A pullout at the park's western sign marks the top of the road's long descent. The park opens here with a statement about the tribes and pueblos whose homelands these are, and the stop introduces the monocline that defines the landscape, a step in the rock layers running far beyond both ends of the highway.
On your right in about half a mile, a pull-off at the park sign, good for two minutes. The park's own account of this spot goes past the rock. It says this is part of the ancestral and current homelands of at least thirty-two tribes and pueblos. Current. That's the park's word, and it means now. The oral traditions of several tribes, the same account says, tell of people living here continuously for several thousand years, and the entire landscape has been their home. That home has a shape, and this is where it starts. Far below lies an old buried fault, and when mountain-building woke it up, the ground to the west rose and every layer above it had to bend over the edge. Geologists call that a monocline. It only means a one-sided step, nearly ninety miles long, and you're at the top of it.
Photo: NPS / Chris Roundtree · Public domain (U.S. Government work)