The Scenic Drive climbs to a low rise at a paved pullout that splits the drainage between Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge. Water on this bare rock runs off fast, and what stays behind collects in stone pockets that hold surprisingly busy communities of tiny animals, which is why the pools are off limits.
You're climbing to a line you can't see. Up ahead, at a numbered pullout with slabs of ripple rock on your right, in less than half a mile, this low rise tops out, and that's a divide. Rain that lands short of it runs back to Grand Wash, rain that lands past it runs on to Capitol Gorge, and the bare rock takes almost none of it in. What the rock can't shed, it holds. Pockets of rainwater sit in the stone across the Fold, and a single one can hold an entire ecosystem, fairy shrimp and water boatmen, beetles, snails, even tardigrades. Fairy shrimp lay eggs that can survive several years of drought, waiting for rain. So if you meet a pocket on a trail, just look. Keep out. Sunscreen and bug spray can poison these little worlds, and getting in is against the rules. Leave the water to the shrimp.
Photo: NPS · Public domain (U.S. Government work)