While sandstone is found nearly everywhere on the Colorado Plateau, there are certain areas where it's beauty is so concentrated that it leaves you wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Areas of bare-naked Navajo sandstone are some of my favorite places to have this experience. These petrified sand dunes, once fully exposed by eroding elements, display some amazing textures and colors.

Cross-bedding is a phenomenon produced when prevailing winds that create the dunes change direction. The alignment of the sand grains shifts and the altered arrangement of the particles is preserved in the stone. Color is added later, after the stone has formed. As erosion exposes the rock, this story of wind and sand, compression and color is made clear. And while science can explain this scenery, the rock itself still leaves you gaping in disbelief.