The Power of Flood

A couple of posts back, I referenced our walk into Capitol Gorge, (a steep walled canyon), within the Capitol Reef National Park, and the new washout we saw of the dirt and gravel road that had been there. I talked with a ranger who said it happened in June. This is a part of the world that averages 10 inches of rain annually. In June they had a storm that dropped an unusually intense .75 inches of rain in one hour. Here, that hits all the mountain tops and rock facings and has nowhere to go but down.  The ranger said they had marks afterwards where the subsequent flash flood waters hit 8 feet high on the canyon bottom walls in some places. So glad we were not hiking the gorge then! Whew! Imagine the power. He called it liquid sandpaper due to the grit, rocks, etc swept up in the water of the flash flood. Yes, unusually intense, even as seen walking through the aftermath.