The geological highlights of the area are mind- boggling and on the ³must see² list of many foreign travelers. As a matter of fact, on a past trip I joined a group of European journalists including the brother of the former British Prime Minister John Major on a tour of the region. They were amazed at this expanse of national and state parks, canyons, mountains, monuments, waterways and forest-lands that demonstrated nature¹s talent for building incomparable edifices in territories that existed in isolation from human contact for millions of years.
It was Brigham Young, whose credo was ³I am hunting for the most forbidding place on earth that nobody else wants² who led his tenacious and controversial Mormons into this terrain 160 years ago. Now there are byways leading into the erstwhile wilderness and inviting international travelers, whether they come as hikers, bikers, or horsemen, or in cars, motor-coaches, boats or aircraft. Western and adventure films immortalized the locale with the award-winning ³Indiana Jones² and ³Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid² classic movies.
My group was able to do our own exploring via a bus that took us to elevated vantage points, as well as by small plane, helicopter and houseboat, which carried us along Lake Powell, the largest man-made lake in the west.
High atop one of the area¹s true wonders, Bryce Canyon, I could see how geologic movements created gigantic bowls, and the continent¹s greatest national amphitheater, the erosive effect of water, wind, and time have had with unusually artistic repercussions. They have turned huge pillars of rocks into ³hoodoos,² spires twisted into fantastic shapes and changed from drab colors into a mixture of colorful hues. Ancient rivers carved plateaus into fins and pinnacles and sculpted intricate formations along what is called the ³Table Cliffs.² Nearby forests and meadows offer striking contrast to the eroded rock columns, and to stone monoliths known as ³Thor¹s Hammers.²
Some artifacts were identified as being left by the Anasazis, an early tribe that vanished mysteriously, possibly due to the harsh weather conditions. Other tribes have passed on a legend that the high elevation turned all the Anasazis into stone. I was also told that the air here is so pollution-free that you can see into Arizona and that the song, ³On a clear day you can see forever,² has a true meaning here.
Then there is the magnificent Zion Canyon and Zion National Park, so unique that unlike other major canyons, it is usually seen first from the bottom up. The Mormons were primarily interested in the waters of life-giving Virgin River and its fertile bottom-lands. It remained for others to cut through fearsome cliffs, regarded for generations as inaccessible, and to construct the Zion Canyon Tunnel, acclaimed in the 1920¹s as the ³Engineering Marvel of the Century.²
In the gorges here, I saw the same kind of surreal rock formations that I had seen at Bryce, but the panorama of Zion color is even more vivid and is like a huge outdoor artist¹s studio. Because elevations range from 3,700 to 9,000 feet, they provide a variety of scenic landscapes with its own flora and fauna. Zion has such wildlife species as the mule deer, Zion snails, Peregrine falcons, and mountain lions.
The Arches National Park, outside of Moab, contains the greatest density of natural arches in the world and Canyon-lands Park offers stone spires even more bizarre in shape than those in larger canyons. A cultural dessert follows the main menu of physical treasures with the town of nearby Springdale a haven for artists, potters, writers and other crafts-people. I was pleasantly surprised to find a replica of Shakespeare¹s outdoor Globe Theater, the site for the annual Shakespeare Festival.
It seems that a visit to Utah is not complete until you visit Brigham Young¹s winter home in St. George. Young suffered from severe arthritis and found that Salt Lake City was too cold in winter, and so after Christmas he headed south to the warmer clime of St. George for relief. During my sojourn to this area, nobody in my party needed any anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve the pains of arthritis. Can it be mind over matter?
Copyright by Marcia Abramson
Email: mascribe@verizon.net
