Notch Peak One of the hidden gems of the American West is Notch Peak, in the House Range of west-central Utah. It is the second tallest pure-vertical drop in the United States, runner up to El Capitan in Yosemite. But the cliff itself is not the only attraction here. Bristlecone Pines line the top of the mountains while wild horses run through the valley below. The Paleozoic sediments, a series of limestones, dolostones, and mudstones that make up the majority of the mountain hold some of the best trilobite fossils in the world; there are even commercial trilobite quarries located on the eastern side of the range. These rocks were deposited in shallow seas that covered the western US at the time. There is also some great contact metamorphism from a pink Quartz Monzonite (a relative of granite) that intruded the sequence in the Mesozoic. In contact metamorphism hot magma literally bakes the rocks they come into contact with, changing them into a metamorphic rock. Luckily, the metamorphism spared the trilobites! Mr. A Image Credit: Matt Affolter
