It appears that snow has fallen in hell! At least it has along “The Devil’s Highway“. Let’s take a drive down former US Route 666 to see what kind of trouble we can get into.

Beginning in the mile high state of Colorado and running south through the Sonoran desert, the demonically-named road ends in Douglas, Arizona along the Mexican border.

This highway was of course named for bearing the Number of the Beast, but a high number of vehicular fatalities attached a stigma to the road that persists, despite it having been renamed in 2003. This may have been due in part to a serious bout of “chronic sign theft“.

Theft along the Devil’s Highway you say? To be expected for sure!

There’s definitely some sort of dark magic happening on the highway, as you can see in this aerial shot south of Gallup, New Mexico, where the road has been sliced into two parts, which run alongside but never into each other¹!

While the route number and nickname draw many tourists on their own, many often stop by to see another spectacular sight, the Shiprock rock formation (Wikipedia). It’s close enough to the road that even the Street View car got a good look!

“The day it snows in hell” appears to have arrived in this shot as well, as there is clearly snow on the ground right in the middle of America’s hottest desert.

Like Route 666, the Sonoran desert stretches from the Mexican border to Colorado; covering an impressive 311,000 square km. It’s home to dozens of mammal, fish and amphibian species, hundreds of bird species, and thousands of native bee and plant species; as well as America’s only population of Jaguars!

It is also the only place in the world the famous saguaro cactus grows, despite being an international symbol for deserts.²

Route 666 and the Sonoran desert are in an area of extremes. In the day the sun scorches down on all weary travellers. At night the heat dissipates to the point that there is often snow on the ground by morning. You fall asleep sweating, you wake up freezing.

So consider yourself warned. The desert is is desolate, rugged, and rough. But come on! If you’re going to travel the Devil’s Highway, you going to face some evils, right?

Locations: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah / Categories: Deserts, Natural Landmarks, Street Views

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First up, the western shore of the lake houses something that appears to belong in a ‘Trivial Pursuit for Giants’ game. It’s actually part of a magnesium plant which at one point was the highest emitter of toxic chemicals in the US.

Just to the north-west are assorted military facilities including bunker entrances and missile storage sites.

On the eastern shore, and on the salt flats, are facilities using the natural resource from the lake – salt farms and mines. Many others can be seen around the lake.

A couple of people with sharp eyes found this plane flying over the middle of the lake.

And one reader is convinced that this is a door to the netherworld.

Let us know what else you can find around Great Salt Lake.

Thanks to Ben, Alex Cleveland, Marty, Brian, Benjamin, James Adams, Nathan S, Graham Wall, Noknok, Leandra.

Locations: Utah / Categories: Aircraft, Structures, Weirdness

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The most famous of the natural arches here is Delicate Arch, which features on Utah license plates, but unfortunately isn’t all that impressive looking from above.

Landscape Arch on the other hand is impressively big – its span is over 90 metres (300 feet)!

We can also clearly see Natural Arch – it’s the pale saddle shaped one here. I get the impression it’s more awe inspiring in real life!

The National Park features many other fascinating formations, including Balanced Rock, which is described as “a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses”. You can see the shadow of the huge rock in this thumbnail image.

Finally we come to the Fiery Furnace — an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns which (much like the biblical story from which it gets its name), is easily survivable. As long as you’re on the ranger-guided tour that is.

Also see our older posts on the Rainbow Bridge, Utah and the Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. You can read more about The Arches National Park at Wikipedia or see ground level pictures at Flickr.

Thanks to Cortney Moody, Jeff Alu, Jens Kilian, Jens Kilian, Michael Lustig, Roland Bock, woowoowoo, Jason Wolfe, Stuart and Steve Bryson.

Locations: Utah / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Theme Parks

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• Albany and Schenectady, NY
• Boise, ID
• Juneau, AK
• Kansas City, MO
• Manchester, NH
• Milwaukee, WI
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill), NC
• San Antonio, TX
• Salt Lake City, UT

And presumably just for today (because today is Valentine’s Day in case you’d forgotten), it seems the little Street View guy is standing on a little love heart.

Aww, puke.

Locations: Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin / Categories: Site News, Street Views

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In full-scale production since 1906, the pit is over 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covers 1,900 acres (7.7 km²), making it the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, and the world’s largest man-made excavation.

All along the road to the sensibly named mining town of Copperton, we can see the absolutely massive 3 million dollar dump trucks – which are among the largest trucks in the world. Used to transport the raw ore their huge size is a necessity, as by 2004 the mine had produced more than 17 million tons of copper – more copper than any other mine in the world.

See these older posts for more mining related enormity: Casa Grande Copper Mine, Siberian Diamond Mine, The Longest Conveyor Belt in the World, Bucket-Wheel Excavators, Berkeley Pit, Tetraeder Bottrop and Lavender Pit.

Thanks to Dr. Ed Data, Kristian Twombly, Kevin Byrne, John S., Steve Hulet, Zachary and RodneyG

Locations: Utah / Categories: Structures

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Spiral Jetty was built all the way back in 1970 by the late American sculptor Robert Smithson, who also created some other pieces of land art which are still visible on Google Earth, including the 1971 piece Spiral Hill, Broken Circle in Emmen, Holland.

See other spirals on GSS, and read more about Spiral Jetty at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Dan Blue and Mike Shubeck.

Locations: Netherlands, Utah / Categories: Monuments

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We thought this was such a blatant (and totally lame) rip-off of our own Face of Jesus Found in Sand Dune that we’d better up the ante!²

First in Utah, we find a terrifying looking skull face…

Then in Nevada, we’ve got a Blues Brothers style one-eyed alien…

And finally in Kenya we’ve got… the Rock Eater Biter from the NeverEnding Story!

How long before the Metro steals this story I wonder?

See our other related posts for even more Google Earth Pareidolia:

• Irish Rock Face
• Face of Santa Claus
• Native American Listening to an iPod
• The Face of Mother Earth
• The Simian Messiah
• Face of Jesus Found in Sand Dune

Thanks to Jayden Brown, Vaughn Nelson and cruzito.

Locations: Egypt, Kenya, Nevada, Utah / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Weirdness

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And it was true! While I was asleep over 2500 people Dugg what, at first glance, does look like a cruise missile over Utah. But look closer and you’ll see it’s nothing more than an aeroplane with black wings. Oh well…

Thanks: Rob Monroe, Jonathan Seidman, Trevor, Marco Olivo, Paul B (on fark.com), Zach Penland & Martyn Cox

Locations: Utah / Categories: Aircraft

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Encompassing around 32 3200 km², there’s a large area of high-resolution imagery to the east which contains various empty structures including this spooky-looking thing.

Here’s some links for you: The Dugway Official Site, some ground level photos of the area and of course the obligatory Wikipedia page!

Thanks to Phillip Lockwood-Holmes and Matthew.

Locations: Utah / Categories: Other Vehicles, Structures

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On closer inspection you can identify the boat that’s causing this swirl, and taking a wander around the area turns up another one, followed by a whole flotilla. This initially deserted-looking landscape is in fact overrun with people – none of whom would be here if several environmental organisations had their way.

Lake Powell is actually a man-made reservoir, which was created by the flooding of Glen Canyon with the Colorado River – an engineering feat accomplished and maintained by the controversial Glen Canyon Dam. Despite the obvious possibilities for damage to the area’s ecosystem, Lake Powell is arguably one of the most beautiful lakes in the whole of America, and each year over 2 million people get to see sights like the Rainbow Bridge, which would otherwise be too remote for most of them to reach.

But reducing the amount of people who make it here might not be such a bad thing of course. Quite apart from the tourist presence upsetting the local Navajo (who consider the Rainbow Bridge an important religious site), it seems that the waters of Lake Powell are further eroding the foundations of the Rainbow Bridge.

Thanks to Jen, JDP and Goomerator.

Locations: Arizona, Utah / Categories: Bridges, Natural Landmarks, Structures, Watercraft

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