| OCR Text |
Show -..<-r": - . 7..-. • **"«. SNOW'S CANYON Especially delightful in morning or late afternoon is Snow's Canyon, a ten-minute ride on U. 18 from St. George. Here are vivid color and unusual formations combined in a spectacular panorama. The view from the rim is breath-taking, but a ride into die valley brings a new surprise at every turn. Motion picture sets point up the natural beauty and add interest. Just beyond Snow's Canyon are two perfect volcanic cones, the source of the black lava so much in evidence. Twenty minutes farther brings you to the village of Pine Valley, a summer retreat, where the white clapboard church, oldest in continuous use in Utah, adds an air of New England to the landscape. St. George is distinguished, even as it is ennobled, by three remarkable buildings: the Courthouse, the Tabernacle, and the Temple. The Courthouse guarantees the basic American rights to every citizen; the Tabernacle declares freedom of worship to the world; the Temple symbolizes the mysteries of eternity and man's yearnings for the intangibles that give purpose to his life. Going north on U.S. 91, through the villages of Washington and PINE VALLEY CHURCH ST. GEORGE COURTHOUSE SNOW'S CANYON >$"' T in r • fM^_ r * • * , tpr* • •- »< '•>V-T -5jrS KI//NS OF DRUGSTORE AT SILVER REEF Leeds, a three-mile side trip will take you to the ghost town of Silver Reef. Here fabulous mines produced $10,500,000 worth of silver from 1876 to 1908. Now the arch of the drugstore stands skeletal among the ruins. One home and the Wells Fargo Bank remain intact in what was a city of fifteen hundred people. Or take U. 17 at the junction through Hurricane, whose orchards and fields depend upon the ditch clinging high on the hillside. U. 15 takes you on; from the top of the mesa, the towers of Zion, jagged against the sky, grow more deeply colored as you approach. The Three Patriarchs on one side and the Sentinel on die odier suggest the grandeur which lies ahead, culminating at die Temple of Sinawava. THREE PATRIARCHS AT ENTRANCE TO ZION --:V-v » • • . - - . --sr Looking down the valley from the Temple of Sinawava. The Great White Throne in middle distance, the Narrows up the valley. "he FALLS OF SIN A WA VA fter a summer shower, iote the work °f erosion t the top where a narrow \ulley is being cut. An historic picture of GEL'S LANDING. The top of this monolith may be reached by an easy trail from the back, ^us many have enjoyed the view. : S5 &7-*,~ TCH BACKS Make haste slowly in Zion. Take time to stop, to get out, to sense the atmosphere of the place. Join a guided tour and let one who is familiar with the area interpret it for you, or follow one of the well-marked trails by yourself so that you may explore a little. Sit down, relax, enjoy the view, and feel your tensions melt away. Against the magnitude of these cliffs, rising to infinity, man's fife is but a breath. How many aeons did it take to deposit this eight-hundred- foot ledge of red standstone? How many more to cut diese sheer, polished walls, by a river slicing inches in a century? In the presence of these, petty worries dissolve, immediate, urgent problems shrink. Here is a place to gain poise, to linger and invite your soul. You leave Zion by way of the switchbacks that wind up and up to a mile-long tunnel through those solid peaks. Stop at one of die CHECKERBOARD MOUNTAIN < * "i ••...• windows and look back at what lies behind. At this elevation the snake's-eye view you had from the bottom of the canyon becomes, if not exactly an eagle's-eye view, at least a chance to look bodi up and down at this incomparable land. Emerging into the daylight, you see many different formations. CEDAR BREAKS Here are up-thrusts cut by long, vertical parallel seams, chalk-white, marked off into ordered designs, as in the famous Checkerboard Mountain. The high mountain road now winds over broken country cut by canyon and valley, dotted by clearings and ranch houses. Mount Carmel Junction offers so many possibilities for adventure that, unless your trip is scheduled, you may be at a loss to choose between them: to the right via Kanab to the Grand Canyon or to the Glen Canyon Dam; or to the left to Salt Lake City and eastern points; or if your time is limited, to a brief circle and return. If this last is your choice, you travel up Long Valley to the summit where the headwaters of the Virgin and the Sevier interlock their fingers, through picturesque villages and pastoral scenery. If you enjoy high mountains, tall timber, and deep undergrowth, with lakes well RED CANYON stocked with fish, take the left road at the junction. Stop at Navajo Lake as long as you can, but be sure to keep climbing until you reach Brian Head Point, literally the top of the world. Below is Cedar Breaks, an amphitheater in tones of red, where the wind and weather are at work at their carving. Beyond, the vista opens so far that you are caught up with a sense of being on top of the world, away from the smog and clangor, the race with time and the need of tranquilizers. This will be a moment to treasure. One of the musts of your trip should be Bryce, a mere fourteen-mile trip from U.S. 89. A vivid arch at Red Canyon tells you to look for color ahead, but nothing can prepare you for the impact. Suddenly *a?3* there it is at your feet, a fifty-five-mile amphitheater full of myriads of forms, grouped and scattered in enchanted chaos, their colors ranging through all the combinations of red, orange, yellow, and brown, many of them tipped with a frosty white. In the evening they glow translucent as with an inner light, die tips still flaming after the base is wrapped in shadow. At dawn they drop their blue veil and wait for the sun to limn dieir tops with a pencil line of gold. You cannot describe it; pictures never quite capture it. You can only experience the wonder and magic of it, and the memory will be as a fresh breeze across your face, or a cool draught to a parched throat. |
