Zion National Park   - http://www.nps.gov/zion

Zion is an ancient Hebrew word meaning a place of refuge or sanctuary. Within the park's 229 square miles is a dramatic landscape of sculptured canyons and soaring cliffs. Zion is located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert. The rock layers have been uplifted, tilted, and eroded, forming the Grand Staircase, a series of colorful cliffs stretching between Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon. The bottom layer of rock at Bryce Canyon is the top layer at Zion, and the bottom layer at Zion is the top layer at the Grand Canyon.

This area of SW Utah was a relatively flat basin near sea level 240 million years ago. As sands, gravels, and muds eroded from surrounding mountains, streams carried these materials into the basin and deposited them in layers. The sheer weight of these accumulated layers caused the basin to sink, so that the top surface always remained near sea level. Then the land rose and the mud flats became deserts, and thousands of feet of sand were deposited, to be compressed into stone (sandstone).  Most of the stone making up the cliffs here is from the Triassic and Jurassic periods - the age of the Dinosaurs. Later the sea returned and capped the sandstone with limestone and gypsum. Then the great uplift began for the entire Colorado Plateau, lifting it up as a giant unit to 10,000 feet above sea level. This was not chaotic uplift, but very slow vertical hoisting of huge blocks of the crust. Zion's elevation rose from near sea level to as high as 10,000 feet above sea level. Uplift is still occurring. This uplift gave the streams greater cutting force and the erosion produced Zion, Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon. Since the uplift began, the North Fork of the Virgin River has carried away several thousand feet of rock that once lay above the highest layers visible today. The Virgin River is still excavating. With little soil to absorb the rain,  when sudden thunderstorms occur water runs downhill, gathering volume as it goes. These floods often occur without warning and can increase water flow by over 100 times. In 1998 a flash flood increased the volume of the Virgin River from 200 cubic feet per second to 4,500 cubic feet per second.

Zion was first established in 1909 as Mukuntuweap National Monument then expanded in 1919 as Zion National Park, and the Kolob section was added in 1937. It is a geologic showpiece with sandstone cliffs among the highest in the world and features one of the last mostly free-flowing river systems on the Colorado Plateau.

There is evidence of Ancestral Puebloans, known as the Anasazi, that date from about 2,000 years ago and Paiutes from about 800 years ago to present. Mormon settlers arrived in the 1860s. Park visitation in 1920 was 3,692; in 1996 it reached 2.5 million.

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Checkerboard Mesa

beginning of Valley Overlook Trail

1st of several views from the Overlook trail

view from the east rim - Great White Throne on the left & Angels Landing on the right 

6 geologic levels are visible on Mt Kinesava

Angels Landing Trail

Walter's Wiggles (21 switchbacks between Refrigerator Canyon & Scout Lookout)

the last 1/2 mile has some chains & steps to assist the hiker

view of one difficult section of the trail--down & then up

I hiked this same trail in 1970 & repeated it on my birthday in 2002

looking at the Great White Throne from Angels Landing

looking down from Angels Landings

looking at Angels Landing from the valley floor

Angels Landing reflected in the Virgin River

Dennis, Shawn, Ana, & Carolee at the beginning of the Narrows Trail which goes up the Virgin River between the canyon walls

me standing in the arch on the Hidden Canyon Trail

Angels Landing viewed from the other side

The 3 Patriarchs--Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob

 Red Canyon  -   Bryce Canyon  -  North Rim of the Grand Canyon 

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