Sinks Canyon State Park is a Wyoming state park

State park

State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the federated state level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, or recreational...

 located in the Wind River Mountains, 6 miles southwest of Lander, Wyoming

Lander, Wyoming

Lander is a city in, and the county seat of, Fremont County, Wyoming, United States. Named for transcontinental explorer Frederick W. Lander, Lander is located in central Wyoming, along the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River. A tourism center with several dude ranches nearby, Lander is located just...

 on Wyoming Highway 131. The park is named for a portion of the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River. The river flows into an underground limestone cavern at the Sinks, and emerges 1/4 mile down the canyon in a pool named the Rise.

A visitor's center is located at the Sinks, and an observation deck overlooks the Rise.

The exact route of the underground passage is unknown, and dye tests have shown that the water takes over 2 hours to make the 1/4 mile journey between the Sinks and the Rise. Additionally, more water flows from the Rise than enters the cavern at the sink. The Madison Limestone Formation was carved by glacial movement, leaving extensive underground fissures and steep cliff walls. The gradual recession of the ice left glacial moraine

Moraine

A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...

s along the canyon floor.

The Crow Indian name of the river, "Popo Agie," may relate to the gurgling sound of the water as it disappears into the ground http://wyoparks.state.wy.us/Parks/SinksCanyon/SinksCanyon.pdf.

External links

• Official site, Wyoming State Parks
• Site brochure