tableland

That’s because it is not a single geological feature, like the arches at Arches or the bend at Big Bend, but a metaphor for a series of cliffs and plateaus that work their way upward from the Grand Canyon in Arizona to Utah’s Aquarius Plateau, the highest tableland in North America, which runs for a hundred miles along the monument’s northern edge.

In “Desert Solitaire” he denounces the mere thought of large-scale uranium mining in Utah’s howling salmon-pink tableland, and he reminds a cynical and distrustful public — both a half-century ago and today — that the mission of the Park Service, from its 1916 establishment onward, is to preserve our treasured landscapes in an “unimpaired” fashion.

Somerset County has a van service through the Community Action Partnership, known as Tableland Services Inc. But only people who qualify under various funding programs, such as those for low income, age or disabilities, may ride.

I had an absorbing encounter with him when he was already well over 100, after a seemingly endless journey to his mesa - his tableland home in Arizona.

In every direction, reddish-brown tableland sprawled to the horizon, broken here and there by pinyon-juniper forest.