标签犹他下的文章

圆顶礁国家公园的大教堂谷，犹他州 Mesas, Upper Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah (© Tim Fitzharris/Minden Pictures)

This 'reef' is nowhere near the sea…

…nor the US Capitol building it's named for. Utah's Capitol Reef National Park—first established as a national monument this day in 1937—is named for its massive rock domes that reminded explorers of that famous rotunda back in Washington, DC. Why Capitol 'Reef,' though? Because the imposing formations were a major obstacle to travelers through the region, the same way a coral reef is an obstacle to sailors.

This section of the park, Cathedral Valley, is dotted with monoliths that differ from the namesake domes, instead featuring sheer, jagged walls. While most of the park rests on a steeply warped section of Earth's crust, Cathedral Valley is relatively flat—so rather than carving out gently sloping domes, water erosion here has tended to cut deep, narrow recesses down the rock faces.

这个“暗礁”离海很远…

…也不是以它命名的美国国会大厦。犹他州国会珊瑚礁国家公园于1937年作为国家纪念碑首次建立，以其巨大的岩石圆顶命名，使探险家们想起了华盛顿特区著名的圆形大厅。但为什么国会大厦是“暗礁”？因为壮观的地形是旅行者穿越该地区的主要障碍，就像珊瑚礁是海员的障碍一样。

公园的这一部分，即大教堂谷，点缀着不同于同名圆顶的巨石，取而代之的是陡峭、参差不齐的墙壁。虽然公园的大部分都坐落在地壳急剧弯曲的部分，但大教堂山谷相对平坦，因此这里的水侵蚀倾向于沿着岩石表面切割出深而窄的凹坑，而不是雕刻出缓倾斜的圆顶。

2015年4月4日摄于Tear Drop Arch附近的月全食，犹他州纪念碑谷 The total lunar eclipse of April 4, 2015, taken from near Tear Drop Arch, in western Monument Valley, Utah (© Alan Dyer/Alamy)

Behold the blood moon

We've heard the phrase 'many moons,' but never took it this literally. We're looking at 28 merged photos of our one and only moon over Utah's Monument Valley: 26 snapshots of its partial phases, plus two layered exposures of the eclipsing moon at center.

If the weather's agreeable tonight, folks in the US and many other parts of the world are in for a total 14-minute eclipse of the full moon similar to this one from 2015. The lunar eclipse is sometimes called a blood moon for the crimson shadow Earth casts on the lunar surface, and tonight's show carries a little extra gravity: The eclipse will occur as the moon takes its closest pass to Earth this year, making it appear large in the sky and giving it the ominous title of Super Blood Moon.

看血月

我们听过“许多月亮”这句话，但从来没有这样的字面意思。我们正在看28张合并后的照片，这是犹他州纪念碑谷上空我们唯一的一个月亮：26张部分相位的快照，加上两层日食月亮的中心曝光。

如果今晚天气宜人，美国和世界其他许多地方的人们将迎来一次14分钟的满月全食，与2015年的这次月食相似。月食有时被称为血月，因为地球在月球表面投下了深红色的阴影，今晚的节目还有一点额外的引力：今年月亮离地球最近的时候会发生月食，使它在天空中显得很大，并给它一个不祥的称号“超级血月”。

Hovenweep国家纪念碑的方塔，犹他州 Square Tower Group in Hovenweep National Monument, Utah (© Brad McGinley Photography/Getty Images)

A timeless view of the night sky

The bright sweep of the Milky Way is especially vivid amid the mesas, canyons, and prehistoric towers of Hovenweep National Monument. Straddling the southern Colorado-Utah border, Hovenweep is so remote that almost no artificial light disturbs the view of star-filled skies. The dazzling nightscapes are little different from those seen by the Ancestral Puebloans who built these towers. They were a farming culture who first settled in the area roughly 1,100 years ago. By the late 1200s they numbered around 2,500 people and had built these and other structures in six different villages. Archaeologists offer several theories to explain the use of the buildings. Some may have been defensive fortifications, storage areas, homes, or any combination of these. But researchers suggest that the tower called Hovenweep Castle, seen here, was almost certainly used as a celestial observatory.

That's why we're visiting Hovenweep during International Dark Sky Week, which lasts through the weekend. Organizers of the event, held during the week of the new moon in April, encourage us to observe the beauty of the night sky without light pollution. It's easy to do here—in 2014, the International Dark Sky Association named Hovenweep a Dark Sky Park, offering protections that preserve the extraordinarily pristine skies that once shone down on the Ancestral Puebloans.

永恒的夜空

在霍文韦普国家纪念碑的台地、峡谷和史前塔楼中，银河系的明亮一扫显得尤为生动。横跨科罗拉多州和犹他州的南部边界，霍文韦普非常偏远，几乎没有人造光干扰满天星空的景象。令人眼花缭乱的夜景与建造这些塔的普埃布劳恩斯祖先所看到的几乎没有什么不同。他们是一种农业文化，大约1100年前第一次在这个地区定居。到12世纪末，他们大约有2500人，在六个不同的村庄建造了这些和其他建筑。考古学家提供了几种理论来解释这些建筑的用途。有些可能是防御工事、储存区、住宅，或这些的任何组合。但研究人员认为，在这里看到的这座名为霍文韦普城堡的塔几乎肯定是用作天文观测站的。

这就是为什么我们要在国际黑暗天空周期间参观霍文韦普，这一周将持续到整个周末。这项活动的组织者在四月的新月周举行，鼓励我们在没有光污染的情况下观察美丽的夜空。2014年，在这里很容易做到，国际黑暗天空协会将霍文韦普命名为一个黑暗天空公园，提供保护，保护曾经照耀在普韦布洛祖先身上的异常原始的天空。

布莱斯峡谷国家公园的冬天，犹他州 Winter in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah (© Don Paulson/Danita Delimont)

Winter in the Wild West

When considering the dramatically eroded canyons of southwestern Utah, snow may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But far-flung Bryce Canyon National Park gets plenty of the white stuff, owing to its elevation of 8,000-plus feet at the massive amphitheater's rim. The cold not only provides scenic snowy views and great cross-country skiing, it's responsible for the striking red-rock pinnacles—known as hoodoos—that make the park so unique.

High above sea level, winter in Bryce Canyon often sees daily shifts between freezing and above-freezing temperatures. Despite its name, Bryce Canyon isn't a true canyon, but is instead a collection of natural amphitheaters. The park's hoodoos formed as water seeped into massive stone plateaus, then froze and expanded to break away chunks of rock. Repeated day after day for eons, this process has left slim sections of sediment standing throughout Bryce Canyon—now the largest concentration of hoodoos in the world.

狂野西部的冬天

在说到犹他州西南部峡谷为什么受侵蚀严重时，降雪可能并不是第一个被想到的原因。但是遥远的布莱斯峡谷国家公园（Bryce Canyon National Park）由于在大型圆形剧场的边缘海拔超过8,000英尺而获得了很多白色的东西。寒冷不仅带来优美的雪景和越野滑雪，而且还造成了令人惊叹的红岩峰（称为石林），使公园如此独特。

布莱斯峡谷的冬天海拔很高，每天都会出现冰点和冰点以上温度的变化。尽管它的名字包含峡谷，但布莱斯峡谷不是一个真正的峡谷，而是一个自然露天剧场的集合。公园的石林随着水渗入巨大的石制高原而形成，然后冻结并扩大以分裂成块的岩石。这一过程日复一日地重复了亿万年，留下了遍布布莱斯峡谷的薄薄的沉积物，现在布莱斯峡谷是世界上最大的石林聚集地。

锡安国家公园中的Walter's Wiggles小径，犹他州 Walter's Wiggles trail in Zion National Park, Utah (© Dennis Frates/Alamy)

The long and wiggling path

In 1926, Walter Ruesch, the first superintendent of Zion National Park oversaw the construction of one of the park's most ambitious trails. It took 258 helicopter flights to haul in the concrete needed to construct the steep 21-switchback trail out of Refrigerator Canyon up to Angels Landing, but the view from the top makes it all worthwhile. Walter's Wiggles, one of the most difficult and dangerous trails in the park, was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1987.

But you don't need to haul tons of concrete or carve into the sheer sides of a remote canyon help carry on the tradition of trail-building. Today is National Trails Day, a day 'to come together in partnership to advocate for, maintain, and clean up public lands and trails.'

Usually this means heading out to a local wilderness area and joining others to clear or maintain some trails, but this year (as you may have noticed) is a little different. The American Hiking Society has organized a digital campaign to inspire individuals to unite for the protection of trails and access to public lands—without endangering one another.

两名山地车骑手在白缘公路上沿着谢福小道的转弯处骑行，犹他州峡谷地国家公园 Two mountain bike riders make their way down the Shafer Trail switchbacks on White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park, Utah (© Grant Ordelheide/Tandem Stills + Motion)

For the love of bikes

In honor of World Bicycle Day, we share a bird’s-eye view of two mountain bikers traveling on the Shafer Trail switchbacks of White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. In 2018, the UN officially recognized 'the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the Bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation.'

German Karl von Drais is credited with creating the first version of a bike in 1817; it was a heavy wooden contraption that the rider pushed forward with his or her feet. It had many names—the 'draisine,' velocipede, and dandy horse--and it was a fad for a few years, but eventually the bike was banned because it was too dangerous (no brakes!).

The bicycle has gone through many iterations since then, from the less-than-comfortable 'boneshaker' in the 1860s, followed by the 'penny-farthing' with its huge front wheel, to today’s popular fatbikes and e-bikes. During one of America’s biking booms, in the 1970s, more bikes were sold than cars. Today bicycles remain as popular as ever, so whether it’s for recreation or transportation, the bicycle is here to stay.

Bridges to the past

The story of this sandstone formation in southeastern Utah's Natural Bridges National Monument begins around 10 million years ago. That's when tectonic shifts began slowly lifting the 130,000 square-mile Colorado Plateau above the surrounding plains. In ensuing eons, the Colorado River's many streams eroded the elevated land, threading it with deep canyons. When water broke through one canyon wall into another canyon, sometimes a natural bridge like this one remained above the breach.

The national monument—Utah's first, proclaimed by President Theodore Roosevelt on April 16, 1908—protects three major bridges: Sipapu (pictured, and the largest), Kachina, and Owachomo. But even the president's pen can't stop the slow ravages of time. In a 1992 rockfall, Kachina slimmed down by 4,000 tons—and the remains of many fallen bridges dot the monument, hinting at the main attractions' eventual fate.

Zion National Park Turns 100

It's been exactly 100 years since President Woodrow Wilson signed an act to convert Mukuntuweap National Monument into Zion National Park. Fewer than 2,000 people visited back in 1919 due to poor road conditions and lack of trails. These days, the park has the opposite problem—with more than 4 million people coming each year, crowds create long lines for shuttles and clog popular areas such as the Narrows. Part of Zion Canyon, the Narrows can be seen from a paved path. But many people like to experience it up close, hiking in the Virgin River, and it can get crowded at peak times since it's—as the name implies—narrow.

In recent years, Zion has even moved ahead of Yellowstone and Yosemite to become the fourth-most-visited US national park (Great Smoky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, and Rocky Mountain parks are the top three respectively). Also contributing to Zion's popularity is its proximity to other attractions. It's part of the Grand Circle, a region that includes parts of five states and is the most concentrated area of national parks and monuments in the country.

Art in the high desert

The desert doubles as an art studio this week at Arches National Park, as painters from all over congregate for the Red Rock Art Festival. This Moab-based event is a celebration of what the French call painting 'en plein air,' or painting outside. Sounds like a fabulous idea to us (and what a view!). The colorful landscape here at Arches National Park is home to the highest density of natural arches in the world—upwards of 2,000—as well as more pinnacles and dramatically balanced rocks. Combine that with the fiery sunsets, pinyon trees, and splashes of sage and yucca, and we’d say these artists are in for a treat. Lucky for them, October is a pleasant time to visit the harsh, desert landscape.

Fall comes to the Pando

All is not as it appears to be here at the Pando, in Utah's Fish Lake National Forest. At first glance, visitors likely see a massive grove of quaking aspen trees, their leaves dancing in the wind. But the Pando is not many trees; instead, it's a single organism. Like many aspen groves, each of the 40,000 trees in the Pando are genetically identical stems that sprout from the same root system. First discovered in 1968, the Pando made waves in the scientific world. It's become recognized as one of the heaviest known organisms—weighing 6,000 metric tons—and one of the oldest known living organisms. Scientists estimate it's upwards of 80,000 years old, having endured the last ice age and countless forest fires. It got to be so old partly because most of the organism is protected underground. So, while an individual stem can die, the organism as a whole survives.

It's only recently that human activity has threatened the Pando’s health, with drought, grazing, and fire suppression interfering with its growth. Pando translates as 'I spread out,' in Latin, a reference to the way it extends itself through cloning. But its delicate, fluttering leaves—which turn golden this time of year—have lent it another moniker: the Trembling Giant.

星空迷