We hike over a mixture of slickrock, loose rock and sandy washes. We travel 3.5 miles, then join the Chesler Park Trail. Here and there we see black Cryptobiotic crust, the desert's topsoil, which resembles a lunar landscape. Upon entrance, visitors are told that this crust is really a community of organisms such as lichen, algae, and fungi and that it takes hundreds of years for the fragile desert vegetation to grow back if it's stepped on. We pass under rock walls, which provide short shady respites from the sun, and notice the desert varnish, or dark stains on the surface of walls caused by water drawing out iron and manganese from the rocks.
Little lizards scatter everywhere.
Juniper trees reach out their dry branches. They look as though they bubbled out of the ground. Layers of sandstone, limestone and paradox make up the Needles, but it's the easily eroded paradox layer which causes the whole area to tilt into the Colorado River. A sign tells us we have 4.2 miles to go. We scramble up a moderately exposed and steep rocky section and emerge into the scenic expanse of Chesler Park.