Just east of Clifton, the Book Cliffs sort of give way to the cliffs and mesas of the Colorado River Canyon. I drove east through here early in the morning so in my photos, you'll see the shadows on the slopes cast by the cliffs on the south side of the highway. I only went east as far as the turn-off for the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway but these cliffs run eastward for probably another ten miles or so. While they are spectacular, they are not as imposing as the gorge that the I-70 passes through east of Glenwood Springs. And these water-carved canyons run north and south for miles from here, basically up every drainage that has existed in this countryside over the last 65 million years or so (since the Laramide Orogeny that pushed up most of the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range Province). When I made the turn and headed south and east up the northern leg of the Scenic Byway, I was driving up one of those side drainages through some more spectacular countryside.
This is on the south side of the I-70, just east of Clifton
Looking towards one of the drainages leading to the north
Looking back to the northwest
Looking up the canyon to the east
