I kind of regretted not asking the couple in the Jeep that drop by if I could ride with them until the Hogback trail, but I had more time to contemplate views like this. We are now in the Moenkopi Formation, which is sandstone and siltstone formed in tidal flats at the ocean’s edge, about 250 million years ago in the early Triassic. An extinction event at the end of the Permian Age killed off much of life, leaving the early Triassic period with ancestors of the large oceanic reptiles (plesiosaurs and icthyosaurs) as well as large mollusks known as ammonites (imagine a large squid living in a nautilus’ shell). On the shore of the ocean here, early frogs may have croaked at night, as well as large reptilian ancestors of the dinosaurs.

As the level of the ocean changed, either the silt became rocks, or the sand became compressed into rocks, creating the sandstone ledges shown here.

The canyon lurks on the edge of visibilty.