It's ironic, in this seemingly unending desert, that water creates most
of what we see. North of Zion, rain falling on the 11,000-foot-high
Colorado Plateau races downhill, slices Zion's relatively soft layers,
and pushes its debris off the Plateau's southern edge. This edge is not
abrupt, but it STEPS down a series of cliffs and slopes known as the
Grand Staircase.
Zion's gathered waters, known as the Virgin River, traverse Mojave Desert
lands and join the Colorado River in Lake Mead's handmade basin before
completing their Pacific-bound journey.
At the lowest elevations, Mojave Desert species - desert tortoise and
honey mesquite - infiltrate Zion's dry, south-facing canyons. At mid-
elevations, Great Basin Desert species like shadscale and big sagebrush
mingle with the Colorado Plateau's bigtooth maple and Utah Juniper.
Immutable yet ever-changing, these walls were wrought by water.
Now, they stand as a silent sentinel to the sands of time.
~Photo taken inside Zion Canyon in September 2007~