There are 64 permits available per day to get to The Wave. During peak season, 300 people compete for them. We won! …and then we realized we had an 8-year-old who had never hiked 6.5 miles in his life, a 90º & sunny weather forecast, no trail and no shade.

This episode explains the geology of The Wave: Jurassic sand dunes, 200 million years old, turned to stone but caught mid-motion. We're guided by Jaron Tylock from Dreamland Safari Tours, who spent years taking people into the desert wilderness. UCLA PhD student Alana Archbold helps explain the stripes and the Moqui Marbles. We stand on actual dinosaur footprints. And we find out why geologists fly to southern Utah to study Mars — and what it means that two worlds billions of miles apart ended up looking remarkably similar.

And we talk about what it actually feels like to be one ...