The lower Meander Canyon reach extends for 18 km the upstream end of The Loop (Bkm 40) to the confluence with the Green River (Bkm 22). The sinuosity of this reach is highly variable. Sinuosity within the tightly meandering Loop is approximately 6; in contrast, the remainder of the reach downstream from The Loop is nearly straight with an average sinuosity of 1.15. This deep symmetric canyon trends generally northeast-southwest across broadly folded, sub-horizontal strata of the lower Cutler Formation and Cedar Mesa Sandstone. The canyon is symmetric in cross-profile, 610 to 914 m wide and 245 to 274 m deep. The average gradient along this reach and throughout Meander Canyon is approximately 0.02% slope.
Vegetation cover within this reach is limited by the narrowness of the canyon, and 64% of the bottomland area covered in river channel. Of the remaining bottomland area, most is covered in xeric native shrubs (9%), tamarisk (7%), willow (4%), box elder (3%) and desert olive (2%). The Lower Meander reach, in its entirety, is federally owned and managed by the Canyonlands District of the National Park Service (NPS).
