One of the most recognized landmarks in Zion National Park, Court of the Patriarchs reach into the Utah sky. These three photogenic peaks bear the biblical names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Towering above Birch Creek Canyon almost 2000 feet, the Court of the Patriarchs represents nearly a full layer of Navajo Sandstone. This exposed sandstone is one of nine Zion rock layers that together span 150 million years of sediment deposits. The Patriarch cliffs represent one of the thickest layers of sediment, making up some of the tallest cliffs in the world. Occasional flash floods in the Virgin River increase water volume by 100 times and bring down tons of loose rock and sand, scouring out new side canyons and re-channeling the river. Here in Zion Canyon this magnificent scenery is always experiencing change, but its subtleties are seldom recognized in such an immense canyon.
Starting at Zion National Park's Temple of Sinawava, the Riverside Walk is a wonderful little hike on a fairly level paved trail that affords great views of the Virgin River and wonderfully lush hanging gardens and trees surrounded by tall weeping walls. Cottonwood trees cover the majority of the path throughout the day, creating a comfortable shade that is complimented by the crisp waters of the North Fork of the Virgin River. There are hanging gardens along the sloped walls of the trail, fed by trickling falls of water, home to many of Zion's exotic forms of wildlife.
On the remote Paria Plateau in Arizona's Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, White Pocket is a group of swirling, multicolored formations of Navajo sandstone, including domes, hoodoos, gullies and potholes. Arriving at White Pocket inside Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, you are initially struck by the contrast of white rock in smoothly rounded mounds and cliff edges, dotted with two imperial looking spherical beehives rock cones
