The San Rafael Swell is a massive, eroded anticline seventy-five miles long and thirty miles wide, marked by sandstone reefs, buttes, pinnacles, canyons, and cliffs in a spectacular but harsh landscape. John Wesley Powell called it “a land of desolation, dedicated forever to the geologist and artist, where civilization can find no resting place.” Despite its severity, ancient Indian tribes, Mormon pioneers, cowboys, outlaws, prospectors, and miners all found a place there.