Zion - Hidden Canyon

There is nothing quite like your first visit to Zion National Park.  Photos don’t adequately prepare you for the spectacle before you as you enter Zion Canyon, towering walls of red and orange and white sandstone, rows of improbably high peaks surrounding a river that seems far too small to account for the scale of the geologic formations it has created.

I once again find myself clearly reminded that in the greater scheme of things, I am… heck, all of human history is, but a tiny speck of insignificance.   Humbling, but true.

As fantastic as it is to see today, I find myself often thinking about the first settlers who came here and stumbled onto this incredible scene.  Without cameras, they had only their words and a few paintings to try to explain what they had found to the outside world.  Most of the people who read these words and saw these paintings thought they were exaggerating.  They weren’t.  There was no reason to.

For our first hike, we figured we’d take it easy.  Four miles roundtrip.  Up a few switchbacks, across a ledge carved into the side of a cliff (acrophobes beware), and into a small canyon which has a small natural arch.  It is called Hidden Canyon, because it was only found by accident one day decades ago while a small group was trying to rescue one particularly rambunctious visitor who decided to be the first to climb to the top of one of the nearby peaks.  He made, it, lit a fire to at the top to prove it to the people waiting below, and then turned around and fell headlog down the first cliff he came across.

Here is what we really find funny.  If this canyon existed in North Carolina (or anywhere on the east coast for that matter) it would attract hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.  Billboards would line the interstates for miles in each direction “Don’t miss Hidden Canyon!”.  Gift shops would line the road up to it selling Hidden Canyon t-shirts and Hidden Canyon mugs.  North Carolina licence plates would read “The Hidden Canyon State”.  In Zion however, it is but a short side trail, a footnote – and not even a very popular one.

Admittedly the small natural arch it hides is nowhere near the same caliber as the awe inspiring spans of rock that we had just seen in Arches National Park.  And looking back on it now, the canyon itself is nowhere near the magnitude of the Zion Narrows.  That said, it was still a pretty darn cool experience, and an excellent introduction to the park.

The cliffs were astonishingly high and the canyon inconceivably narrow.  The arch?  It is thousands of pounds of rock suspended in mid air.  What more do I need to say?

It was hot, silly hot, and so when we finished our hike, Stephanie, as she often likes to do, decided to go sit in the middle of the nearest river.  I'm glad she did because it gave us the photo below, which (if I do say so myself) may just be one of the best I've ever taken.

"the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." ~ Numbers 6:25-26

Up next… The Narrows (Part One).