Walk on one of Earth's largest laccoliths in a quiet part of the Pine Valley Mountains near St. George, Utah.

Solitude, cool views of Zion National Park, nice pines and aspens, and unique geology are the rewards you get with this hike to Mount Baldy if you don't mind hiking through a large burn area and can handle some frustrating bushwhacking and deadfall maneuvering.

With this ascent, we conquered one of our "grudge peaks," as we gave this a try in April but faced a thick blanket of snow covering the steep mountainside that the trail traversed.  We should have known when we had to ford a cold, overflowing creek with waterfalls from snow melt at the beginning of the hike.

However, a few days ago, we added another peak - Mount Moriah - to our grudge peak list, so the net number remains the same!

The New Harmony trailhead for Anderson Valley Trail is at a large gravel parking lot with signboards and pit toilet.  
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This is a less-traveled trail - maybe because most Pine Valley Mountain hikers are on trails leading to Burger and Signal Peaks, 10,000-footers to the southwest looking over Mount Baldy's summit.  The approach to the saddle/ridge is bare of trees and faces east, so there's minimal shade in the morning.

The human-caused 2018 West Valley fire left a lot of charred tree skeletons.  The last mile of bushwhacking/navigating is crawling over/hiking around lots of large pine deadfall.

Hike Summary
0 - 3.2  miles (5,324' - 7,000'):  Anderson Valley Trailhead to saddle on Baldy's north ridge.
3.2 - 4.7 miles (7,000' - 8,175'):  Saddle to turn-off from Anderson Valley Trail.
4.7 - 5.8 miles (8,175' - 8,890'):   Cross-country to summit.

The first mile is flat, crosses over a few streams via wooden bridges, goes through private land with two gates.  At the wilderness boundary, the trail begins to climb up shrubby switchbacks with loose rocks.

Reach the saddle on ridge heading due south to Mount Baldy.  The trail is overgrown in a lot of places, but still discernible.  Great views of Zion to the east.  Anderson Valley Trail then traverses the west side of this ridge with great views of Main Canyon draining from the heights of Pine Valley Mountains.  This creek was roaring with waterfalls in April.  Aspens appear at 7,500 feet as the trail climbs past two water troughs and then up to the turn-off of Anderson Valley Trail.

Next time we hike this we would turn left to leave the trail right after what I call "the obelisk," a solitary rock pinnacle (see photo below) next to the trail to begin the cross-country navigation southeast toward Mount Baldy.  The AllTrails track for this hike goes further on Anderson Valley Trail and ends up unnecessarily mounting a steep and rocky ridge which you have to climb down anyway, so it's wasted effort.  This turn-off is ~ 4.7 miles in from the trailhead.  As with many other times climbing an off-trail peak, you find a more efficient track to and from the summit on the descent.

Now it's a steep climb (700 feet in one mile) through brush and over deadfall to the summit.  We made our way over a ridge just to the north of Baldy, then back down and up again to a saddle just north of Baldy.  From there, climb south to Baldy's summit.

I couldn't find a register or survey marker on the summit, but the views of the sheer orange cliffs of Zion's Kolob Canyons to the east was a contrast to this green and gray mountain.  Signal Peak, the highest in the Pine Valley Mountains loomed over us to the southwest.  There's a lot of Mount Baldys in the U.S. and now we can say we've climbed our local one!

This northern end of the Pine Valley Mountains with its trails and peaks deserves more exploring.  

Trailhead to saddle/ridge (0 - 3.2 miles)

Saddle to turn-off of Anderson Valley Trail (3.2 - ~4.7 miles)

Cross-Country to Summit (~4.7 - 5.8 miles)

Looking at the west rim of Zion National Park. The last peak on the right with the small "bump" is Mount Kinesava.

For the Geocurious:  Geology of the Pine Valley Laccolith
​Geology: 

• Most of the hike is on eroded Pine Valley Laccolith, perhaps the world's largest, formed by intrusive igneous rocks emplaced into existing rock layers 20.5 million years ago, and has since been exposed.  The rock is a quartz monzonite porphyry, with phenocrysts (large, noticeable crystals) in a groundmass (fine-grained).  
• Granite vs. quartz monzonite:  granite contains more silica, quartz, sodium and potassium than does quartz monzonite, which contains more hornblende and biotite, and calcium.
• Quartz content:  Granite = > 20% quartz.  Quartz monzonite = 5-20% quartz.  Monzonite = > 5% quartz.

The Land of the Laccolith
The "unique geology" appears once you've completed the first set of switchbacks to arrive at a saddle on Mount Baldy's northern ridge.  The rest of the hike to the summit is on perhaps the largest laccolith in the world.   The rock is a common igneous intrusive; it's the geomorphology (geo = earth, morphology = form/structure) and the size of this laccolith that make it unique.  Twenty million years ago, magma from a heat source deep within Earth's crust rose up through cracks in the rock until it found a layer with less resistance, causing it to spread horizontally and create a "lake" of molten magma (lakkos = pond or lake, lith = stone).

The molten rock formed a dome underneath the more resistant rock layer above it which prevented the magma from escaping.  The magma cools and forms a laccolith.  Over the millions of years afterward, the overlying rock eroded, exposing the Pine Valley Laccolith.  The heat sources still underlie this area as evidenced by the basaltic lava flows and cones in the area that are less than two million years old.

Cross-section of the rock units underlying the Pine Valley Mountain Laccolith.
Bottom orange unit = Cambrian (500 Ma).   Blue units = Permian (280 Ma).   Jn unit = Navajo Sandstone - famous cliffs found throughout southern Utah - the main rock of Zion NP (190 Ma.)
Geologic Map of the St. George area

References
Biek, R.F., et al.  2010.  Geologic Map of the St. George and East Part of the Clover Mountains 30' x 60' Quadrangles, Washington and Iron Counties, Utah.  Map 242DM, Utah Geological Survey.

Miller, R.  2/25/2018.  Our Geological Wonderland:  The Pine Valley Mountain Laccolith.  The Independent.

Utah State University Fire History Tracker.  ​https://fht.wildfirerisk.utah.gov/

Washington County Historical Society.  New Harmony, Utah.

This awesome hike up the much-loved and revered rock tower known as Mount Timpanogos lived up to the lore and legend.  Its final summit approach perches on its steep, rocky sides where you can gaze upon the cities like Provo that sprawl along Utah Lake's eastern shore on one side, and Robert Redford's posh Sundance Resort on the other.  I love these small, ultra-high summits  where, when I look down thousands of feet below to glaciers and meadows, I get a funny feeling in my stomach.

Mountain goats are often seen:  a fellow hiker pointed one out on the west side of the mountain below Timpanogos Saddle.

​Even before we finished this hike, I wanted to go back again.  Lush blankets of wildflowers surrounded the trail, especially in Timpanogos Basin on the way up to the saddle between Mt. Timpanogos and Bomber Peak.  I was blown away by the sheer numbers of lupine, bistort, columbine and paintbrush.  So many bluebells!

​"Timp," as this mountain is affectionately called by Utahns, is the second-highest mountain in the Wasatch range.  Mt. Nebo, 11,933 feet elevation, which we hiked two years ago, is the highest.   Both peaks have a huge prominence, a measure of the vertical distance from summit to lowest contour line encircling that mountain with  Nebo at 5,489' and Timpanogos at 5,269'.

When we got to the trailhead parking lot in the dark, at 5 a.m., we saw a lot of vehicles parked and wondered if people were backpacking.  It turned out that many students started the hike at 1:00 a.m. to witness the sunrise from the summit.  We passed a lot of groups of them descending.  Since this was a Monday, we didn't need a parking pass (see link above for recreation.gov permitting).

Seems this is a perfect training mountain for the serious trail runner and cross-country athlete.  We met a family at the top who run and hike this mountain every year.  The fastest known time is 2 hours and 18 minutes round-trip for 14.3 miles and 5,000 cumulative feet of elevation gain!  We were passed by a few runners.

On the trail at 5 a.m. with headlamps, we hiked the 7 miles to the summit by 9:30, taking our time and having a "second" breakfast break.  It was refreshing to be on an actual and well-traveled trail for a change, since we have been doing more scrambling and navigating to peaks.

Aspen Grove Trail, another way up to the summit, intersects with Timpooneke Trail as you enter the basin.

A metal building topped with a pyramid-shaped roof with hundreds of signatures scrawled on its walls crowns the summit.  This summit hut has overlooked the spectacular scenery of snow, glaciers and lakes and mountain goats for almost 100 years.  The Timpooneke Trail was completed in 1921.  The pointed roof acts as a survey marker that can be seen with a telescope from the valley below.

Next time I would drive a little further on Utah State Hwy. 92 to the Aspen Grove Trailhead and hike Timp from the east.  There's a snowfield to hike through in Timpanogos Basin that looks really fun.  There's more elevation gain with this approach.
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I have passed by and eyed this imposing peak many times on Interstate 15.  Finally I can say we were on the top!  I think we'll join the many hikers and runners to make this an annual pilgrimage.

Imagining a Natural Catastrophe
Still feeling energized after our Grand Canyon rim to rim hike, we decided to maintain our hiking fitness and get out of St. George's heat to hike a remote peak.  I often go to Stavislost website to get ideas.  Sandy Peak looked like a great opportunity for us to explore more of the forested Markagunt plateau near Cedar City, Utah.

The rocks on Sandy's summit are just a microcosm of Earth's largest landslide - covering at least 1,600 square miles of southwestern Utah's high plateaus.  It's called the Markagunt gravity slide, a catastrophic event that happened 20 million years ago when the surface of a huge volcanic field collapsed and slid southward for many miles, placing older rock on top of younger rock.

"Markagunt Megabreccia" is the name of this rock unit.  Breccia refers to jumbled angular rock fragments cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, with "mega' referring to fragments that are larger than one meter length.  Catastrophic events like volcanic explosions create breccias.

"Markagunt" is the Paiute word for "Highland of Trees".  It resides in the Colorado plateau province.  Cedar Breaks National Park rises from one of its highest points.

Our Route:  Avoiding the Steep Climb until it got Really Steep
We parked just off the Old Spanish National Historic Trail in Upper Bear Valley.  Locally, it is a nice graded road out of Paragonah that is also named Forest Road #077, Markagunt Plateau Trail and Bear Valley Road.  

0 - 1.3 miles - walk southeast over Bear Creek right after parking, then walk up road (not numbered) that leads around the knoll to the east and drop into Ashton Creek at when it turns to the right (south).
1.3 miles - 2.9 miles - walk up Ashton Creek.  
2.9 miles to summit - steep walk up Sandy's west slope, avoiding the top of the long ridge just to the north of the summit.
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We couldn't see Sandy Peak from the road approach.  If I were to do this hike again, I would get out of Ashton Creek sooner and climb the first ridge on the left (east) I could see, which leads easterly to intersect with Sandy's north ridge.  In the creek, we saw what looked to be a hunter's path (found a camera on a tree and a salt lick nearby) that led through a nice forest of pines, aspen and meadows, although we had a bit too many mosquitos.  Getting on the ridge sooner out of Ashton Creek would have probably meant less bushwhacking.  

The steep walk to the top on Sandy's western flank was riddled with deadfall, rocks, and vegetation, adding to precarious footing at times.  Maneuvering around rough volcanic blocks at the summit was fun.  The view was huge.  To the north, we saw smoke from a fire just south of the incredible Tushar Mountain range, and to the southeast the orange rocks near Bryce Canyon.

This area of the Markagunt Plateau, squeezed up between Parowan Valley to the west, and the Panguitch Valley to the east has lots of trails, mountains, and mountain-bike friendly roads to explore.  Gotta get back there!

Visions of a Centro Woodfired Pizza got me through the last bit of route finding out of the creek.  Per tradition, after hikes in this area, we went to this restaurant in Cedar City.  Route-finding, wilderness, amazing view, pretty tough hike (at least for us), great pizza and great beer makes for the perfect day.  Life is good!

All Fired up!
As Pat Benatar's song goes, we're "All Fired Up" for next week's Grand Canyon rim to rim hike!  Her song is a fitting accompaniment to the goblet squat video below.  Fred and I needed elevation training, so we went to Palm Springs, my old stomping grounds, and hiked the Skyline Trail for a gain of 4,700 feet, the same Bright Angel Trail gain on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. 

​We encountered too much snow at 8,000 feet in the Pine Valley Mountains just to the north of St. George, preventing a good elevation gain.  My last post, Grand Canyon Rim to Rim In One Day:  Training in St. George, Utah, explains how we got creative with emulating distance and elevation.  We did great on the Skyline; we're now ready for the big hike!

New goal:  hike to the tram this October with some of our hiking buddies.  Oh, the nostalgia and the beauty of this mountain!
I'm grateful that I can still be hiking it 31 years later - let's say that the Advil this time was very helpful!

La Verkin Creek Trail to Kolob Arch - Zion NP
This long hike features attributes found in Zion National Park's main canyon, including an arch, sandstone cliffs and a river but without the throngs of people.  It's in the northern Kolob Canyons section, has a spur trail to impressive Kolob Arch, and also meets up with the Hop Valley Trail, a route to the main Zion Canyon.  We hiked 7 miles in to Kolob Arch and back for a total of 14 miles, the same distance as Grand Canyon's North Kaibab Trail.  It drops down from the parking lot at Lee Pass Trailhead into the La Verkin Creek drainage.  The same mileage as our Skyline Trail hike, but not nearly the same elevation gain.  

We've got one more training hike on Zion's West Rim Trail this week with Lindy and Jeff, and then we should be good to go for the Grand Canyon.  We are lucky to have such inspirational places, some of the most beautiful on Earth, in which to train!

Strengthening exercise for powerful hill climbing:  Goblet Squats 
I have found that since I started doing CrossFit and working on strengthening my legs, I have more stability and power for steeper hiking.  Goblet squats can be done with a kettlebell as well as two dumbbells, each resting on your shoulders.
Strengthens your core (trunk) muscles, glutes and hips.  Points to remember:

• Feet hip-to shoulder-width apart with toes pointed slightly outwards.
• Hold dumbbell or kettlebell at your chest with your elbows pointing down.
• Pull in and "zip" up your abdominals, raise  your sternum up, squeeze shoulder blades together.
• Look forward:  inhale as you squat, holding weight against chest - don't lean forward - keep trunk upright.
• Lower hips to below knee level, then squeeze your glutes as you push to stand through your mid-feet and heels.
• Keep your knees tracking over your toes.
• Exhale, repeat and know you are that much stronger to climb hills!

​​The First Cactus to Clouds Challenge - October 1993
Summit of Mt. San Jacinto, 10,804'.
From left to right:  Sue Birnbaum, (don't remember his name), Roger Keezer, Maria Keezer, Ray Wilson, and Vickie Kearney seated in the middle.

Our New Year's Day Hike
Fred and I have a tradition of hiking on New Years Day.  For 2024, we took friends to the top of Red Mountain and across its beautiful plateau to a high point dubbed "On Top of the World" by our friend Dan.  From here, you stand 1,400 feet over an outstanding view of Snow Canyon's petrified yellow sand dunes and orange ridges, black basalt flows from northern volcanoes near Veyo.  It's worth the orange sand trudge on the top to get there.  This short, five-mile hike packs in a good variety of terrain.  The first mile climbs steeply through a cliff band requiring some fun Class 3 (un-roped using hands to climb) maneuvers, gaining 1,300 feet.  The next 1.5 miles initially descends through a beautiful juniper woodland bowl where Gunsight Pass can be reached to the southeast. You will trek through sand, washes, over slick rock then climb to a sandy saddle where our "On Top of the World" high point can finally be seen.   Then it's a matter of making a ~0.5-mile beeline to it across relatively level terrain, traversing minor washes, dodging cacti and prickly shrubs. 

​When you top-off onto Red Mountain's plateau, you initially follow the north/south Red Mountain Primitive Trail for ~1.2 miles, then a short jaunt off of it to the northeast to reach On Top of the World, elevation 4,765'.  Red Mountain Primitive Trail's northern trailhead is located just north of Diamond Cinder Cone on Utah Highway 18.

​It's a fun little scramble to the cairned top, using your hands a few times to climb easy rocks, overlooking Padre Canyon and Tuacahn Center for the Arts to the southeast.  Once you summit, the rugged terrain drops steeply below with a breathtaking view of Snow Canyon, with a few smooth slick rock benches above it that look interesting to explore or camp in.

Can't think of a better way to celebrate the New Year:  friends and the reward of finding our own way to a seldom-visited summit in one of the most beautiful places in the southwest.  Great "medicine" for the soul, body and mind.

An unexpected sight greeted Fred and I on our favorite local loop-hike last month in Snow Canyon State Park.  Just off Whiptail trail, suspended high in a gap between orange cliffs, hung an enormous American flag, seemingly out of place in in these walls of Navajo Sandstone.  People were lined up, taking pictures of this spectacular sight.  The flag, in the still air hung vertically, but billowed and rolled with occasional breezes, the bottom edge of it flying gracefully towards the sky.  It was suspended in mid-air, with its hanging wires barely visible.  I suppose you could ask what visitors were thinking about this huge flag in this gorgeous natural setting and you would probably get different answers, ranging from the emotion of national pride and patriotism to "Wow!  That's pretty cool!" to "Why is it hanging here?"  For me, my heart swelled because two things that I love were juxtaposed:  a symbol of my country and the land of the American West.

Strength, unity, connection, freedom - these are what the American flag is intended to signify.  The stripes represent the original 13 colonies that were seceding from the British.  The blue canton contains the stars of our 50 states.  Blue represents vigilance, perseverance, and justice.  White signifies purity and innocence, and red signifies hardiness and valor.

This proved to be a good exercise in brushing up on my flag facts, reading America's unique Declaration of Independence, and learning of the efforts going on to unify our country.  Pew and Gallup polls show that a record high number of Americans perceive the nation as divided on the most important issues.  Maybe Follow the Flag and other organizations can help us see the positive and help us remember the ideals of our country's origin.  

Our Trip
This time Fred and I decided to "leap" out of our comfort hiking zone and try something more challenging:  canyoneering!  Although Yankee Doodle Hollow is rated as a "beginner" canyoneering hike, rappelling - especially the first drop into the canyon - was a challenge for us.  This brief foray into these beautifully-polished and sinuous narrows rated as one of our favorites for 2023.  Also on my list of favorites is the "Subway" - Left Fork of North Creek in spectacular Zion National Park, another journey into rock carved by water. 

My friend Brian from CrossFit Dixie has been canyoneering in this area of southern Utah, including Zion.  He invited me on previous canyoneering trips but I was always too intimidated to go.   He guided us on this short foray, setting up the ropes on the rappel anchors and instructing us on how to control the rope in our rappel device.  He got us all set up with our harnesses and locking carabiners.

Brian's friend Jorey, who had never rappelled before, joined us.  The joy on his face when he completed the first long rappel into the canyon and overcame his fear of heights was priceless.  He was so afraid to take the initial "leap" into the void.  Fred and I had learned climbing techniques on a guided Grand Teton hike, but I was still pretty nervous. 

​Canyon Origins
Not sure how this canyon got its name.  Was it named by miners in the area, or Mormon Leeds settlers?  Yankee Doodle Hollow Creek originates from the highlands under the cliffs of the Pine Valley Mountains.

This area of southwestern Utah is complicated geologically-speaking, with uplifts, gravity slides, compressional structures (uplift), extensional structures (faults), and more.  One look at the Geologic Map of St. George area and you might agree.  So many rock units from Permian time (300 million years ago) until present.

Although a shorter and shallower canyon compared to legendary Zion canyons, Yankee Doodle Hollow still has the pretty curved and smooth cross-bedded walls of spectacular Navajo Sandstone - one of nature's works of art.  You don't have to get a permit or arrange for shuttles between canyon entry and exit points, like you have to do in Zion.

After we had completed all of the down-climbs we did a Class 3 steep slick rock scramble out of the canyon, slightly rubber-stained from many climbing shoes, as it opened up to the left.  The Class 2 path up to the rim was discernible.  If you keep going past this exit point, you continue walking down Yankee Doodle Hollow, you intersect with Heath Wash, where you would take a left (north) onto Heath Trail, which takes you back to FR031. 

Fun stuff!  Glad Brian finally got me out there.  Hopefully we can do more canyoneering....but Fred and I always default to the above-ground adventures!

A portion of the​ ​GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE ST. GEORGE AND EAST PART OF THE CLOVER MOUNTAINS 30' X 60' QUADRANGLES, WASHINGTON AND IRON COUNTIES, UTAH by Biek, R.F., et al.
The pink rock unit at top-center of photo is Pine Valley Mountains (quartz monzonite laccolith).
The Jurassic Navajo Sandstone is the light-green unit that presents as a kind of semi-circle around the base of Pine Valley Mountains, a ​much older unit, that is the main rock seen in Zion National Park.
The City of St. George is located at the bottom of the map.

Reference
Biek, R.F.  2010. Geologic Map of the St. George and East Part of the Clover Mountains 30' x 60' quadrangles, Washington and Iron Counties, Utah.  Utah Geological Survey.

This ultra-popular journey through Zion National Park's Left Fork of North Creek to the "Subway" and all of its gorgeous and calming water cascades - one after the other - exceeded my expectations and turned out to be a favorite hike for 2023.  Having scored a permit only two weeks before, we were able to park in the Left Fork Trailhead parking lot (you have to put a permit tag on your dashboard), descend from Kolob Terrace to travel this stream to a magical world of green pools, red waterfalls and a tunnel of fern-covered sandstone walls.  It takes about three miles of boulder-hopping and clear stream wading to get to the spectacular stuff, but it's so well worth it.

I went with three friends who knew the route, and other friends who were seeing Subway for the first time also.  The pathway up the Left Fork is pretty straight forward:  it heads up-canyon, and around a major waterfall in about 3.5 miles from the trailhead.  Much time is spent walking in the crystal-clear water.

Less-Traveled Kolob Terrace:  Beautiful Forests, Wondrous Canyons and Colorful Sandstone Peaks
Compared to Zion Canyon, which received a record number of visitors - five million in 2021 - Kolob Terrace, Zion's west section, is a much-less visited area of Zion National Park.  It's accessed via Kolob Terrace Road that ultimately ends at the Kolob Reservoir at an elevation of 8,100 feet - a marvelous place to see in autumn with the blue water and yellow cottonwood trees.  A good list of adventures is posted in Joe Braun's Hikes in the Kolob Terrace.  Kolob Terrace is also a great place for star-gazing and astrophotography.  Zion NP became certified as an International Dark Sky Park in 2021.

Das Boot is another classic Zion canyon on Kolob Terrace.  It involves dark, convoluted narrows and long swims.  If you prefer to be above the land instead of below, there are knolls named Spendlove, Cave and Tinaja to climb.

​Peak time on the Subway hike for fall color is late October/early November to capture the bright red and yellow leaves that fall in the round potholes and decorate the deep red sandstone cascades.  Looking down into the Left Fork from the rim, yellow cottonwood trees line the bottom water course.

The hike begins in a volcanic rock flow for ~ 0.5 miles from trailhead to rim, and in fact, it's important to note these black volcanic rocks on the rim when you get down into the creek, so you have a mental picture of the place you came down, and you don't pass it up on the way back out of the water.  The 400' descent from the rim is steep and slippery in a few places.

As you hike upstream, negotiating many pools, boulders and rocks, you occasionally catch glimpses of the magnificent Navajo Sandstone formations on the plateau above.  We didn't pause too long because we had four miles of relatively slow hiking and the day was short.

Amazing Place!
And then you reach the almost supernatural world of the "Subway".  Hanging ferns thrive on the dripping curved walls and round-sculpted lime green pools appear with water continuously pouring in and out.  How did this stream sculpt this almost perfect tunnel?  Crimson sandstone, polished by continuous water flow is slippery, I saw a few other hikers take minor tumbles.  A few in our party waded through the cold deeper pools at the end of this section to a small waterfall.

A few climbers with full wetsuits were descending from the Subway top down route which involves rappelling and deep water swims - the canyoneering route that begins further upstream.  Sounds like a worthy goal for a future hike!

Finding the point at which the trail leaves the canyon to ascend steeply to the rim was not difficult.  I had the waypoint recorded on my GPS, so I knew we were getting close.  Signs mark the way out of the stream, but it's best to remember the scene you memorized on the way in:  the black volcanic rocks next to the orange sandstone on the rim.

References
Biek, R.F., et al.  2010.  Geologic Map of the St. George and East Part of the Clover Mountains 30' x 60' quadrangles, Washington and Iron Counties, Utah.  Utah Geological Survey.

​Beeline Route Out and Back

• Descend from Egypt Trailhead to base of bowl:  0 - 0.7 miles
• Cross Egypt Bench to Escalante River:  0.7 - 3.8 miles
• Neon Canyon to Golden Cathedral:  3.8 - 5.0 miles

The reward for three miles of sand trudging interspersed with short beds of slickrock through open country with little shade except from the occasional juniper or pinyon pine is the brilliant and glowing red, orange and purple soaring Neon Canyon  walls.  The grand finale of this hike is the huge skylights and manganese-stained grotto walls of Golden Cathedral at the end of Neon, reflected in a pool beneath.

​Now I can see how Neon Canyon got its name.  The colors are intense.  Canyoneers rappel through the opening, getting access from a trail on its west rim.  Stav is Lost website has a good canyoneering trip description of Neon Canyon.

Fred and I got close to this remote marvel a few weeks before, but we heard thunder and saw clouds building when we got near Neon's opening, so we nixed the plan of going up this narrow canyon and headed back to the trailhead via Beeline Trail.  On that hike, we checked out the huge petroglyph panel along the Escalante River, approaching from the Fence Canyon route.

From the trailhead, identify Point 5270, a round dome to the east.  That is your landmark to hike toward, as Neon Canyon is just to its left.   The terrain that spreads before you is "Egypt," an elevated bench above the Escalante River, which flows right in front of Point 5270.  The "Standard" Golden Cathedral Trail aims toward and travels along the north rim of Fence Canyon on the left in image below.  The Beeline Trail goes in a more or less straight line toward Point 5270.   A map of our GPS tracks hiking the Standard/Beeline loop is on my last post Neon Canyon/Escalante River Petroglyphs Hiking Directions.​  

The canyon walls at Neon's opening and all the way through are stunning; trees growing against them seem small in scale.  A path leads through a garden of wildflowers in September.   A trail on the left side of the first bend in the canyon takes you above Neon's west rim and to the beginning of the canyoneering route.

After a walk in the cool shade of Neon, reach Golden Cathedral in a little over a mile.  We saw evidence of a recent flash flood in the fresh carved sand on the stream banks.  The pool reflects the three skylights above.

We stayed for awhile, appreciating the serenity, until the sun started to fill the canyon, shining on part of the grotto.  The best time to photograph Golden Cathedral is before the sun hits it, so you don't get too much contrast.  The reflected light from the upper Neon through the skylights is what gives the glow to these beautiful walls.

With every Escalante visit, our to-do list grows exponentially in this land of remarkable personality.  There's so much out there to explore!

This prominent gap in the Red Hills has one of the most abundant collections of American West petroglyphs, including the most unusual of all - the Zipper Glyph.

Iconic Parowan - the "Zipper Glyph"
Interpretations of this petroglyph include a solar calendar because it has 180 notches coinciding with the 180 days it takes for the sun to move between summer and winter solstices.   The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah interprets this as the story of a great Leader during a migration where many people experienced famine, drought, water crossings, cold and ice.

Petroglyph "Heaven"
To rock art aficionados, Parowan Gap must be petroglyph heaven, not only because of its famous "Zipper Glyph", but also the amazing quality and number of petroglyphs there - rock after rock, panel after panel (90 of them!).  Some believe that this site has the most concentrated petroglyph assemblage of any in the American west.  Some of the rock carvings may be as old as 5,000 years, the majority of them made by the people of the Fremont culture.  To today's Paiute and Hopi tribes, this is a spiritual site.

The Parowan Gap is a stream-cut valley and narrows through the Red Hills, just west of Little Salt Lake, north of Cedar City, and 10 miles northwest of Parowan, Utah.  The petroglyphs are located in a dramatic V-shaped notch at the western edge of this gap, a great place for indigenous peoples to carve their petroglyphs during their migrations.

I was looking forward to seeing the Zipper Glyph in person.  With two "arms" and 180 notches, people who believe in the astroarchaeological (AKA archaeoastronomy) interpretation see this mysterious petroglyph as a solar calendar.  If you look closely at the Zipper Glyph, it resembles the notch in the Parowan Gap.  It is believed that this glyph is a map with relating equinoxes and solstices.

However, the modern Paiute Tribe of Utah had a different interpretation:  a migration of the old world to the new.  The Paiutes say that the Zipper Glyph represents a long trail of hardship in which their great Leader was killed.  The two "arms" in this case are the Leader's body shown upside down with his head at the bottom.

An interpretive sign illustrating the belief that the "Zipper Glyph" was used to chart celestial movements.

Interpretive sign that describes the Utah Paiute Tribe's interpretation of the Zipper Glyph.

Parowan is nicknamed "the Mother Town of the Southwest." It's a city that has gone through a lot of changes since it first began mining iron in the 1800's.  Now its main industries are tourism and recreation, including Brian Head, a year-round resort where we like to go skiing.  It was first called "City of Little Salt Lake," because of its proximity to Little Salt Lake, a now salty playa to its west.  It was renamed "Parowan," a native American word meaning "evil water."  This lake is a key geographic feature relating to the formation of the Parowan Gap.

Fred and I had just hiked the astonishing Cosmic Ashtray in Grand Staircase-Escalante the day before, so we were on our way home.  I had to talk him into seeing Parowan Gap; he doesn't normally want to go too far out of the way to see petroglyphs but with these he was pretty darn impressed.

On the same Grand Staircase trip, we also hiked to a huge petroglyph panel along the Escalante River in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, near the opening to Neon Canyon.  Bear paws march up out of sight on this tall rock face, a rattlesnake slithers, and Fremont-culture warriors stand as just a few petroglyph examples.  If you don't mind slogging through four miles of sand and slick rock, wading, and navigating, you can find these remote glyphs.

It's believed that the Fremont culture made most of the Parowan Gap rock carvings 700-1,500 years ago, although the area has been inhabited for thousands of years before that.  Typically the designs are abstract and geometric, although there are some lizards, snakes, and mountain sheep pecked into the Jurassic Navajo sandstone.  Many petroglyphs are located very high, out of reach on the hillside.

Check it out - you won't be disappointed!  The interpretive signs make this a nice site.  A great place to go afterwards if you are hungry is Centro Woodfired Pizzeria in downtown Cedar City.

Keep on Exploring!

The "narrows" at the west end of the Parowan Gap.  Ancient waters carved this opening in the Red Hills.

Extensive abstract petroglyphs on both sides of Gap Road, which passes through the Parowan Gap.

Interpretation of the panel above by Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, from interpretive signs at the site.

Another Parowan  Gap interpretive sign.

References:
Maldonado, F., et al.  Geologic Map of the Parowan Gap Quadrangle, Iron County, Utah.  U.S. Geological Survey.

Wilkerson, C.   2018.  Geosights:  Parowan Gap, Iron County.

Orndorff, R.L., et al.  Geology Underfoot in Southern Utah.  2020.   Mountain Press Publishing Company.

Parowan City Corportation website.
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​Wadsworth, Rueben.  2019.  Parowan Gap day;  Interpretations and Mysteries of a Petroglyph Heaven.  Cedar City News Archives.