So, my wife, granddaughter and I walked into Titus Canyon from the western end just to take a second look at this feature.
I used them for scale as we got into Titus Canyon proper: this is my granddaughter Aubree:
You can tell by the color-change-level that where we are standing is not a good place to be if there is a large thunderstorm in this watershed!
As we walk up looking for this feature, several other erosional features are interesting, like this shallow cave from the more usual low water level floods rampaging through here:
It is shortly after this cave that we come to the feature of interest, in fact it adjoins it:
That's good, of course, but let's take a closer look at its structure (these are not clasts that have rolled around in any turbulent flows!):
It seems to continue on the other side of the canyon, just not as well defined and the sun makes the colors different (in the photos as well as in terms of the weathering of the minerals):
Like any cave system, there seems to have been some complexity in this one too, hence a neighboring, similar feature just above that water-incised shallow cave:
Even beyond that shallow cavelet there is another branch of this collapsed cave system (which is more and more what it looks like to me):
Here is another look at the main feature and its secondary offspring, taken in shade to allow color contrasts to be maximized:
Backing away to put it into a larger scale setting only allows the less colorful opposite side of the feature to be seen:
IN fact, the more you look around the more of this type of feayure you see:
And if you trun the wrong way, you get the sun in your face and lens:
That is enough, I was skeptical at one point, now I believe the collapsed cave explanation to be the almost obvious one. Spending much time in narrow canyons does tend to push one to a conclusion that then lets one happily go and enjoy the sand dunes of Death Valley (see next page if you are interested).
Go see the Death Valley sand dunes
Go back to start of this mystery: discussion
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