“Utah has the best rocks.” That’s what my friend Shellie told me when she learned about my plans to visit the Mighty 5 National Parks in Utah on a road trip last May.

 

I laughed and nodded. But I didn’t really understand what she meant until we turned south on Utah 128, not long after crossing into the state on I-70 from Colorado. We’d just driven through the magnificent Rocky Mountains from Denver. We’d gaped at several 14-teeners, wound around numerous lofty cliffs, and cut through massive rock while crossing the Continental Divide via the Eisenhower Tunnel.

 

I thought I’d seen a lot of rocks. But nothing quite prepared me for the size, the texture, the colors, the variety, and the freaky formations of the rocks in southern Utah.

After crossing into the state on I-70, we turned south on Utah 128, passing scrub brush and abandoned buildings in the vast beige desert. After the ghost town of Cisco, the highway meets the Colorado River and the scenery changes dramatically for next 40 miles to Moab.

Mesas, pinnacles rise along river

Chunks of burnt orange and barn red rocks begin appearing along the road as it hugs the wide, green river. The once flat pavement winds around canyons carved by rushing water and past massive rock formations topped with mesas, craggy peaks, and pinnacles. In the distance I could see the still snow-capped summits of the La Sal Mountains, looming over the red rocks to the southeast.

 

Soon massive rock formations in a spectrum of colors line the highway and the river banks, as if they’d just burst fully formed out of the sandy soil. Craning my head out the passenger-side window, camera in hand, I peer up at the sky-high spires of the Fisher Towers. We pull over for a closer look, so we don’t run off the road and into the river. I gaze up for several minutes, captivated by the staggering beauty and the serenity of the rocks.

 

So began my love affair with the rocks of Utah. For the next two weeks I oohed and aahed at the twisted arches of Arches National Park near Moab, admired Upheaval Dome at Canyonlands, and read a Mormon Pioneer register etched in the 1800s on the sky-topping walls of Capitol Gorge in Capitol Reef.

 

I was already infatuated when we hit Bryce Canyon. But I was enchanted anew by the statuesque hoodoos – bulbous shaped spires of sedimentary rock carved by ice and rain. Rising together like a forest of trees from the bottom of the canyon at the Bryce Amphitheater, the hoodoos immediately became my favorite rocks. I admired them in the morning, when the sunlight turned them light yellow and almost transparent. I adored them in the evening as the setting sun transformed the canyon into a fairyland of ET-like characters.

 

Determined to get a closer look, I decided to hike Queen’s Garden Trail below “the rim” and into the amphitheater. After a steep climb down a narrow trail, I was nearly eye-level with some of the hoodoos as I wound around rock formations and climbed through windows in the rock. I could have spent the day just studying the color and shapes of the rocks. Some are said to resemble famous people. The Queen’s Trail, for example, was named for Queen Victoria, though I couldn’t see the resemblance.

 

Hoodoos enchant Bryce Canyon

 

We had one more park on our list – Zion National Park. Though its sandstone peaks were loftier and its slot canyons narrower than those at the other parks, the people-to-rock ratio was much higher. Ranked as one of the most popular parks in the U.S.–for good reason–it’s also one of the most crowded.

 

After hiking the challenging Canyon Overlook Trail on the eastside of Zion, we waited 30 minutes in the blazing sun to drive through the narrow tunnel that connects to the main park. Then we inched around hairpin turns shadowed by towering rocks, until we reached the tiny town of Springdale and headed for our rent house in St. George.

 

We returned the next day to join hundreds of hikers in wading boots carrying walking sticks tramping to the Narrows to get wet and slip into the slot canyons.

 

Zion’s spectacular slot canyons draw crowds

 

Even with the crowds I was still awed by the enormity and beauty of Zion, from the forested curves of the Virgin River to the flowering gardens hanging off peaks that reach into the sky.

 

I’m sorry, my friend, but your words didn’t begin to convey the beauty, the power, the majesty, or the mystery of the rocks of Utah. But maybe words never can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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