Cappadociais Turkey'smost visually striking region, especially the "moonscape" area around the towns of Ürgüp,Göreme,(to name a few), where erosion has formed caves, fairy chimneys, and sensuous folds in the soft volcanic rock.
Cappadocia contains several underground cities, largely used by early Christians as hiding places before Christianity became an accepted religion. The underground cities have vast defence networks of traps throughout their many levels.
Today the area is a popular tourist destination, as it has many areas with unique geological, historic, and cultural features. The best historic mansions and cave houses for tourist stays are in Urgup, Goreme. The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms. The lunar-like setting has become popular for hot-air ballooning.
Surprisingly tourists are assured of world class amenities offered by some hotel caves. Now that would be a good experience - living in a cave (albeit the inconvenience of one). Instead we can enjoy modern day marvels together with ancient ones. Quite unbelievable!
Hello! After a long hiatus, I'm back and once again ready to tackle topics about living the life that perhaps we longed for, dreamed about, or maybe are lucky enough to live it...
Here are some extraordinary hike trails featured by NatGeo for the thrill seekers. Most of them need some kind of expertise, but if you've got the heart for it - then go for it!
Highlining at Cathedral Peak, Yosemite, California
Virgin Rivers, Zion Narrows, Utah
Trek Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, Alaska
Third Part in a series on astounding geological rock formations from around the world. The geologic world we see today—from rock canyons to moqui marbles—is billions of years in the making. For time incomprehensible, magma flowed and rocks took form. Minerals aggregated. Floods cut earth to shape basins and canyons, now carved artwork of dirt and crumbling stone. Surprisingly the scenes of the rock formations look like they belong to some other planet ...
Bisti Badlands, New Mexico
A remote no-man's land administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the Bisti Badlands in central New Mexico cover about 4,000 acres of high desert. In this expanse there are hoodoos, swirled clay hills, layered stone, coal, silt, mud, shale, and other "phantasmagoric formations of earth and stone," as one guidebook puts it. Looks like Mars to me...
Nambung National Park, Australia
Nambung's famous pinnacles are eerie limestone formations built over eons from shells and other accumulated sediment of an ancient sea. Once buried in deep sand, the pinnacles now stand exposed after wind has blown the desert away grain by grain to reveal the nature sculpture art.
Atacama Desert, Chile
Among the driest places on the planet, the Atacama Desert is a plateau on South America's Pacific coast stocked with endless weird formations in salt flats, basins, planes of sand and lava flows.
Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland
Tens of thousands of interlocking basalt columns form ocean-side displays unique enough to garner World Heritage Site status by the United Nations. The site's hexagonal posts, formed from solidified lava, represent stair steps tumbling into the foamy sea.
Devil's Marbles, Australia
Immense egg-shape boulders called Karlu Karlu sit exposed in desert air at the Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia. A complex geologic origin involves granite spheres formed by magma then later lifting to become exposed as the crust moved and sandstone eroded away.
Etretat, Seine-Maritime, Normandy, France
Etretat's chalk cliffs, famous for their natural arches and gleaming prominence above the Atlantic waves.
Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick
Tidal erosion in the Bay of Fundy has cut these lopsided rock fins, sometimes called the Flowerpot Rocks. Sedimentary conglomerate and sandstone are no match to the ocean's persistency, which submerges the base of these formations twice a day.
Perce Rock, Canada
Quebec's iconic Perce Rock, included among the "Seven Wonders of Canada" by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence that boasts a gigantic natural rock arch. Visitors can kayak around the limestone formation, which is more than 1,000-feet-long and almost 300-feet-tall, or walk to the rock on a spit of land that emerges in low tide.
Wave Rock, Australia
This outcrop in Western Australia curls like a wave that's about to crash. It is actually a 50-foot-tall formation of granite that eroded underground before becoming exposed to air and weathering smooth. It's one of several similar "wave rocks" near the town of Hyden. Really awesome! Like giant waves frozen in time...
There are works of arts that are so stunning, that you literally hold your breath and stare awe-struck in disbelief! There are multi-colored rock formations that are carved by nature, over million of years in bare lands that tumbles out of view like an art gallery designed by no less than the gods that spread across not only in Utah but across Arizona and some in California as well!
Slot Canyon, Arizona
Formed by water and polished smooth from innumerable flash floods, slot canyons cut vertically into stone to create deep natural chambers—some just shoulder-width across but 100-feet-deep. Sunlight trickles in and bounces on sandstone walls, light revealing red and tan rock that can glow like it's illuminated from within.
Garrapata Beach on the Big Sur, California
Coastal headlands crash into the sea at Garrapata Beach, a state park off U.S. Highway 1 near the town of Carmel, California. Waves break on rocks often obscured by fog, with dense redwood groves standing above like sentinels on the watch giving it an eerie atmosphere.
Monument Valley, Arizona
Improbable stacks of stone define the buttes of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, a Navajo Nation preserve administered like a National Park. Meandering rivers long ago exposed the park's tall stone, washing sand and sediment away to unveil formations that resemble palaces on Mars.
Mono Lake, California
Calcium carbonate deposits called tufas sprout in and around Mono Lake, an alkaline body of water that's thought to be one of the oldest lakes in North America. Fault lines at the base of the nearby Sierra Nevada mountain range keep the Mono Lake area geologically and geothermically active to this day.
Devils Tower, Wyoming
Devils Tower is a 1,000-foot-high monolith of columnar basalt. The flat-top formation is cylindrical and fluted, with basalt columns and thousands of cracks marking up a 360-degree vertical face.
There are works of arts that are so stunning, that you literally hold your breath and stare awe-struck in disbelief! In Utah there are multi-colored rock formations that are carved by nature, over million of years in bare lands that tumbles out of view like an art gallery designed by no less than the gods!
Glen Canyon, Utah
Cliffs carved over millions of years by the rushing Colorado River define Glen Canyon, now part of the reservoir of Lake Powell. Sandstone cliffs tower over placid water, where boating, fishing, kayaking, scuba diving and swimming are touted activities by the National Park Service, which administers Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
Bryce Canyon, Utah
In Southwestern Utah this immense high-altitude amphitheater of eroding stone has water- and wind-sculpted hoodoos and undulating red, orange and white rock pinnacles poking into the sky. Some spires are 200 feet high and at an altitude near 9,000 feet.
Arches National Park, Utah
More than 2,000 natural arches dot Arches National Park in east-central Utah. Fins of sandstone eroded for eons by water and wind eventually formed into these great hoops of stone, including Delicate Arch (pictured), a 50-foot formation that is a symbol for the state of Utah.
Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah
In this park's 1.9 million acres, hikers and rock hounds can find slot canyons, river valleys, hundred-story cliffs and natural sandstone arches. Iron oxide concretions called Moqui marbles which are pea- to softball-size natural rock spheres—sit in the sun by the tens of thousands deep in the monument's back country.
Zion Park, Utah
Skyscraping rock walls, sandstone domes and narrow canyons make Zion National Park one of the country's most dramatic natural preserves. Deep red Navajo Sandstone and a stone-sawing section of the North Fork of the Virgin River define the park, which attracts hikers, climbers.
