Journey to Utah in 2013, part 4: Emerald Pools, Pa' rus Trail, Canyon Junction, Court of the Patriarchs, at Zion National Park

This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see the gallery, click here.

FIRST RIDE THROUGH THE CANYON

Zion is a haven protected by towering rock, much like Yosemite, another park located in an ancient sculpted valley. With its enormous sheltering walls of stone and lack of reliable cellphone signals, Zion is a hideout from the rest of the world. It was late April when we visited, and the haven was at its most fertile. I was surprised by its lushness. Wasn't the Colorado Plateau supposed to be high desert?

Despite a dry climate, people have farmed here in some form since 300 BC. The week of our visit, wildflowers were everywhere. The cottonwoods by the river flashed green leaves, and soft grass edged the campsites. Mornings were cold at this time of year. We could see snow on the ledges above us, evidence of some mid-spring precipitation we'd been fortunate enough to avoid. On that first morning, we bundled up in coats, gloves and hats; by midday, I would be carrying most of those layers in my backpack.

In spring, summer and fall, the 6-mile long Zion Canyon portion of the park is closed to cars, and the park operates a free shuttle system for visitors. I was thrilled about this. I wanted to be able to travel around the park alone when the mood struck me, as it surely would. That first morning, Bev and I ventured out together, both feeling the strangeness of riding in a vehicle that wasn't our little home on wheels. I took pictures through the large side windows of the shuttle while European tourists regarded me with great seriousness. They may have been perplexed, or perhaps annoyed, by the constant clicking they heard from my camera. I've gotten that same look from many people before, and I know how to ignore it. The walls of Zion Canyon were immense and amazing to behold, and every turn in the road opened a new and glorious view; my clicking was unstoppable.

We listened to a recorded tour guide voice play through the speakers until we got to Zion Lodge, where we dismounted along with a clutch of fellow travelers in search of the Emerald Pools Trail. This hike would be our first close look at the canyon's walls. After all of this gazing at distant stone cliffs, I was finally going to get close enough to touch them.

MORE GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE VIRGIN RIVER

The disembodied voice told us that the Virgin River – specifically, the North Fork – formed Zion Canyon. It's not a wide river, but it cuts a huge swath. That's because of the tilt and uplift of the Colorado Plateau, which enables the Virgin River's path to be far steeper than that of most rivers. In the park it drops 50-80 feet per mile, a drastic gradient that accounts for its ability to slice through the layers found here and at the Virgin River Gorge. Water and gravity, working together, are capable of removing astounding quantities of rock. This excavation is still happening. The Virgin River transports over a million tons of sediment every year.

How did this river come to be the creator of such a deep canyon? Zion National Park sits on a section of the Colorado Plateau known as Kolob Terrace, in between Hurricane Fault and Sevier Fault. Back in the Pliocene era, about 3 million years ago, when the block of crust under Zion began to uplift, the Hurricane Fault scarps that were exposed began to experience headward erosion. This type of erosion affects the origin of a stream channel, causing it to move away from the direction of the streamflow, lengthening the channel. The stream's gradient is increased by the erosion, which speeds up erosion even more; the steepest parts of the channel get eroded the most quickly, as the stream tries to cut a more level path. Once this kind of thing begins, it gets out of hand fast. That's how the Virgin River and its tributaries made such an enormous impact on the Kolob Terrace in a relatively short period.

By the time this process began to carve Zion Canyon, over 240 million years' worth of material had already been deposited and hardened into stone. No fewer than nine geological formations are exposed at Zion, each showing evidence of a past geological phase, most of them containing material transported to this area from somewhere else. According to the Law of Superposition, the oldest formation sits at the bottom of the stack, the youngest at the top.

Here they are, from oldest to youngest: the Kaibab Formation, the Moenkopi Formation, the Chinle Formation, the Moenave Formation, the Kayenta Formation, the Navajo Sandstone Formation, the Temple Cap Formation, the Carmel Formation, and the Dakota Sandstone Formation. Out of all of these formations, the most noticeable in Zion is the Navajo Sandstone, which makes up most of the material found in the towering cliffs of the canyon, including the rocks we encountered on our Emerald Pools hike. The Navajo Sandstone is basically the same formation as the Aztec Sandstone I'd seen earlier at Valley of Fire State Park, formed in the same environment. Like the Aztec, the Navajo shows a spectrum of vivid crimson-orange hues. The trip's red motif had become a full-blown theme. 

A SERIES OF MISLEADINGLY NAMED POOLS

There are two ways to begin the Emerald Pools hike. We chose the one that starts closest to Zion Lodge. The trail took us along the river for a bit, then started to ascend slightly around the base of the Lamb Point Tongue, one of the two major subunits of the Navajo Sandstone Formation. Our path seemed to curve in on itself here. Water plunged from a cliff above us, wetting the red rock and creating sparkles everywhere. We'd reached the Lower Emerald Pool, where the Navajo Formation sits on top of the sandstone of the Kayenta Formation. These two are often found together throughout Zion, sometimes creating walls thousands of feet high.

Bev paused near the waterfall to chat with some other hikers, giving me extra time to investigate. I dashed around looking for the best angles to use with my lenses, relishing the enchantment of this misty alcove. It was easy to see the difference between the two layers of rock. The lower Kayenta portion of the wall, obviously a less resistant material, had been scraped out underneath the upper Navajo portion. Streaks of white showed where water had washed minerals down the cliff. Plants formed hanging gardens on the walls, nourished by water seeping through joints in the rock and through the zone where the two formations met.

We followed the trail behind the waterfall and climbed upward. Soon we passed through fallen boulders of Navajo Sandstone, huge blocks that made me feel like an ant crawling in a land of giants. I was carrying a camera and three lenses, and I was starting to perspire. My hat came off, then my vest. I was down to short sleeves by the time we reached the so-called Middle Emerald Pool. This bit of water was definitely not emerald, nor was it really much of a pool. It was merely a sheet of water running over the corrugated texture of the Navajo Sandstone, a tributary of the Virgin River heading downward towards the main channel. The stream we stood in now had generated the waterfall we'd crossed earlier.

Signs warned us to stay back from the slippery shelf over the falls. I probably could have gotten closer to it than I did, taken more photos, but my fear of heights suddenly kicked in. In my mind's eye I saw myself swinging my camera and telephoto lens up to my face and being carried over the precipice by the momentum. But even from my safe spot far from the edge, I had a marvelous view of the valley below, and the colorful cliffs across the valley. I don't quite know how to convey the immensity of the solid slabs of rock that enclose Zion Canyon. I kept finding myself looking up at them and thinking, wow, that's big. 

THE END OF TWO VERY DIFFERENT TRAILS

We crossed the stream and continued upward, the trail suddenly becoming much more steep. I was lifting a heavy lens every few steps, sweating, high once again on endorphins and photography. The midday sun was bright and hot. There were no more layers of clothing I could decently remove, so I rolled up the cuffs of my pants and let my ankles breathe. Soon it would be time to stop for lunch, at which point wild horses wouldn't be able to stop me from taking off my socks.

Up ahead I could see huge walls of red-brown rock, more prime slabs of Navajo Sandstone. As our trail took us higher, we were getting excellent views of the stuff. I reached out to feel the texture of the blocks that had fallen from above. The Navajo formation is found all over the Colorado Plateau in a variety of hues. It was born on Pangea, the supercontinent, where it was laid down on the western coast as sand dunes. It may be as old as 200 million years. During its long lifetime, it has been subjected to many changes, as water and minerals have colored and shaped it. Now it's the star of the show at Zion National Park, exposed by the carving of the relentless Virgin River. The Emerald Pools Trail gave us an ideal setting for viewing the Navajo formation, because of how close we were able to get to its cliffs and fallen rocks.

Before long we reached Upper Emerald Pool, which was more of a pool than the last body of water we'd seen, but still wasn't anything I'd call emerald. The water was more of a reddish caramel color. Tucked into a sheltered cove at the end of the trail, the little pond was enclosed on three sides by walls of Navajo Sandstone hundreds of feet high. This spot was delightful to the senses. The temperature here was noticeably lower than on the sun-exposed path we'd just left. All around us were plants and flowers flourishing in the cooler environment. People, too: other hikers had stopped to eat lunch here, and kids frightened their parents by climbing the large rocks near the pool. I sat down, took off my shoes and socks, and gazed up at the waterfall spraying out of a gap in the cliff above me.

As I had just seen on the trail coming up, this stream would make its way down to the Middle Emerald Pool and hurl itself over the edge into the Lower Emerald Pool, before joining the Virgin River. Once upon a time, the stream flowed more directly to the river, but it was unable to keep up with the main river's rate of erosion of the sandstone. It formed what's known as a hanging valley: the stream channel was left hanging high above the main canyon. Forever after, its liquid would need to tumble down over cliffs and trickle through joints in the rock to reach the Virgin River. Hanging valleys are usually associated with glacier activity, not rivers, but the Virgin River carves so quickly and deeply that it has left valleys hanging all over the place.

The Virgin River tributary that falls into and out of these pools is called the Heaps Canyon stream. It flows out of Heaps Canyon, directly above Upper Emerald Pool. This enormous slot canyon is famous among people who enjoy canyoneering. The canyon hike is difficult and can take anywhere from 10 hours to two days to complete. I've read accounts of this journey. People report swimming through water-filled potholes in the dark, rappelling down slippery rock faces, walking down corridors with high stone walls and no way out but forward or backward. All of which sounds like it could trigger a nightmare combination of claustrophobia and acrophobia.

Though I feel unnerved and a little bit nauseated by the details of such adventures, I'm envious of the people who have them. Making my way through a deep crevice in the rock sounds strangely appealing. Valuable perspective shifts would certainly be the result. What if, instead of taking a relatively easy hike up to see Upper Emerald Pool, I had reached it by crawling through a canyon for a day, then rappelling down 300 feet from a ledge like the one pictured below? What kind of person would I become?

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ON THE CANYON FLOOR

From Upper Emerald Pool it was all downhill, back to the beginning of the trail and across the road to Zion Lodge. After such a sweaty camera-hauling experience, I found it enormously pleasurable to sit down and eat chocolate ice cream from the snack bar. I watched a group of kids as they played Red Rover on the huge green meadow in front of the lodge, and idly contemplated the terrain. The river meandered from side to side on a mostly horizontal plain between the high sandstone walls. Why, I wondered, was the floor of Zion Canyon so flat?

I looked into this when I got home again, and learned that although much of Zion's terrain was sculpted millions of years ago, the bottom surface of Zion Canyon reflects more recent developments. Only 7,000 years ago, an enormous landslide blocked the Virgin River. This event created a deep body of water called Sentinel Lake, which occupied the valley floor from the current Court of the Patriarchs shuttle stop to the Temple of Sinawava stop. The building where I'd just purchased my soft serve cone would have been underneath 200 feet of water, had it existed back then.

The Virgin River, as my photos so far have probably made clear, is persistent, perhaps even unstoppable. Eventually it wore through that massive dam of fallen rock. Sentinel Lake disappeared, only to be replaced by another lake several thousand years later when another landslide happened. This lake dissipated too, when the river breached the newest landslide dam. Up and down the Virgin River, lakes came and went over the years. Deposits accumulated in these lakes, making the valley floor flatter and raising it higher. Layers of sediment from these old lakes are still visible today, and the meandering path of the river here signifies how often it's had to change course to overcome obstacles.

The cycle of rockslide and lake formation has not come to an end; as recently as 1995, a landslide dammed the Virgin River again and cut off the only road out of Zion Canyon, stranding hundreds of people for several days. In response to this incident, the river's path altered once more, proving that Zion Canyon is not a finished product.

THE PA'RUS TRAIL AND A LAZY DAZE DINNER

Bev and I boarded the shuttle again, leaving Zion Lodge and games of Red Rover behind. Feeling restored by ice cream, we decided to get off one stop early and take the Pa'rus Trail back to our campground. This might be the easiest walk in the park. It's a flat, visually luxuriant path through grasses and wildflowers, with stunning views of the walls of Zion Canyon. It runs next to the Virgin River for almost 2 miles, and ends next to South Campground, our temporary home that week. We perambulated slowly in the hot afternoon light, discussing the flowers we saw and what we would make for dinner. Plateau lizards were everywhere, alert to our footsteps yet barely moving when we approached, making sly eye contact with me through the lens.

The Pa'rus Trail is said to be the perfect place to encounter Zion's wildlife at twilight, when all kinds of animals come to the river to drink. Knowing this, I was now determined to visit the river again after sunset, to see something more than lizards. There's great variety among the fauna in Zion: almost 300 species of birds, 78 species of mammals, lots of amphibians and reptiles and fish. This diversity is due to the wide range in elevation within its vastness, plus its close proximity to several other geographical regions. I didn't expect to see most of those creatures, but I hoped to catch sight of a few more birds. The idea of the river after sunset was a lure that grew ever more enticing to me as we reached the end of the trail.

Back in the Lazy Daze, we cooked dinner and ate it while we enjoyed our favorite form of RV entertainment: watching campground life through the big tinted rear window. Though I can't be sure, I think we ate the last of the mung bean burgers I'd made before the trip. These had proved surprisingly tasty. But they were more filling than I'd expected, and we had found ourselves eating them for much longer than was ideal. Like the Virgin River, those burgers were persistent. I was glad to see the end of them. For the next week, I kept expecting to find another one hiding in the freezer.

After dinner and dishes, Bev settled in with a paperback, but I couldn't sit still. The sun was still above the horizon, and I was filled with the desire to be outside in this majestic place during the golden hour. In this park I could get around without the use of my own vehicle. It was an opportunity not to be missed. I re-packed my camera bag and left the campground, and soon I was taking pictures through the back window of a moving shuttle.

Alone at last, after days spent with others, my consciousness began to loosen its restraints. The sun had already gone behind the cliffs by the time I got back to Canyon Junction, but that was okay with me. This bus would run until well after dark. I had plenty of time.

ALONE WITH TURKEYS AND PATRIARCHS

It was one of those evenings I'll always remember, one of those rare escapes from the familiar world. I felt like I'd fallen out of the normal flow of words and time. Everything about this magic hour was flawless: the mild temperature of the air, the gentle trickling sound of the river, the alpenglow as the sun sank further behind the mountains. I hopped off first at Canyon Junction, where I scrambled down to the riverbank and photographed water and stones in the fading light. I saw no other humans, just the occasional article of clothing they'd left behind. The high walls of the canyon seemed to diffuse the remains of the sunlight across the river. I was spellbound by the softness of these colors.

At the water's edge, I surprised a flock of turkeys out browsing for dinner. These birds roost in the cottonwood trees that grow by the river, and now I was in their backyard. I crept along behind them for a while, pretending to be part of their group, amused as always by their way of walking. They fluttered and giggled a bit when I got too close, but mostly they ignored me. Soon I left their property and moved on. I wanted to see more of the river before it got dark.

Another shuttle ride took me to the Court of the Patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, referred to collectively as the Patriarchs, are three gigantic sandstone cliffs sitting next to each other. Nearby is Mount Moroni, another monolith named after an important Mormon figure. These peaks were immense in the gathering dusk. It was impossible to get a sense of their scale.

The Patriarchs got their name from a Methodist minister who visited Zion in 1916. His tour was conducted by the son of a LDS bishop, and together they bestowed many of the place names still used here today. Most of these names came from Mormon theology, but some came from Paiute theology; the Temple of Sinawava, for example, refers to Sinawava, the Coyote God, the Trickster. Of course, none of these are the original names for these places. Humans traveled through here and lived here thousands of years before the Mormons ever set eyes on these rocks, but their names for these places are lost forever.

Seeing the Patriarchs vast and looming above the valley in the twilight, I understood why a religious person would choose to name them after the most prominent figures in the scriptures. They looked as if they would stand above the river forever, unshakeable and indestructible. But even monuments are subject to change. Right next to the Patriarchs is The Sentinel. This peak lost a huge piece of rock in one of the major river-blocking landslides I mentioned earlier. If it happened to The Sentinel, it will happen someday to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Angel Moroni.

Further down the canyon, at a shuttle stop called Big Bend, the walls were steep and close to the river. It was almost dark by the time I got there. While stepping carefully down the hill to reach the water's edge, I was hit by a wave of tiredness. I'd been carrying a heavy backpack all day, taking pictures every few minutes, and I was weary. I wanted to follow the trail, explore this charming meadowland, but all of a sudden I could barely walk.

It's a wonderful languid feeling, this kind of well-earned fatigue. My legs were weak, my eyes unfocused. I stared, dazed, at the leaves of the trees and the walls of the cliffs. Nothing moved. I stood rooted to one spot, feeling complete stillness, perfect solitude. I wish I could sleep here, I thought. Right under those trees. My sleepiness was overwhelming, as if I were under a spell.

The Paiute people who lived in this area when the Mormon settlers arrived in the 1860s believed that Zion Canyon was a mysterious place. They didn't like to visit it after dark, because of the powerful spirits who entered it then. I don't have access to the Paiute worldview and language, but I can understand a little of what they must have felt about this section of the Virgin River. It definitely feels strange to be there as darkness approaches. Half of me wanted to get back up the hill to the shuttle stop, to make sure I didn't miss the last one going to my campground. The other half of me wanted to hang around at the bend in the river all night, to see what would happen.

To see lots more photos of Zion National Park, click here.