Walls of Fair Color

BY: Jonreed Lauritzen,Fred H. Ragsdale,J. H. McGibbeny

A rugged backbone of mountain and plateau flings its high, green forest and meadowlands down through the center of Utah. On the west it descends into a fringe of watered fields and wide desert valleys. On the east and south it falls away into a sublime wilderness of canyon and abyss which is coming to be known as the State's richest heritage. For three hundred miles north and south the mountains and valleys inhibit herds of deer and troutfilled streams and lakes. Then suddenly this all ends in a succession of terraces: Niagaras of stone thundering down to the brink of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. In a hundred and fifty mile half-circle the Pink Cliffs rim the Paunsagaunt and Markagunt Plateaus like a brilliant crown. Set in this crown are the individual gems of Table Cliffs, Bryce, Strawberry Point, West Kolob, and Cedar Breaks. On the next elevation are the White Cliffs of Boulder, the Parria, Mount Carmel, and the Zion Summits. Below this comesthe Vermilion Cliffs which form a major portion of the walls of Zion, North Fork, Kolob Canyon, Parunaweap Canyons; then spread out southward to shape the bastains of Houserock, the Glen Canyon area, Houserock Valley, and Short Creek. Next in succession the Crinoline (Moenkopi formation), the lower skirts of Zion, the Antelope Ledges; and beyond these, southward, the land swells in wide mesas-the Kaibab Plateau, the Unikaret, and Parashaunt, to the brinks of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. From that highest rim of Pink Cliffs to the bottom of the Grand Canyon the whole history of the earth's billion years is written plainly for geologists to read in the faces of the cliffs. But for us who seek a purely esthetic experience it is a magnificent tapestry woven in bright colors held together by the golden ecru threads of the Colorado River and its tributaries. Nowhere on the earth is there a wilder pattern of dramatic coloring and majesty than this

CONTINUED FROM PAGE TEN which culminates in the vast, riven depths of the Grand Canyon. Highway 89 climbs gracefully out of Houserock Valley and for some miles needles through pine forests on the summit of the long Kaibab, then begins to descend. Down from the yellow pine belt, where the juniper and pinyon-pine begin to appear, there are glimpses northward to where an apparition of glory piles up mirage-like to a high horizon. Here on the middle landing of the Stairway of a Billion Years one sees wide panoramas of ascending cliffs flash evanescent colors where Arizona and Utah are fused, their invisible boundary consumed in the shimmering terraces of the Prismatic Plains.

Unreal in the liquid desert atmosphere the colors and formations are distorted and enlarged as though seen through a magnifying crystal. The colors, too, are on an ascending scale, starting with the basic chocolate browns and creams of the Fredonia Buttes, through the warm flame of the Vermilion Cliffs, through the colder blue-white of the Mount Carmel cliffs, to the highest shrill pitch of the Pink Palisades at the rim of the Paunsagaunt. And far to the east a vivid, lonely tower on the Parria.

The highway descends and rises in a wide arc, through stretches of silver sage, to Fredonia; crosses the State line and enters Kanab. From here it darts upward, following a long canyon in the Vermilion Cliffs, by Hidden Lake and Three Lakes, comes to a summit where it passes by impressive white buttes and the pure carved beauty of the Temple of Venus. Then a sharp descent to cross the Parunaweap fork of the Rio Virgen. From Long Valley Junction the Zion Tunnel road leaps westward into the heights again and is soon within the boundaries of Zion National Park. It writhes through giant mounds and cones and pyramids of white Navajo sandstone, which are lined and seamed, stippled and checkerboarded by wind and rain. These lofty, spectral shapes are a fitting prelude to Zion Canyon. They set the mood, and the mind is tuned by them for an acceptance of a new experience in almost supernatural grandeur.

The road stabs into a black hole in the sandstone mountainZion Tunnel and when daylight is seen again it pours through two lookout windows that frame profoundly moving and dramatic scenes. Whether it is viewed at sunup when the light streams full upon it, or when the glow of the sky at sundown flows up behind the rims and spreads a veil of luminous gossamer over the Canyon, the picture here will stay in the memory like a dream of vast cataracts of iridescent color. Everywhere is stone. The Streaked Wall is an expanse of smooth stone carved sheer to a height of three thousand feet above its talus. Sentinel Peak is stone from base to seven thousand foot summit. Yet the colorsranging from mahogany, through reds and pinks and buffs to cold blue-white-are so blended and intermingled that the whole seems formless, insubstantial, streaming upward, falling downward to infinities. No impressionable mind will ever forget the sublimity of this first view of Zion. It is like the first realization of great music.

Emerging from the tunnel the road doubles back and forth and back and forth down the slopes of Pine Creek. A handsome stone bridge carries it across the Makuntuweap River to the museum where are assembled specimens of flora and fauna painstakingly gathered by rangers since the establishment of the Park, to show how filled with life are these apparently lifeless coves and heights and ravines. Here also is a large modelled panoramic replica of the Canyon and environs, and graphic descriptions and maps showing what happened here through the ages.

From the bridge the road leads northward along the canyon floor, beside the lively little river. Go slow and you will see grey shadows of the deer resting or grazing among the cottonwood and oak and birch and willows that cluster on the narrow banks and in the rincons. The anvil chirp of a squirrel rings out among the stones of the hillsides; a rockchuck scurries, or a chipmunk chips, while a mockingbird pours out its joy. If you have eyes and ears and time you will not be lonely here, for sublimity has its gentler phase. There is the smell of warm sandstone in the dry air, and the comforting trickle of water down the fern-gardened walls of coves and amphitheatres. There are grapevines smothering pine and cedar and birch with the luxury of their bright green leaves; and small meadows tinted with the yellow of dandelions and tinctured with the breath of violets and wild sweet-peas, while the cacti spread their roses in the rocks and on the canyon floor. In the summer the sacred datura lily burdens the night air with its overgenerous sweetness, and the wild gourd pours its heavy fragrance on the morning breeze; mimula gladdens the springs with its yellow flowers, and columbine, Indian paint brush, cardinal flower, sunflowers, and asters have their gala moods.

On the east wall are the Twin Brothers and the Mountain of the Sun, which catches the last glow of sunset and holds it burning when other walls and towers begin to sink into twilight at their feet. On the west are Mount Moroni (named for the angel who showed the golden plates of the Book of Mormon to the Prophet Joseph Smith). The Three Patriarchs are second in magnificence only to the Streaked Wall and Sentinel Peak. Past the Lodge and its row of restful cottages the road bends toward the Camp Grounds where people from everywhere unfold their tents and tarps, build fires of oak and cedar in the grates provided, and tell each other of their travels. But the road goes on, past the Singing Arch, the Great White Throne, Cathedral Mountain, Angel's Landing, the Great Organ into the exquisite Temple of Sinawava. Here the journey through Zion is finished if one must go on cushions and four wheels or not at all. But if the drive is adventure and one has a pack on his back and sneakers on his feet, or a horse and saddle under him, the journey is but half begun. This is the entrance to the Narrows. Beyond here one goes in intimacy with walls and rushing water all the way.The walls close in and there are places where it seems that by stretching out his arms a man might touch both sides of the canyon with his fingertips. The winding ribbon of sky far above is almost obscured by the jagged rims, and even in daylight it is so dark there is an occasional glimpse of stars. The hardy traveler may follow an abyss far enough to come out in the highest stratum of the Stairway of a Billion Years, the Pink Cliffs, north of Zion. Not many go that far.

An easier, safer, pleasanter way to enjoy the higher altitudes about Zion is to take one of the horse trails. There is one to the east rim, another to the west rim, and both offer rich rewards. They wind up the talus slopes, edge along the faces of sheer walls, thread through shaded ravines, across bridged chasms and "topout" on the high pine-clad mesas of the Kolob Terrace.

Now on every side the eye can drink of fiery stuff and the imagination runs loose, like a wild stud colt. Mountains swirl and pile up in forms so dynamically shaped that they seem to drift and toss in the wind and only a steadiness of eye can hold them to their bases. The scene below, the canyon itself, is like something dropped from paradise and left dragging on the clouds. There is no peace but the stillness that smites the ears; all else is chaos, sublime and weird and awesome. Westward along the Kolob other canyons than Zion, and almost as vast, drop away into invisible depths, and white cones and towers and pyramids and walls of glistening red rear up and beat against blue space. What is there a man can do or say that has sense and meaning here? Time and space rest the quiet burden of their crystal sea and the mind is liberated, the spirit is wholly free to soar; and no landmarks, no familiar thing in sight can anchor it nor stay its flight.

They have used these backgrounds in motion pictures, but the intensity of color, the overpowering drama of the scenes themselves have beaten to feeble insignificance the bullet-riddled stories dreamed up by mercenarists. There have been attempts at pageantry, a try at a Western Oberammergau, but anything that man has done so far to match the setting has seemed shabby, trivial before the fierce and awesome glory of The Canyons. The Indians sensed with a keener intuition than ours that mortal man has no rightful place in these solitudes; that here are abodes of nobler or more monstrous spirits than our own.

Zion was called by the Indians Mukuntuweap-straight river. It is like an arrow quiver; what goes into it must come out the same way. This has the sound of a cue.

Headed south for the exit, the road crosses the tunnel bridge. On the east the red Watchman sends a jagged pyramid skyward; on the west are the lofty Towers of the Virgin, which merge with the West Temple-from any viewpoint the most magnificent natural sculpture on earth. Beyond it, Eagle Crags ranges a sober Monks' Procession of colossal statuary on the southern horizon. Presently the road goes west, Zion is left behind, except for an PAGE TWENTY-THREE OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS FOR APRIL, 1947

The road stabs into a black hole in the sandstone mountain-Zion Tunnel and when daylight is seen again it pours through two lookout windows that frame profoundly moving and dramatic scenes. Whether it is viewed at sunup when the light streams full upon it, or when the glow of the sky at sundown flows up behind the rims and spreads a veil of luminous gossamer over the Canyon, the picture here will stay in the memory like a dream of vast cataracts of iridescent color. Everywhere is stone.

The Streaked Wall is an expanse of smooth stone carved sheer to a height of three thousand feet above its talus. Sentinel Peak is stone from base to seven thousand foot summit. Yet the colorsranging from mahogany, through reds and pinks and buffs to cold blue-white-are so blended and intermingled that the whole seems formless, insubstantial, streaming upward, falling downward to infinities. No impressionable mind will ever forget the sublimity of this first view of Zion. It is like the first realization of great music.

From the bridge the road leads northward along the canyon floor, beside the lively little river. Go slow and you will see grey shadows of the deer resting or grazing among the cottonwood and oak and birch and willows that cluster on the narrow banks and in the rincons. The anvil chirp of a squirrel rings out among the stones of the hillsides, a rockchuck scurries, or a chipmunk chips, while a mockingbird pours out its joy. If you have eyes and ears and time you will not be lonely here, for sublimity has its gentler phase. There is the smell of warm sandstone in the dry air, and the comforting trickle of water down the fern-gardened walls of coves and amphitheatres. There are grapevines smothering pine and cedar and birch with the luxury of their bright green leaves; and small meadows tinted with the yellow of dandelions and tinc-tured with the breath of violets and wild sweet-peas, while the cacti spread their roses in the rocks and on the canyon floor. In the summer the sacred datura lily burdens the night air with its overgenerous sweetness, and the wild gourd pours its heavy fragrance on the morning breeze; mimula gladdens the springs with its yellow flowers, and columbine, Indian paint brush, cardinal flower, sunflowers, and asters have their gala moods.

On the east wall are the Twin Brothers and the Mountain of the Sun, which catches the last glow of sunset and holds it burning when other walls and towers begin to sink into twilight at their feet. On the west are Mount Moroni (named for the angel who showed the golden plates of the Book of Mormon to the Prophet Joseph Smith). The Three Patriarchs are second in magnificence only to the Streaked Wall and Sentinel Peak. Past the Lodge and its row of restful cottages the road bends toward the Camp Grounds where people from everywhere unfold their tents and tarps, build fires of oak and cedar in the grates provided, and tell each other of their travels. But the road goes on, past the Singing Arch, the Great White Throne, Cathedral Mountain, An-gel's Landing, the Great Organ into the exquisite Temple of Sina-wava. Here the journey through Zion is finished if one must go on cushions and four wheels or not at all. But if the drive is adventure and one has a pack on his back and sneakers on his feet, or a horse and saddle under him, the journey is but half begun. This is the entrance to the Narrows. Beyond here one goes in intimacy with walls and rushing water all the way.

The walls close in and there are places where it seems that by stretching out his arms a man might touch both sides of the canyon with his fingertips. The winding ribbon of sky far above is almost obscured by the jagged rims, and even in daylight it is so dark there is an occasional glimpse of stars. The hardy traveler may follow an abyss far enough to come out in the highest stratum of the Stairway of a Billion Years, the Pink Cliffs, north of Zion. Not many go that far.

An easier, safer, pleasanter way to enjoy the higher altitudes about Zion is to take one of the horse trails. There is one to the east rim, another to the west rim, and both offer rich rewards. They wind up the talus slopes, edge along the faces of sheer walls, thread through shaded ravines, across bridged chasms and "top-out" on the high pine-clad mesas of the Kolob Terrace.

Zion was called by the Indians Mukuntuweap-straight river. It is like an arrow quiver; what goes into it must come out the same way. This has the sound of a cue.