Copyright 1925 by
W. H. Murray
GENERAL PASSENGER AGENT
Union Pacific System
OMAHA, NEB.
[Illustration: Union Pacific System Overland]
ZION NATIONAL PARK
BRYCE CANYON
CEDAR BREAKS
KAIBAB FOREST
NORTH RIM OF GRAND CANYON
[Illustration: Saddled horse]
ISSUED BY THE
Union Pacific System
[Illustration: _The Great White Throne from West Rim Trail, Zion
National Park_]
[Illustration: _Panorama of Zion Canyon_]
The Land of Flaming Canyons and Jeweled Amphitheatres
_Touched by a light that hath no name,_
_A glory never sung,_
_Aloft on sky and mountain wall,_
_Are God’s great pictures hung._
--_Whittier_
Southward from the thirty-eighth parallel of latitude the surface of
Western Utah descends in magnificent “Cyclopean steps” from the
flattened summits of the Wasatch Mountains, 11,000 feet high, to 3,000
feet at the _Rio Virgen_, then ascends gently in Arizona to the colossal
arch of the Kaibab Plateau, 9,000 feet in elevation and overlooking the
Grand Canyon. These Titanic terraces and palisaded plateaus, more
particularly the flaming canyons and jeweled amphitheatres cut from
their color-saturated rock layers, form scenic spectacles without peer
or rival on the globe. Nothing else is comparable to these wonderlands.
To see them is both a thrilling adventure and an artistic delight.
Measured by civilization’s yardstick, the unknown land in which they lie
is a frontier, still in the pioneer stage of existence. It is not so
long since the forts along the way actually repelled Indian attacks; it
is not so far to fastnesses where cougars come forth to prey on deer, or
to desert valleys where wild mustangs range. On the edge of the plains
are ruins of primitive dwellings of which the modern Indian knows
nothing; in many a secluded canyon are the more inscrutable habitations
of the cliff dwellers. The indomitable ranchers have built quaint,
poplar-shaded villages with homes of adobe, and their farms are often
fenced with stone.
[Illustration: _The Watchman, Zion National Park_]
It is a mysterious land of purple sage and empurpled distances, of
incredible color, of sun-magic and the wizardry of wind and water. It is
a place to drink in beauty, to form new conceptions of the divine.
Geologists recognize three subdivisions of the region from north to
south: the High Plateaus; the Terraced Plateaus; the Grand Canyon
Platform. From Cedar Breaks on the High Plateau it is more than 100
miles to Bright Angel Point on Grand Canyon’s rim; from Hurricane Ledge
on the west, eastward to the Colorado River is more than 100 miles.
The country reveals fascinating chapters of geologic history. It is a
region that has undergone great transitions, alternately sea bottom and
mountain top; a region broken and tilted by tremendous displacements; a
region scorched and branded by intense volcanic action; but more than
all else, from the viewpoint of human interest, a region profoundly
sculptured and given its most distinctive character by the
beauty-creating genius of erosion.
From Cedar Breaks, cut into mountains 11,000 feet high, the vision has a
sweep of 100 miles, and the vast terraces may be seen thrust out to the
south like promontories into the sea. Where one succeeds another, the
uppermost presents sinuous cliff walls, hundreds of miles in length and
superbly distinctive in color and carving. More than 10,000 feet of
strata are exposed, “a library of the ages in vivid bindings” that
contains the fossil remains of creatures since the morning of life on
earth. Each step down indicates the removal, by streams, rain, frost and
wind, of all the rock-layers above it. From the Grand Canyon Platform,
these 10,000 feet of strata have been completely swept away.[1]
The highest of the Terraced Plateaus, the Markagunt and Paunsaugunt, in
which Cedar Breaks and Bryce Canyon lie, break down in spired palisades
of the Pink Cliffs, endless in sculptured variety. Beneath the Markagunt
the southern scarps of the Kolob Plateau, into which flaming Zion Canyon
is sunk, form noble cliffs of pure, reposeful white. The next step
downward displays the glowing Vermilion Cliffs, castellated with ornate
prodigality and perhaps the grandest of all. Lower still are the
Shinarump Cliffs, banded with reds, browns, yellows, greens and purples.
Between them and the Kaibab lies a stretch of desert like a flattened
rainbow. Such is the strange, magnificent and colorful structure of the
land.
[Illustration: _Angels Landing, Zion National Park_]
Zion Canyon is a profound gorge with the colors of blood, fire and snow,
a matchless carving by the greatest of all sculptors, erosion. Several
of its mighty rock temples rank with the most majestic masses in the
land. The variety of its endless etchings, the exquisite harmonies of
its painted precipices, the sustained grandeur of its stupendous buttes
and walls, its glorious cycle of color from dawn to sunset are sources
of undimmed delight to the artistic instinct within everyone. It has one
aspect of beauty from its green-garbed floor, another from its dizzy rim
of white; from the dusky depths of the Narrows the dominant sensation is
soul-gripping awe.
Zion National Park includes other canyons of extraordinary interest, and
the entire terrace-top of the broad Kolob Plateau is a domain of
incredibly fantastic formations.
Cedar Breaks, the highest of Utah’s jeweled amphitheatres, is a place of
wild and lofty beauty, a series of vast sculptured basins sunk into the
summits of the mountains. Endless outflung bastions and buttresses,
supporting towers, parapets and craggy spires, parade from the rim down
into the painted abyss where, dotted by the green of pines, red, orange,
yellow, purple and white are banded and splashed in a symphony of color
literally unbelievable till the eyes confirm.
Bryce Canyon also is an amphitheatre, a richer, more compacted bit of
resplendence. You hardly believe that Bryce Canyon exists until you have
gazed many times; so amazing is its beauty that it seems like the
flashing vision of a dream. It is something heretofore unknown and
unsuspected in scenery--a miracle of erosion, a peerless fantasy of
color. From its depths, in pairs, in groups, in clusters, in hosts and
in myriads, leap to the eyes the most amazingly bizarre forms, slender,
dainty, bulky, grotesque--a bewildering combination of heaven and hell
in which the angelic easily predominates. These myriad forms, human,
animal and geometrical, lighted with unearthly radiance, seem to dance
from their celestial castles and gorgeous grottoes to meet the beholder.
Bryce contains all that architecture, all that sculpture knows, in one
great glory hole painted pink, red, white, orange and purple.
[Illustration: _East Temple and the Twin Brothers, Zion National Park_]
What magic the morning and the evening sun performs on the pigmented
palisades of this unique land! A dull rust red a moment ago, that
distant peristyle now glows like fiery embers; the whites are more
dazzlingly white and caressingly soft; the orange tones are enriched;
the purple shadows swarm like birds. Colors flit mysteriously from
salient to salient as if some one back stage were focusing spotlights.
Dormant, crouching bulks rise, stretch and add to their girths, decking
themselves in their most splendid raiment to bid farewell to the master
of ceremonies, the vivifying sun.
Farther to the south is the Kaibab Forest and the North Rim of Grand
Canyon, remote from traveled ways. Kaibab National Forest is the largest
and most beautiful virgin forest in the United States. Beneath the
stately pines, spruces and firs, the grassy forest floor is as clean as
a carefully groomed lawn, and there are many open parks, aspen
encircled, of bewitching charm. Numberless deer roam unmolested through
this fairy forest and the rare white-tailed squirrel flits ghostlike
through its aisles. There Roosevelt hunted and discriminating
beauty-lovers have sought the region for years.
Words are of little avail to describe the Grand Canyon. Across the great
plateau the Colorado River has cut a series of canyons about 220 miles
long, a mile in depth and twelve miles in width. The Kaibab division is
the deepest and wildest part of the Grand Canyon and presents its
sublimest scenes. On the North Rim are some of the most celebrated of
all the viewpoints, though known only to a few hundred adventurous
travelers--Bright Angel Point, Point Sublime, Point Imperial, Cape Final
and Cape Royal.
The way is now prepared for you to see these miracle places of America
in comfort.
[Illustration: _The Temple of Sinawava, Zion National Park_]