The American West Part 2: Zion and Bryce Canyons

Zion National Park is near Springdale, Utah. A prominent feature of the park is Zion Canyon, 15 miles long and up to half a mile deep, cut through the reddish and tan-coloured Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. There are four distinct natural zones, desert, river, mixed woodland and coniferous forest, which support a range of unusual plants and animals. These zones are spread among the park’s mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches. Unfortunately it was a wet when we arrived, with low cloud and we were unable to appreciate Zion’s full glory.

Weeping Rock. The sandstone of the cliff is quite porous and the rain that fell on the plateau above slowly percolates down until it reaches the clay of the Kayenta Formation. Here it seeps out creating moist nooks filled with lush vegetation and flowers that cling to the precipitous cliffs.

The Riverside Trail follows the course of the Virgin River until it reaches a slit little more than 20 feet wide and a thousand feet deep. To travel further you need to walk in the river itself.

Some distance NE of Zion and reached by the twisting and narrow tunneled Zion-Mount Carmel Highway is Red Canyon, a shallow valley in the side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau surrounded by much exposed and sculpted orange red sandstone. The escarpment here is known as Sunset Cliffs.

About 10 miles further north is Bryce Canyon National Park. The major feature of the park which, despite its name, is not actually a canyon but a giant natural amphitheatre, has been created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive because of its hoodoos, formed by wind, water and frost weathering of ancient river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The red, orange and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views like those at Bryce Point.

We arrived here late in the day. The weather was disappointingly dull with drizzle in the air but the splendor of the Bryce Amphitheatre was easy to appreciate.

The narrow pinnacles of rock known as hoodoos march forward in rows. With imagination you can picture minarets, pagodas, skyscrapers, camels, rabbits, turtles and people. The next morning low cloud prevented further exploration of what the canyon had to offer and we were soon on our way further north.