allowed as I did not see any signs stating that climbing was prohibited. I am completely against this lame naive idea as both of the rock formations are too easily accessible to a vast amount of motoring human traffic due to the I-70's 2 rest stops on either side of the freeway. A constant flow of human climbers will cause undue damage to the rock formations.

The material that makes up most of the Ghost Rocks formations is Navajo Sandstone. And before some fellow yells at me that all Navajo Sandstone is reddish, read below.

Direct from Wikipedia:

The wide range of colors exhibited by the Navajo Sandstone reflect a long history of alteration by groundwater and other subsurface fluids over the last 190 million years. The different colors, except for white, are caused by the presence of varying mixtures and amounts of hematite, goethite, and limonite filling the pore space within the quartz sand comprising the Navajo Sandstone. The iron in these strata originally arrived via the erosion of iron-bearing silicate minerals.

Initially, this iron accumulated as iron-oxide coatings, which formed slowly after the sand had been deposited. Later, after having been deeply buried, reducing fluids composed of water and hydrocarbons flowed through the thick red sand which once comprised the Navajo Sandstone. The dissolution of the iron coatings by the reducing fluids bleached large volumes of the Navajo Sandstone a brilliant white.

Soft:	Medium:	Hard:	Very Hard:
Talc Slate Gypsum rock Asbestos rock Soft limestone	Limestone Dolomite Sandstone Copper Ore	Granite Quartzite Iron ore Trap rock Gravel Gabro	Iron ore (Taconite) Granite Grantic gravel Trap rock

So why is rock climbing on these 2 features such a stupid idea? Think about this; the Interstate freeway (I-70) brings tens of thousands of visitors weekly by these 2 pinnacles and if even only a few out of these thousands of visitors actually climb the rocks you still can have up a possible 100,000 climbers shredding these 2 peaks. Sandstone is not a hard rock. Read the quote below from www.canyoneeringusa.com:

"Sandstone is held together by impurities such as clay and lime that are deposited with the sand. Navajo lacks these impurities and thus is poorly held together. The rock is weak and often crumbly, but still forms huge cliffs. The rock near the top is especially pure, white and weak, partly because it was deposited as pure sand, and partly because rainwater, over tens of thousands of years, has dissolved what little binding material was available and carried it down through the rock to the lower layers".


When visiting this road side stop in the middle of June rain showers were popping up all around the San Rafael Swell even though the temperature was hovering around 96°. The higher altitude of the San Rafael Swell at around 7,000 feet in elevation makes this area a zone of high plant endemism, with many native plants being endemic to the swell and not occurring anywhere else in the world.

The San Rafael Swell is a beautiful place to hike, picnic and shoot photos but everyone should be reminded to beware of the Biological Soil Crust!

The San Rafael Swell is part of the Colorado Plateau and is full of this clumpy, blackened soil. This soil is extremely important to the health of the high desert areas of Utah, Arizona and Colorado.

Direct from the National Park Service:

Biological soil crust is just what the name describes – a living soil that creates a crust over the landscape. Biological soil crust is found throughout the world, from the Colorado Plateau’s high desert to the arctic! In many places, soil crust comprises over 70 percent of all living ground cover. The knobby, black crust here includes lichen, mosses, green algae, micro fungi, and bacteria, but is dominated by cyanobacteria.

Biological soil crust has helped shape today's high desert. Soil crust helps control erosion by keeping soil stuck together in one continuous crust. Sediment doesn’t wash away in the rain or blow away in the wind. This is why the Colorado Plateau’s high desert isn’t covered in loose sandy dunes.

Soil crust also holds and retains water. Plant roots tap into this spongy crust to survive dryer and hotter conditions. It also promotes plant life by taking nitrogen from the air and changing it to a kind of nitrogen plants need.

Without these effects, animals, and even humans, would not be able to survive well in the desert.

There is much more to see than just the two jutting rocks. You can walk or drive to the back side of Ghost Rock East to examine a view of the cliffs to the east.


1. You can see clearly the weathering of the hillside with the sandstone ridges breaking apart. Wind and especially rain have an adverse effect on sandstone.

2. Beyond the immediate hill to the east is an escarpment leading to a valley below. I saw a number of trails that can be easily hiked down through escarpment to the valley below.


But alas a thunderstorm was brewing up directly over the Ghost Rocks area and I was dressed for 100° weather! No trail hiking this afternoon. Only time enough for a few more photographs and then back to the Interstate 70 east to Arches National Park.

The view from the rest stop parking lot was just fine. The urge to climb just the bottom portion of Ghost Rock East to receive a better sweeping view was met by even a greater urge to preserve what little nature we have left in this nation.







Sometimes a "rest stop" can become a photo stop!


Bibliography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Rafael_Swell
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/the-dynamic-earth/weathering-erosion/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Utah
https://www.deseret.com/2002/3/16/19643600/driver-charged-with-murder
https://eq.uen.org
https://www.canyoneeringusa.com/zion/geology
https://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/geologicmaps/30x60quadrangles/m-242.pdf
https://www.canyoneeringusa.com/zion/geology
https://www.rockbreaker.com/equipment/breakers
https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists
https://www.nps.gov/articles/seug-soil-crust.htm
https://www.gomoab.com/moab_environment.html