Along the West Rim trail
We left Green River this morning, and fortunately the wind was down, though it increased throughout the day and is now very strong again this evening. It is only 90 km from where we stayed last night to our campsite at Horsethief. Curiously we got exactly the same site as last year. It had been vacated today, and since it is one of the nicest sites in this campground we were happy to pull in to it.
Meander in the Colorado River
After a game of scrabble before lunch (which Enid won as usual) we drove to Dead Horse Point State Park, which is about 15 km south of here. We looked at the displays in the visitor center and then walked around the East Rim and West Rim trails, which took us in a loop around both sides of the canyon. The views down to the canyon floor and the Colorado River were very nice. We also drove into the campsite to check it out. We are happy we are in Horsethief, for the Dead Horse Point campground is not nearly as level, and the sites are very crowded together. The only advantages it has are electricity (but we have our generator) and water (but we filled up in Green River) which don’t outweigh its shortcomings.
Solution potash mine evaporation ponds
At the visitor center itself you can see ponds at the bottom of the canyon. They are very bright blue, and I assumed that it was blue plastic liners for a sewage treatment plant. However, when Enid watched a video in the information building we found that they are actually evaporation ponds for a potash mine. The mine, a solution mine, pumps the brine into the ponds, adds cobalt chloride to it to make it blue and absorb sunlight better, and then lets the water evaporate. After that they collect a slurry of potash from the evaporation ponds with large earthmoving machines, and then further process it.