Zion -another canyon of Biblical proportion

Of Utah's five National Parks, two are studies of erosion, with the third, as previously explained, the result of a local geologic upthrust that eroded.  The fourth, actually, resulted from more of the same local kind of disturbance.  All of them were coupled with wind and weather, but at Bryce Canyon, the localized effect on the sandstone layers --producing the myriad hoodoo formations-- was uniquely formidable.

Now, at number five, we find upthrust mountains brought local rivers to bear harshly on the "soft" sandstone rock over the eons, causing even the Virgin River to penetrate thousands of feet of terrain like a pro.  We suppose you could research the average rate of descent as we forget the number, but suffice it to say: What the Colorado River did to the Grand Canyon over a longer distance and time, the Virgin River more than did to Zion Canyon in shorter distances and times.  "Like a knife through hot butter!", John's Dad would say often [although, never one to believe mere words, a much younger John tried both and found a hot knife through butter was at least as effective  --although harsher on the hands;  Dad was no dummy.]

Zion also has distinct rock formations, such as the The Three Patriarchs.  Maybe you don't see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as clearly as you see the Presidents at Rushmore, but the Methodist minister and two other unidentified (we guess Mormon) clerics [according to tour bus patter]  felt compelled to honor these Old Testament icons so. 

Somewhere back in Bryce, John blew out the arch support on his left foot and the insert we found at a pharmacy was of little comfort.  It would be Arizona before we could get a better prosthetic from Amazon, so John limped

along trying to keep up with Debbie, who wanted to go on long hikes with big elevation changes.  After years of keeping up with Boy Scouts, John hates elevation changes.

Unfortunately, Zion is not a windshield event.  It was, by far, the most popular/visited in Utah and, to deal with the massive crowding, the NPS has set up a free bus service frequently shuttling a circuit from the entranceway Visitors Center to the highest elevation at Sinawava Temple.
  {John looked at the map with its sinuous curves in that area and asked a Ranger if the name were conceived as a pun.  The Ranger didn't get it  (doesn't anybody take trig in high school anymore?), then seriously explained it was a local Native American name.  The vowels are all short...SINN-ah-wah-vah.  John thought he might have been giving the government too much credit anyway.....}

 Each shuttle stop features at least one "walk", some of which the infirm among us might regard as "hikes", and there are several back-country actual hiking (backpacking!) opportunities for those gifted with fewer caloric years bulging their belts.  Also a horse-riding event.  Halfway up is the Canyon Lodge if you want to sleep with the ambiance right outside your window.  You may drive your own car that far.

 It's all so ruggedly beautiful!  You may deduce from the greenery that it also is lower in altitude than the last few National Parks we visited.  That is, indeed, true at the lowest levels, around 3,000' feet.  But the peaks, even there, are at 7,000  and the highest in the Park is 9,000.  Yes, you can get up there --there even are rock climbing opportunities.

Because the Zion Canyon is so deeply cut, we saw many layers of the underlying rock in all their variegated glory.  Debbie says that, for us Easterners, the story that is told of Frederick Dellenbaugh's paintings helps explain the awe we feel here.   When his paintings of this area were displayed at the 1906 World's Fair, the Rangers here tell of those viewers congratulating Dellenbaugh for his vivid imagination as their experience did not allow them to believe such a thing could exist in nature.   His own words were read to us by Ranger Gretchen: "To the eye prejudiced by the soft blues and grays of a familiar Eastern United States or European district, this immense prodigality of color is startling, perhaps painful; it seems to the inflexible mind unwarranted, immodest, as if Nature had stripped and posed nude, unblushing before humanity."

Fauna posed for us, too.  Debbie found and sho-- err, photo'd this No Fear Deer browsing near a populated path.


Not many feet away, amidst some
serious forest growth reminiscent of our Michigan home, John snapped these cactus sharing grassy space.








Here's a  "hanging garden" caused by meltwater collecting inside a porous sandstone layer, then directed to seep sideways by a more impermeable layer.







And...Debbie explores.


ps:  Back at Capitol Reef, you may recall we were very impressed with Lori, the interpretive Ranger who intelligently explained rock layers and the unique monocline so that anyone could understand.  She also declared herself thrilled to be standing on the red-brown Moenkopi (MO-enn-koh-pee) layer of sandstone which is underfoot there.   Here in Zion, we saw some Moenkopi, but we saw other colors of layers, as well.  If you have a chance to attend a program session with interpretive Ranger Gretchen at Zion (who was mentioned above), don't miss it!  She's an excellent communicator and seems to know her stuff.  High marks.

ps:  back in our "Salt Lake City -2" chapter, John wondered aloud "D'you suppose that people who grow up looking out their kitchen window at this ever go on vacation to somewhere like Michigan and say, disdainfully, 'Why'd I bother?!'"  Well, Capitol Reef's Lori turned that on its ear.  She'd recently visited Michigan's UP  --"I love Lake Superior!"-- and was greatly impressed with Pictured Rocks, which drew Debbie and John to her warmly, as we'd backpacked that lakeshore trail several times and even had flown our airplane over it two summers back.   Sometimes it takes a stranger to show you the value of that which you have.

We're sort of shut of Utah at this point, but we have some days to kill yet before needing to meet Debbie's brother Ken in Palm Springs.  So, its time to backtrack to Page, Arizona, visiting Lake Powell and finding those red-rock Vermilion Cliffs with the developed BLM camping opportunity we'd learned-of earlier.   We also had another important lesson about the size of America's Southwest and its three-dimensionality.

Coming up....