Geologically, Hatch Point is similar to Island in the Sky. Both are bordered by towering cliffs of the Wingate Sandstone capped by the resistant Kayenta Formation, and rounded remnants of the overlying Navajo Sandstone rise above the otherwise-flat mesa surface in many places.
Access to this high tableland is by a good paved road leading west from U.S. Highway 163 at a point 32 miles south of Moab and 22 miles north of Monticello. About 5 miles west of the highway we pass Windwhistle Campground, nestled in an attractive cove of Entrada Sandstone cliffs, and 16 miles from the highway we reach an intersection. From here it is 7 miles west by paved road to Needles Overlook, 10 miles north to Anticline Overlook. Like the other high mesas, Hatch Point contains peripheral areas of scattered piñon and juniper trees and large flat grasslands used for grazing. Grain tanks here and there store winter feed for the cattle.
NEEDLES OVERLOOK
Let us follow the pavement to Needles Overlook, from which fine morning views of Canyonlands National Park can be seen to the south and west. Northwestward ([fig. 27]) we look 10 miles across the Colorado River canyon to Junction Butte and Grand View Point. (This view is along the line of the east half of the cross section in [fig. 10].) The feather edge of the White Rim Sandstone caps the White Rim west of the Colorado River, but the White Rim is absent on the east side of the canyon and in the entire Needles district to the southwest, where the important scenic features are carved from the underlying Cedar Mesa Sandstone Member of the Cutler Formation, referred to hereinafter simply as the Cedar Mesa Sandstone. Both these sandstones are missing in the foreground of [figure 27]—their place being taken by thin beds of red siltstone, mudstone, and sandstone similar to those that comprise the Organ Rock Tongue shown between the two sandstones in [figure 22]. These are additional examples of facies changes mentioned earlier ([p. 34]).
JUNCTION BUTTE AND GRAND VIEW POINT, looking northwest from Needles Overlook. (Fig. 27)
CANYONLANDS OVERLOOK
Turning north from the intersection 7 miles east of Needles Overlook, we traverse a nearly flat grassy tableland to Hatch Point Campground. In [figure 1] the campground is shown west of the old road; the new road is west of the campground, but no map of the new route was available for plotting in [figure 1]. About a mile before we reach the campground a jeep trail heads west then northwest about 5½ miles to Canyonlands Overlook, a scant mile from, but some 1,400 feet above, the eastern border of Canyonlands National Park. This overlook affords fine views of the Colorado River canyons and the eastern shore of Island in the Sky, but at present (1973) there are no plans to improve the trail for passenger-car travel.
Two miles north of the campground we cross a minor drainage leading northeastward into the north fork of Trough Springs Canyon. The B.L.M. plans a road down this canyon to Kane Springs Canyon, 1,100 feet below, where it will connect both with a scenic drive to Moab, the lower part of which is paved, and with the jeep trail going west over Hurrah Pass ([fig. 30]) and thence south along the eastern benches of the canyons of the Colorado River to the Needles district of the park. E. Neal Hinrichs (U.S. Geol. Survey, oral commun. Feb. 16, 1973) reported specimens of blue celestite (strontium sulfate, SrSO₄) and barite (barium sulfate, BaSO₄) in the Cutler Formation at a point where a sharp bend of this jeep trail crosses a fault, or fracture ([fig. 56]), in the northeast fork of Lockhart Canyon (shown in [fig. 1] as the easternmost loop of the trail about 6 miles northeast of Lockhart Basin). Farther south, the trail swings west of Lockhart Basin, whose center exposes part of a syncline ([fig. 28]).
