Two unanticipated guests...

have kept me busy the last several days, arriving within a day of my landing at my place in Castle Valley.  So, rather than unpacking and cleaning the house and other chores, the former director of the Spokane County Water Quality Management Program Office and his cousin toured the Onion Creek area with me as guide.  The peculiar geology of this salt-cored anticline in its early stages of development are spectacularly exhibited in the variegated valley, seen here in a view to the northwest:

This Utah serviceberry bush (Amelanchier utahensis) was pushing out spectacular white blossoms along the riparian zone:

The strongly contorted beds in the Paradox Formation are well exposed in this outcrop, created by the slow deformation of the rising salt diapir (that's me for scale):

Here's a broad view toward the southwest of the Fisher Towers area, with the collapsed center of the Onion Creek salt-cored anticline in the center of the image:

And I can report the pit toilet at the Fisher Towers parking area is clean and well-stocked for the early season:

 

RELATED:  Here's the online geologic map and report for the Fisher Towers 7.5' quadrangle (warning:  5.6 MB .pdf file).