Original subtitles

In Zion National Park,

warmer months attract millions of visitors

to its towering sandstone cliffs.

But today, only a rare few embrace the cold of winter.

They're here to scale a buttress

taller than the Empire State Building,

Angels Landing.

Cliff Ecologist, Zac Warren

and climbing partner Adam Clifford

are here with a mission.

Even with fingertips numbed by the frigid rock,

they must push upward.

Soaring to such great heights usually lies only with the

winged inhabitants of Zion.

And in the hardest-to-reach pockets of this

pristine landscape,

an amazing creature lurks.

Zac's exploration...

Climber mode off, scientist engage.

Brings him 200 feet into this hidden fracture cave.

Where he finds a Townsend's Big-eared bat.

The remote cracks and crevices of Angels Landing give bats

a safe haven to hibernate in Winter.

Zac and his team test as many bats as they can find,

investigating if they're infected by the deadly

white-nose syndrome.

This fungal disease has killed

millions of bats across North America.

But according to tests like these,

the bats here remain clear of the infection.

Zion provides a safe haven for more than just bats.

Named by 19th-century Mormon pioneers,

after the ancient Hebrew word for refuge,

Zion lives up to its name

for the 400 animal species that thrive here.

This exalted landscape stems from the Virgin River,

which connects its distinct geology

to the creatures that call Zion home.

In the harshness of winter, wild turkeys flock together

by the Virgin for safety and food.

But community living can ruffle some feathers.

An older male, a Tom.

And a younger gobbler, a Jake.

Before spring arrives,

they fight to establish pecking order.

This will determine who has mating rights and who doesn't.

Wing punches.

Talon kicks.

The victor bites his opponent into submission.

However, this commotion draws unwanted attention.

Gray foxes can hear tiny squeals from 150 feet away.

But by taking the high ground,

the turkeys force the fox to search for easier prey.

Winter's retreat brings more hunting opportunities

as rodents and vegetation surface.

Warming temperatures restart the sculpting of Zion's

enigmatic landscape.

Across 250 million years,

Zion's underlying tectonic activity

has elevated this sandstone plateau to

10,000 feet above sea level.

Ice melt from these dramatic heights courses down to the

Virgin River.

100 times steeper than the Mississippi,

within the park,

the Virgin wields immense cutting force.

Over time, these fast-running waters

slash through the sandstone.

In some places, carving narrow slot canyons

as deep as 2,000 feet.

As winter gives way,

the swollen river further powers

the sculpting of this striking landscape.

Connecting the park's wildlife, plants, and geology.

The inviting temperatures of Spring draw in more visitors,

just as a different kind of snowstorm hits.

Cottonwood trees release their fluffy seeds, by the millions.

Taking root along the river basin,

they replenish this habitat.

Providing new homes and new spots for foraging.

From the lowlands,

Zion's ecosystems evolve by elevation.

Climbing upwards,

pinyon-juniper forest covers nearly 50% of the park.

And atop Zion's highest plateaus,

pines and firs dominate.

At these craggy heights,

only the hardiest can thrive,

like the Desert Bighorn Sheep.

Once driven to extinction here.

Today, the Bighorn are back on the rise.

Radio collars help scientists track their recovery.

Over 500 populate Zion today.

But scaling these canyon walls comes with considerable risks.

Built into the Bighorn's DNA,

an agility for living on the edge.

Rectangular pupils widen their field of vision.

Constantly on the lookout for predators,

they use Zion's rugged terrain as a defense.

As night falls, the Bighorn bed down in the safety of

Zion's steep bluffs.

At this hour, another world awakens.

Darkness opens new opportunities to hunt.

Even for Zion's most elusive predators.

Roughly a dozen mountain lions call this place home.

Their large eyes give them night vision,

which they use to hunt deer and bighorn

in near darkness.

The rhythm of life in Zion, cycles anew with every dawn.

In Spring, wild turkeys magnify this rhythm.

In this male's pursuit of a mate,

he puts on quite a show.

The snood hanging over his beak lengthens

as he puffs himself up.

At first, his parading goes unnoticed.

Finally...

his gobbles pique one female's interest.

A soft, guttural drumming draws her in.

He makes this sound by sucking in air

and quickly forcing it out.

But the Tom must get close to the hen in order for her to

feel the vibrations.

Following his deep rumble the hen heeds his call.

In this lover's dance, she takes the lead.

Upriver, the Virgin continues its carving.

The canyon walls close in.

And sunlight narrows to slender beams.

These vertical walls inspired the Southern Paiute to call

this place Mukuntuweap, meaning Steep Canyon.

For those who travel Zion's century-old trails,

they'll find these walls imbued with the stories, traditions,

and spiritual beliefs of those who have called it home

for countless generations.

These rock layers represent

150 million years of Earth's history.

Like pages in a book, the layers can be read.

They speak of tropical oceans.

Coastal sand dunes.

And deserts rivaling the Sahara.

The white tips of the Navajo sandstone harken back to the

time of the dinosaurs.

From space, satellites pick up

the ancient, striated stone.

Chiseled out by the Virgin River,

the park forms the western edge of

the massive Colorado Plateau.

Red sandstone highlights the elevated expanse.

President Woodrow Wilson designated Zion as

Utah's first national park in 1919.

The same year as Arizona's Grand Canyon.

Today, a total of nine parks

stand along the edge of this plateau.

The most densely concentrated collection of

National Park Lands in the US.

All thanks to the magnificence of the geology,

sculpted by water, wind, and the march of time.

Away from the shadow of soaring buttresses,

new life unfurls in the sun.

A super bloom of desert globemallow ignites.

While these flowers open to the daylight,

some reveal a sleeping guest,

the globemallow bee.

Native to Zion, they cover themselves in pollen.

As the bees move,

they ensure the flowers' life cycle and their own.

This mother has one duty,

provide nectar and pollen for her unborn young back home.

However, rather than living in hives,

each bee digs her own individual nest.

When lined with enough pollen and nectar,

she lays her eggs.

A mother's work is never done.

She must gather more nectar and pollen to finish her nest,

which will sustain her larvae.

Constant labor means leaving her nest unprotected.

The Bombyliidae fly may look like a bee,

but in Zion,

her disguise conceals her true intent,

to become a homewrecker.

If the fly can drop her parasitic larvae

into the bee's nest,

they will feed on the baby bees, killing them.

Solitary by nature, the bees ignore the new face.

Nests built up with a tall chimney

have an extra layer of defense.

But the fly has found a shallow nest,

unprotected by fortress walls,

capitalizing on the mother's absence,

it takes aim.

When this mother returns home,

she finds her nest undisturbed.

However, another mother here won't be so lucky.

Life feeds off death.

And sometimes, death inspires life.

In the 1980s, conservationists successfully reintroduced

wild turkeys to Zion.

Today, they are thriving.

By eating and excreting the vegetation,

they spread the seeds that expand

Zion's plant diversity.

This messy business goes beyond child's play.

For them, this is bath time.

With clean feathers, these kids prepare for

the biggest steps of their lives,

taking flight after a mere two weeks.

They grow up fast,

because they have to.

80% will not survive to adulthood.

Red-tailed hawks often target poults.

For this looming threat,

mama carries out her warning system.

These hawks won't attack adults,

making Mom's assembly call to gather around her

a life-saver.

Zion offers no promises in the quest for survival.

But the myriad ways creatures here

endure these barren conditions,

reveal the extent of their complex relationship

with the land.

For Desert Bighorn Sheep,

their bodies evolved to go for months without water

by extracting it from their food.

Since time immemorial, the indigenous Southern Paiute

have had their own relationship with the Bighorn.

For centuries, these majestic creatures provided them

more than sustenance.

Their importance is carved in stone

and written in the stars.

Southern Paiute legend tells of one courageous

mountain sheep, undertaking a journey up the tallest,

most dangerous mountain here.

Climbing so high that he ultimately transformed

into the North Star.

Though forcibly displaced in the 19th century,

the Southern Paiute maintain their connection to these lands.

Just south of Zion, they manage Pipe Spring

with the Park Service.

One of the only indigenous-run National Monuments in the U.S.

Unpolluted by city light,

this dark sky park sets the stage for stargazing.

Autumn Gillard is a dark sky ranger,

and a proud descendant of the Cedar band

of Southern Paiutes.

My journey under the stars began with

the teachings of my mother and grandmother.

Their wisdom nurtured my deep connection to our

Southern Paiute traditions, and the celestial wonders above.

My work leading Pipe Spring to its International Dark Sky

designation prevents artificial light from

intruding on our clear sky.

The stars are the heartbeat of our stories, songs, dances,

and agricultural practices.

Our ancestors were the original natural scientists

of North America,

weaving together empirical observations

with rich cultural and spiritual teachings.

Southern Paiute cosmology connects us to the stars,

sky beings, and to our four-legged brothers.

The North Star, transformed from Nah-gah,

the bighorn sheep,

continues to guide us with its enduring strength,

courage, and wisdom.

Despite the vast oceans that lie between,

our Paiute constellations mirror Roman-Greco depictions,

drawing similar patterns.

For us, Orion, the hunter,

aims his bow at the antelope

in the place of Taurus, the bull.

Within his eye is Pleiades, or So'nee,

a celestial resting place for our spirits.

Without the dark skies of Zion and Pipe Spring,

we would lose our tie to the constellations that embody

both our waking lives and the passage to the afterlife.

My mentor, Benn Pikyavit, stands as a living bridge

between the past and the present.

In our tradition,

the wisdom of the stars spans generations.

A legacy that was nearly lost.

But like the dark skies protected by our national lands,

the wisdom of the stars is available to all.

The dark skies of Zion protect more than the

stars and stories within.

Light pollution disrupts the behavior of many bat species.

Zion's dark skies provide a refuge

in which to thrive.

This single bat will chomp down

thousands of insects before dawn,

helping control the population,

and balance Zion's ecosystem.

But in nature, the only constant is change.

Zion's creatures brace for it.

At the height of Zion's summer,

temperatures can reach a sweltering

110 degrees Fahrenheit.

To survive, hardy creatures cling to

ever-shrinking patches of respite.

Relief comes as autumn nears.

Warm winds from the Gulf of California

meet moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and condense.

Causing massive monsoons.

Cooling the desert, and taking the park's sculpting efforts

to the next level.

Waterfalls channel the rain below,

causing the sandstone slot canyons

to swell dramatically.

Though flash floods cause

massive rockfalls and landslides,

the rushing waters also exert a much finer cutting tool.

Knocked loose by the floods,

tiny grains of sandstone coalesce and grind the rock

like a perpetual ribbon of sandpaper.

Continually smoothing.

Continually widening.

The sandy streams shape Zion's distinctive canyons.

As they rush downward,

they cut deeper into the Virgin riverbed.

All told, the Virgin will carry away more than

a million tons of rock debris every year.

Zion's annual cleansing marks the beginning of fall,

as does the sudden appearance of Tarantulas.

The change in humidity influences the otherwise

nocturnal spider to come out in droves.

The male tarantula will walk up to 20 long miles

searching for a female,

even during daylight.

As he closes in,

the female stays close to home,

where she will accept or reject him.

She readies her burrow,

throwing out strands of silk laced with pheromones

to advertise her availability.

To prepare, the male supercharges his

front two pedipalps with sperm.

But his affectionate advance could be his last.

His high-stakes move

involves significant risk.

If she disapproves, she will kill, and then eat him.

Cannibalistic females go on to produce

higher-quality offspring.

He risks coaxing her out from her burrow

by drumming the ground with his pedipalps.

Easy, easy does it.

Keeping her venomous fangs at bay,

his pedipalps spin his sperm web into her abdomen.

She's testy.

But he does escape with his life.

With no pillow talk, she returns to her burrow alone.

Soon, she will spawn an egg sac,

with 1,000 baby tarantulas.

For Zion's Bighorn Sheep,

mating also involves major confrontation.

The fall winds carry the scent of female ewes.

Curling back his upper lip, he inhales her pheromones.

A special gland in his mouth tells him if she's in heat.

But her irresistible scent attracts a younger challenger.

The elder makes his position clear.

But arrogance begs conflict.

Their battering rams can weigh 30 pounds,

giving new meaning to the expression:

"locking horns."

Though ramming with nearly 800 pounds of force,

the structure of their horns works like a shock absorber.

Taking the higher ground,

and charging at up to 40 miles per hour,

the elder prevails.

His gentle nudge receives a warm reception.

In six months, their life cycle will come full circle.

For now, the hardy creatures of Zion soak up the last

vestiges of fall as they brace for winter.

The web of life connects Zion's creatures to this land

of stark extremes, for all to bear witness.

In so doing, Zion continues to live up to its name,

not just as a refuge,

but also a utopia for the hardiest of creatures

that call this enchanted place home.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.