Starting to grasp

the enormity of geologic time.

AND

still staying in the moment.

 And what a moment.

According to the geology book I've been reading it's not the gently flowing water that carves the canyons so much as the occasional floods which send these boulders careening down the riverbed like a flock of berserk bulldozers.

Since the big floods are rare it still takes a very long time.

And Harley had virtually no effect on the stream at all, except to enjoy it.  Some of the water molecules were excited too.

 Snail? tracks in the mud.  Have in the past seen fossils of these.

So where's your moment now Butch?

 closeup of a fallen rock, though washed in the stream

 textures

As we climbed up the canyon there were younger, and sometimes harder rocks.

I strongly suspect magma was here

 

Leaving no footprints, a water strider

 And finally, a little pocket of life, where, against the odds, subject to the whims of weather a bit of tenacious grass grows.