Zion National Park, Utah. Part I

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show."

-Andrew Wyeth

Zion National Park is one of those places of natural beauty that literally floored me the first time I laid eyes upon it. The majesty of this canyon and its environs, carved by the Virgin River, confirms to me that God is the Master Artist.

Temple of the Virgins at sunrise. Photo composite using the HDR technique.

The fall color in 2011 was particularly good in the Zion area as can be attested by the photographs above and below. This path leads to Weeping Rock.

Graceful trail cloaked in fall color leads to the Emerald Pools.

Looking upstream on the Virgin River. Both sides of the stream have hiking paths at this point alongside the river.

 

Petroglyphs etched by Indians thousands of years ago. One universal Indian symbol utilizing the coil is meant to convey the passage of one's life, a sense of time, passing of time, or timelessness according to some experts. I find petroglyphs and pictographs particularly intriguing; sending one to eras long gone and forgotten. Stories of peoples who lived, died, and passed through, which are no more. What do they tell us? That my friends is mostly lost to us. How will people two thousand years from now attempt to explain the mystery of our own bio-hazard symbol?