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The emphasis of the book is on hiking in Canyonlands National Park & vicinity of eastern Utah. This park is located west of Moab and south of the town of Green River, in the area where the Green and the Coloardo Rivers meet--locally known as The Confluence. But because not everyone has a 4WD vehicle, the author tells where a mountain bike can get you closer to a hike or canyon rim--without buying an SUV. The emphasis is getting people out to the rim of these major river canyons, and/or into a side canyon, and down to the bottom, or to one of the rivers. In many cases, hikers use old cattle trails. And this brings up the another part of this book; cowboy, ranching and trail building history. In gathering information, the author interviewed about 80 old timers who were born and raised in this county. In doing that, he has documented who built these trails and cabins, and when they were constructed. The same is true with several old abandoned ranches in the canyons. Many of those interviewed have since deceased, so their stories are long gone and lost forever--except in this book. As usual, the author has documented on his maps any archeological sites including Anasazi ruins and petroglyphs & pictographs. Keep this in mind when you look at books in the national park visitor centers. No book there will show you any archeological sites! That's the reason the National Park Service (NPS) sells very few of this writer's books--because he always lets his readers know where they can hike to find Indian ruins or rock art. Falcon Press books, which are totally saturating the market these day, are often sold at visitor centers, embraced, and seemingly half-written by the NPS, but none will show you where Anasazi sites are. You'll also get a good dose of geology, and the theories of how Upheaval Dome came to be. The latest ideas point toward a meteorite, not a salt dome as previously believed.
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