Southwest Trip - Fall '18

Watchman

The Watchman is perhaps the most iconic peak in Zion National Park. During sunset, the sandstone face of the Watchman glows red-orange when the sun hits it. Zion National Park is an American national park located in Southwestern Utah near the city of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which stretches 15 miles long and spans up to half a mile deep. It cuts through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.

Watchman IV

The Watchman is perhaps the most iconic peak in Zion National Park. During sunset, the sandstone face of the Watchman glows red-orange when the sun hits it. Zion National Park is an American national park located in Southwestern Utah near the city of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which stretches 15 miles long and spans up to half a mile deep. It cuts through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.

Watchman II

The Watchman is perhaps the most iconic peak in Zion National Park. During sunset, the sandstone face of the Watchman glows red-orange when the sun hits it. Zion National Park is an American national park located in Southwestern Utah near the city of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which stretches 15 miles long and spans up to half a mile deep. It cuts through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.

Watchman III

The Watchman is perhaps the most iconic peak in Zion National Park. During sunset, the sandstone face of the Watchman glows red-orange when the sun hits it. Zion National Park is an American national park located in Southwestern Utah near the city of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which stretches 15 miles long and spans up to half a mile deep. It cuts through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.

Temple of Sinawava

The Temple of Sinawava is a hallmark of Zion National Park, with its paved trail following the Virgin River upstream through ever-narrowing canyons of sandstone to the Zion Narrows. The trail alone is lined with wildflowers during the spring and summer. As the temple comes into view, framed by hanging gardens of flowers and waterfalls., seemingly never-ending like some of the world's tallest skyscrapers. Picturesque waterfalls tumble gently into a deep pool below and extensive hanging gardens of lush green foliage and brightly colored flowers hang from varied levels and crevices.

Zion's Garden

Starting at the Temple of Sinawava, the Riverside Walk is a wonderful little hike that affords great views of the Virgin River and wonderfully lush hanging gardens and trees surrounded by tall weeping walls. There are more than 800 native plant species that are found in Zion National Park. The Virgin River offers a cooler, damp place for willow, cottonwood, box elder and ash trees. These groves of trees give provide an array of color for each season. The vibrant pastels of spring’s blossoms and budding new leaves are normally visible from mid-March until mid-May. In summer the leaves in Zion National Park darken and then in fall the park is filled with brilliant leaves of orange, gold, yellow and red.

Sandstone Directed

Many of the trees at Zion National Park in Utah have variable sizes and fantastic shapes because they grow in harsh and difficult conditions, on cliffs and bare rocks, in crevices and cracks. They grow in places that receive little water and where summer temperatures can soar daily above 100 degrees. These trees send their great roots down into joints and fissures in the rock, searching for available water and breaking the rocks into soil. High on the tops of hoodoos and out along the slick rock of the Mt. Carmel Highway, their twisted shapes resemble, perhaps, goblins and witches, giants and wizards. Often they look like Japanese bonsais, as if they have been carefully pruned and shaped and then placed for all to see and admire.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise II

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise III

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise V

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise VIII

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Springdale, UT

Located immediately outside the boundaries of Zion National Park, Springdale is a town in Washington County, Utah, United States. It was originally settled as a Mormon farming community in 1862 by evacuees from the flooding of nearby Northrop. Springdale was named one of the 20 'prettiest towns' in the United States by Forbes Traveler in 2008.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise IX

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon 2

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

White Cliffs

With over 229 square-miles, more than 35 hiking trails, cliffs towering more than 2,000 feet above the canyon floor, and more species of plants than the Hawaiian Islands, Zion National Park in Utah is a pretty incredible place. It’s an environment of magic and natural fascination that will challenge what you thought of nature’s capabilities.

Painted Desert

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise IV

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.

Coal Mine Canyon Sunrise VI

Coal Mine Canyon sits at the edge of the 120 mile wide Painted Desert, a sparsely settled region without many roads but covered by extensive areas of exposed, weathered rock. On the border between the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations in the vast desert of northeast Arizona, Coal Mine Canyon is a long way from any famous attractions. The canyon is not signposted in any way yet has become quite well known because of the amazingly colorful formations that line the upper end of the ravine. Coal Mine is one of many remote, little-visited sites in the Southwest where the main interest comes from the detail of the rock - the colors, forms and textures of the eroded sandstone.