Big Rock Candy Mountain

"I'm headin' for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains..."

Have you ever been to Big Rock Candy Mountain? You probably never thought there was such a place. Well there is! It's located in Piute County on Highway 89 and just south of the I-70. Some locals residents back in 1928, as a joke, placed a sign at the base of this colorful mountain proclaiming it "Big Rock Candy Mountain". Well the name stuck and the mountain has become one of Utah's major tourist attractions.

Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like this, but....It does look like this. This is the South-facing side of the mountain. With it's altered volcanic rock in colors of red, orange, yellow and white. And this is the North-facing side. Which happened to be the most accessible.
One of the neatest parts of the mountain was seeing up close all of the different textures of rock. Through a complex chemical process involving hydrogen sulfide, steam, ground water, and oxygen, the original volcanic rock was partially altered or totally replaced. The vivid colors that one sees at Big Rock Candy Mountain are the direct result of this mineralization.
The rocks would be pointy and jagged in one area and then a few feet away be soft and rounded.

Has anyone ever played in yellow sand? No lie, it was truly yellow sand! It wasn't as fine as something you would feel on a beach, but it was no doubt sand. It looked like lemonade powder.

A lot of the black volcanic rock is still visible and this rock structure looked to me like a monkey's face protruding from the yellow and white sandy mountain.

The kids had fun climbing up the mountain and getting a better view of the area.

We can't forget:
"The little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks" Not really, this was a little stream of spring water instead.I found some really pretty, pale yellow, shiney quartz-like chips of rock. This one was so thin that you could see the lighter pieces of quartz throughout when held up to the sun.

This was our handful of "candy" we found on the mountain.After our little hike up the mountain, we headed indoors to this place to see what was inside their souvenier shop. Only to discover it hadn't opened yet for the season.

So I took a picture of this sign posted out front instead. I thought it was so true!
"Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow

Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains..." For us, this was a great road trip. It was only a 2 hour drive North from here and it was the most scenic too.

Driving along the Sevier River didn't help matters much.

Kerry had wished he had remembered to bring his fishing gear. I have a feeling we'll be heading back to dem mountains soon so that he can have some time to fish.

"I'll see you all this coming Fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains."

THE END!