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When we last left off Lance and I were driving south on I-15 (which follows an old Indian trail) from Provo on our way to Leeds, Utah. Most people have never heard of this small agricultural community. Roughly 15 miles north of St. George, Leeds is barely a dot on the map. We picked it to be our home base for two weeks because the little dot of a town is close to both the Zion Canyon and the Kolob Canyons sections of Zion National Park. Nearby are several other places of interest: Silver Reef ghost town to the northwest, Red Cliffs Recreation Area to the southwest, Quail Creek Lake State Park to the southeast, and in town are the remains of the Leeds CCC camp—lots to explore but more about those places next time.

Leeds is in the southwestern corner of the state where several ecosystems collide; the Mojave Desert reigns in the lower elevations, the Colorado Plateau dominates the higher elevations while the Great Basin covers the middle ground. Leeds is squarely in the first category but, as with most desert towns, it is located along a waterway, Leeds Creek. The small river provides enough water to turn the town into a veritable oasis in the desert.

The beginning of our week was warm—in the 90s; thankfully our RV was parked under a big shady tree so we stayed comfortable. By Friday night, though, the bottom dropped out—it was cold, windy, and rainy. Saturday morning dawned the same, in fact it was so chilly that all four of us (Lance, Bailey, Rookie, and I¹) stayed in bed much later than usual. Finally Lance and I braved the cold, packed rain jackets, and hit the road. Since part of the day had already washed away we decided to explore the smaller and closer Kolob Canyons section of Zion and save the main canyon for the next day (plus we hoped the weather would improve).

This entire southwestern area of Utah was once home to the northernmost population of Ancestral Puebloans called the Virgin Anasazi. By 1300 the Virgin Anasazi settlements had been abandoned, a common but still as yet unexplained phenomenon shared by all Ancestral Puebloan villages. Within a hundred years or so several Southern Paiute groups moved into the recently vacated territory. In 1776, while colonists on the eastern edge of America were declaring their independence, the Paiutes encountered their first Europeans.

Earlier in that year the small Dominguez-Escalante Expedition left Santa Fe, New Mexico in an attempt to find an overland route to California. Though ultimately the Spanish explorers failed in their mission to connect the distant sections of New Spain, they were the first non-dark-skinned people in southern Utah. Their brief stay in Utah and their interactions with the local tribes were well-documented by Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante in his journal. It is known that the expedition passed near the entrance of Kolob Canyons and they are responsible for naming the Virgin River, but exploration of the area’s vast, intertwining, deep canyons was left to later adventurers.

In the 1850s Mormon settlers were establishing communities to the north and south of the recently founded Great Salt Lake City. By 1851 small Mormon settlements sprung up near the entrance to the Kolob Canyons. There they farmed, raised livestock, prospected for minerals, and harvested timber from the forests in the higher elevations. The name Kolob comes from the Book of Abraham in Mormon scripture and refers to the “star closest to heaven.”

Our afternoon of exploring the Kolob Canyons section of Zion started with a brief stop at the Visitor Center. The tiny building was our first clue that this part of Zion received relatively few visitors compared to the rest of the park. Zion National Park, Utah’s first national park, grew out of President Taft’s designation of Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909. In 1918, in response to the unpopularity of the name the Park Service changed the monument’s name to Zion—a Hebrew word meaning place of refuge. In 1919 Congress elevated the monument to park status and increased the park’s size. In 1937 the Kolob Canyons section was first protected as Zion National Monument and in 1956 the two Zions were joined as one.

Our cool and wet Saturday at Kolob Canyons was definitely a peaceful time in a place of refuge. We were only a few minutes off I-15 yet we shared the five mile scenic drive into Kolob Canyons with very few others. The dramatic red-walled canyon lies at the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, a region of exposed rock layers uplifted by the expansion of the continent.

The nine rock layers exposed in the canyons of Zion National Park formed in diverse environmental conditions. The oldest layer, the 240-million-year-old Kaibab Limestone, was laid down at the bottom of a warm sea. The next layer, the Moenkopi Formation, contains fossil evidence of the retreat of that shallow sea. The shales of the Chinle Formation document a time of change as streams meandered across the region eroding previous rock layers and preserving wood fragments. The Moenave and later Kayenta Formations contain sandstones that point to a drier environment. The thickest and most visible layer in the area is the Navajo Sandstone created during a very dry and windy Sahara-like climate. The Temple Cap Formation is also a sandstone but differs remarkably from the red-hued Navajo Sandstone as it is white. In another dramatic climate shift the Carmel Formation was laid down at the bottom of yet another shallow sea. In the last layer, the Dakota Formation, the sea is again absent and wandering streams have returned.

All of these layers, along with younger and older ones in the region, were pushed up roughly 10,000 feet over the last 13 million years or so. That uplift created steep drainages which increased the erosional power of the area’s rivers which in turn created the magnificent canyons the Colorado Plateau is famous for.

The drive into the Kolob Canyons section took us up from the valley floor to the top of one of the many mesas in the area. Though the weather was not cooperating, at roughly 7,000’ we were afforded an expansive view across the top of nearby mesas and plateaus. For those of you who may not know—plateaus are large, flat-topped and steep-sided, while mesas are smaller, and buttes are the erosional remnants of former mesas. That might still be confusing so here’s more help, the top of a mesa is wider than it is tall while the opposite is true for buttes. In a nice mix of languages, the largest and smallest of these landforms are both French words while the middle one is a modified Spanish term (from meseta).

Though we did not see it for ourselves the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park is home to what some say is the largest natural arch in the world. The Park considers the span of Kolob Arch to be 310’ which would make it the world’s longest freestanding arch but in 2006 the Natural Arch and Bridge Society (which I did not even know existed) measured the arch at 287’ and declared it to be the second longest natural arch in the world. There always seems to be some controversy about these things. The honors for the longest go to nearby Landscape Arch in Arches National Park. Interestingly, nine of the ten longest arches in the world are located in the Colorado Plateau. As we rock geeks like to say, “Geology rocks!”

After leaving the serenity of the Kolob area we took a peek at the map and decided we could squeeze in nearby Cedar Breaks National Monument. Our new adventure took us up through a beautiful wooded canyon and as we climbed we drove into the clouds. Soon the road was no longer wet—it was white! Our visibility was greatly reduced as the snow continued to fall. The snow covered the road signs making them illegible (like my handwriting). When we finally reached our turnoff to the Monument we discovered that the road hadn’t been plowed, and there ended our journey to visit Cedar Breaks. But when life hands us snow, we make snowballs! As we descended from the plateau, rays of sun broke through the clouds and warmed up our cold fingers. It looked like the storm was blowing over and we were hopeful that we would have good weather for our trip to Zion Canyon the next day.

Luck was with us—Sunday dawned warm and sunny—yippee! It was less than an hour drive from Leeds to the entrance of Zion Canyon and the road wound through red cliffs and fertile valleys dotted with small farming communities. In the town of Springdale, just outside the entrance of Zion we parked in one of the public lots and walked across the bridge to the Visitor Center to catch the propane-powered canyon shuttle.

The main focus of Zion National Park is the 15 mile long and half mile deep Zion Canyon. Like Kolob Canyons to the north Zion was formed by the erosional power of water. It is amazing to think that the canyon was carved by the Virgin River (which on our visit was seemingly innocuous). The river had the benefit of time (close to ten million years) and soft material to work with (the easily eroded Kayenta Formation underlies the harder Navajo Sandstone). The canyon is made even more spectacular by the vibrant colors of the rocks. The reddish Navajo Sandstone dominates the scene—before it was covered and cemented into stone by a shallow sea the sand dunes were over 3,000’ tall! Absolutely mind boggling! Now the formation reigns as the highest sandstone cliffs in the world.

As the shuttle took us farther up the canyon the walls closed in on us, blocking out all but a thin blue ribbon of sky. Our plan for the day was to tackle the aptly named “Narrows“—a stretch of Zion Canyon beyond the Temple of Sinawava where the Virgin River is constricted between tall walls of rock. The vertical relief of the canyon meant that if we wanted to venture further we would have to get wet. The water was cool (but not cold) and a murky chocolate milk-brown which made finding our footing a bit of a trick. We took our time and carefully watched the choices of those who went before us, some we followed and some we did not.

As we splashed our way through twists and turns the crowd thinned. Soon we had that stretch of canyon all to ourselves. When we found a large broken-off slab of sandstone bathed in sunlight in the gorge we made it our lunch spot. As we admired the steep-sided canyon around us we were acutely aware that in case of a flash flood we didn’t stand much of a chance. Without ropes the only way out of the canyon was the way we had come in. A rather disheartening thought but we knew the storm of yesterday was long gone and with it the threat of flood.

By the time we caught the shuttle back, the Narrows had been cut off from sunlight for the rest of the day. As we headed out and the canyon widened—sunshine rushed in to greet us, warming our damp feet. There was still enough daylight left for us to explore a couple more spots before leaving the Park. It was a wonderful weekend in Zion, a place that certainly lives up to its name!

Photos: View our photographs from Zion National Park.

Dates: We visted Zion National Park on 10/04/08 and 10/05/08.

¹ Bailey and Rookie: our furry feline friends. ↩