Amy's Rear View Mirror

Southwestern Utah Trip

July 2003

 
For 4th of July Weekend Lady & I took a trip to southwestern Utah. On the drive up we stopped at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam to view the lake. This was the beginning of our history lesson for the weekend.

Lake Powell is the second largest man-made lake in the United States which lies partly in Arizona and mostly in Utah and is more than 500 feet deep in places. It has clear blue water against red-rock canyon walls with sandy beaches. There are 96 major canyons to explore though you'll need a boat for the majority of them since access is limited because there are few roads.

The Colorado River flows through Glen Canyon carving a huge canyon through the sandstone. In 1963 the Glen Canyon dam was completed and impounded the Colorado forming Lake Powell. Next, turbines and generators were installed from 1963 to 1966 to run the power plant. It took 17 years for Lake Powell to completely fill the first time. Lake Powell is named for Civil War veteran Major John Wesley Powell, who explored the Green and Colorado rivers in 1869 down through the Grand Canyon. Tours of the dam are available when there are no security alerts.

Once we were finished gazing at the water, we continued our trek to southwestern Utah where we used the St George area as a base for sightseeing. I've got a friend that lives there and while visiting with her, she showed me around.

Southwestern Utah's first known inhabitants were the Anasazi Indians. They entered the area around 200 BC and left about 1200 AD. The reason for their sudden departure is unclear. Remants of their dwellings, rock art and other artifacts are left as evidence of their 1000 years of living in that area. The Paiute Indians entered this region between 1100 and 1200 AD.  The Paiute Indians were a relatively small tribe and were made up of smaller bands of a few hundred Native Americans in each band. The Paiutes hunted for local wildlife, added seeds and berries to their diet, and eventually became farmers using irrigation to raise crops along the rivers.

The first known contact between Europeans and Paiutes was recorded by the Spanish Dominguez-Escalante group who passed through southwestern Utah in 1776.  There is a historical monument of their crossing located past the dinosaur tracks in Warner Valley.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Mormons, entered and settled the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.  In 1861, Brigham Young, the leader of the Church, called 309 families to the St George area for the express purpose of growing cotton, grapes and other produce conducive to the warmer climate.

One of the key players in the settlement of St George and the southern territory was Jacob Hamblin.  In 1854 Brigham Young assigned Jacob Hamblin to be a missionary to the Indians in southern Utah where he established an Indian mission at Santa Clara, two miles north of the St. George Valley. He was involved in keeping the peace between the early settlers and the Paiute Indians.  His home on Santa Clara Drive in Santa Clara is a popular tourist attraction.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Brigham Young thought it would be necessary to raise cotton, if possible. Many of the early settlers originally came from the southern states. They came to the "Cotton Mission" to grow cotton, creating a phrase for the area which has become widely adopted--they called the St. George area "Utah's Dixie."

Life was very difficult for these early settlers and pioneers.  Intense summer heat, with little rainfall made it difficult to raise crops and flash floods would often destroy their crops and buildings.  However,  they stayed and persevered and built their city.  These pioneers built the first Mormon temple completed in the west.  The St. George Temple dedicated in 1877 still stands today, as a monument to those first settlers.  The Tabernacle and the summer home of Brigham Young have been restored and are on the city's historical tour and register.

Snow Canyon is northwest of St George on the outskirts of town. To one side of the canyon lie the Red Mountains, while a few miles away are the White Hills. The park is surrounded by rock cliffs and walls of Navajo sandstone in every shade of red imaginable, layered with white and black from ancient lava flows. The lava, cinder cones and lava caves are points of interest.

A two mile path crosses the lava field and passes at least four lava caves - these were formed when the outer edges of a lava stream cooled and solidified while the flow continued underneath, and later drained away. The rocks are sharp and jagged so be careful when exploring.

By the way, don't come looking for snow in Snow Canyon. It was named for pioneers Lorenzo and Erastus Snow, who found it.

Approximately 55 miles east of St George, at an elevation of 6,000 feet, Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park covers 3,730 acres where the coral colored dunefield is surrounded by red sandstone cliffs and a juniper/pinyon forest.

A 265-acre conservation area prohibits motorized vehicles in order to protect the Coral Pink Beetle (found nowhere else in the world) and its habitat. Mule Deer, Jackrabbit, Kit Fox, Coyote and many small rodents also run wild in the park.

The park's sand dunes are created by a notch between the Moquith and Moccasin mountains which funnels the winds, increasing their velocity to a point where they can carry sand grains in what is called the Venturi Effect. Eroding Navajo Sandstone formations surrounding the park are what creates the unique color of these dunes.

In Kane County's movie-making days, a Hollywood production company thought that the unusual dune formations resembled Egypt so much that they used it as a shot location for the movie "The Greatest Story Ever Told." All extras in the film were local folks. The only actors brought in were the camels!

Zion National Park was established in 1909 as Mukuntuweap National Monument, mukuntuweap is a Paiute
word meaning "straight arrow". It became Zion National Park in 1919. The name "Zion" is an ancient Hebrew word meaning a place of refuge or sanctuary and was given to the canyon by Mormon pioneers. Within the park's 229 square miles is a cliff-and-canyon wilderness full of amazing features like the world's largest arch - Kolob Arch - with a span that measures 310 feet.

Two distinctive puebloan farming cultures were located in the park: the Virgin Branch Anasazi and the Parowan Fremont. The Southern Paiute and Ute were also in the region. While the Puebloan cultures migrated to other areas of the southwest, the Southern Paiute remain in the area today.

John Wesley Powell explored the areas around Zion Canyon as part of western surveys conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. The early pack trails soon became well-used wagon roads, connecting Santa Fe to the California markets. Mormon pioneers were sent to settle the southern part of the territory and grow cotton in Utah’s “Dixie”. Towns like Shunesberg, Springdale, Grafton, Adventure, and Paradise sprang up along the upper Virgin River. Issac Behunin built the first log cabin in Zion Canyon, near the location of the Zion Lodge. Soon the canyon was dotted with other homesteads.

Zion was a relatively flat basin near sea level 240 million years ago. As sand, gravel, and mud eroded from surrounding mountains, streams carried these materials into the basin and deposited them in layers. The sheer weight of these accumulated layers caused the basin to sink, so that the top surface always remained near sea level until over 10,000 feet of material accumulated.

Water slowly filtered through the compacted sediment layers transforming the deposits into stone. Forces deep within the earth started to push the surface up causing Zion’s elevation to rise from near sea level to as high as 10,000 feet above sea level. The uplift is still occuring today with earthquakes. This uplift gave the streams greater cutting force in their descent to the sea. The streams began eroding and cutting into the rock layers, forming deep and narrow canyons. The Virgin River is still excavating. Upstream from the Temple of Sinawava the river cuts through Navajo Sandstone, creating a slot canyon. Flashfloods are also common.

Zion Canyon Scenic Drive is by shuttle bus only. Private vehicles are not allowed. You park at the Visitors Center to catch the shuttle which runs every 6 minutes with the round-trip taking 90 minutes. The shuttle drops you off at trailhead access points and you can get on and off the shuttle at various stops as often as you like.

Wildlife such as Mule Deer, Golden Eagles and Mountain Lions live in the park. I saw a Mule Deer trying to stay cool by the side of the road, but since I was riding the shuttle at the time I wasn't able to take a photo.

On the drive home Lady & I went through Kaibab National Forest and then the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Knowledge of North Kaibab history is limited, however archeologists have found evidence of human use dating as far back as about 7000 BC. The evidence shows that they hunted game and gathered wild food on the Kaibab Plateau, they lived in small camps, cultivated crops that were introduced to the region from Mexico and gradually became farmers.

The Anasazi occupied this area and after their disappearance the Paiute, whose hunting and gathering lifestyle was similar to what the archeologists found from centuries before, settled in this area of northern Arizona. The Paiutes, whose reservation headquarters today are at Pipe Springs AZ, were the last Native American inhabitants of the North Kaibab before Europeans began settling the area.

Mormon pioneers were sent to colonize in and beyond the remote southern boundaries of Utah. The adjacent lands of the Arizona Strip were first used for hunting and livestock grazing; settlements followed.

Jacob Hamblin, a Mormon leader, explored much of Northern Arizona in his search for suitable settlements for Mormon colonization. He was largely responsible for seeking out the least difficult routes over this rugged terrain. Several Colorado River crossings were used before the most direct one at Lee's Ferry was discovered by Hamblin and John D. Lee in 1869.

The Grand Canyon has a large variety of rocks, they are exposed with great clarity, and a complex geologic history that dates as far back as 550 million years ago. The Grand Canyon was formed by the Colorado River.

The ancestral Puebloan people of the southwestern United States made their home in the four corners region, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona share a common point. The Anasazi, who had been occupying lands east of the Grand Canyon  began drifting into the Grand Canyon region. The ancestral Puebloan people are believed to be the ancestors of the Hopi people, who inhabit a region east of Grand Canyon. The Hopi people believe they emerged from the canyon and that their spirits rest there. The Havasupai people inhabit the inner canyon in a region west of Grand Canyon Village. The Navajo live throughout the region and on the Navajo Reservation, which borders the park to the east. They are the descendants of Athabascan peoples who migrated into the southwest from the north. The Hualapai Reservation borders the canyon to the south. The Hualapai are descendants of the Cerbat people and have been in the area for centuries. The Southern Paiute Indians occupy land north of the Colorado River in what is known as the Arizona Strip. They have traditionally used the canyon for hundreds of years. The Zuni view the canyon as their place of origin, though today they live in New Mexico.

After thousands of years of Native American presence in the American Southwest, the first Europeans arrived at the Grand Canyon's South Rim in 1540. Following another 300 years of missionaries, trappers, explorers, government surveyors and soldiers, Major John Wesley Powell and his party of nine made the first successful boat trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869.

It took us several hours to drive the 30 miles along the south rim since we stopped at various overlooks along the way.

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