Original subtitles

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In the high plateaus of Utah

lies a kingdom of towering rock in the rugged badlands.

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From a maze of narrow canyons

to a sea of soaring spires...

it is one of North America's last great wild lands.

Home to one of the world's

most spectacular natural structures...

a lifeline to the desert's parched creatures,

a place where canyons are carved from chaos...

one of the world's roughest natural wonders...

This is the Colorado Plateau.

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Zion National Park...

A geological treasure,

stretching across nearly 230 square miles,

of Southern Utah's Colorado Plateau:

more than 100,000 square miles of high desert plains,

sprinkled with pines and junipers.

It is a high altitude desert plateau

bounded by the Rocky Mountains,

the Great Basin and Sonoran Deserts.

The Colorado Plateau straddles Utah, Arizona,

Colorado and New Mexico

and has a land mass larger than the entire United Kingdom.

Zion is defined by a landscape

of deep canyons,

majestic arches

and towering sandstone walls.

It is like a wild gallery of sculpted rock.

Elevated as high as 4,000 feet above sea level,

Zion National Park is the second-tallest point

on the Colorado Plateau.

Its canyon walls stand taller

than the world's highest skyscraper.

>> I love being completely surrounded

by the rocks and the canyons

and just being a little tiny piece of this vast area.

>> Millions of years ago, a shift in the earth's crust

pushed huge swaths of rock upward,

lifting Zion to its current elevation.

This uplift was the first of many events

to shape Zion's landscape.

Streams, pouring off the plateau,

cut into ancient rock layers.

Sediment and large boulders were carried downstream,

sculpting a magnificent canyon.

One waterway is still carving its path through Zion.

The Virgin River.

This is the lifeblood of Zion's ecosystem

and the architect of its mighty canyon.

Though averaging only 100 feet across,

the Virgin River is astoundingly steep:

dropping 7,800 feet along its 160-mile path.

An average descent of 50 feet per mile.

By contrast,

the Mississippi River drops just one inch per mile.

As the river descends into the valley,

it gains speed, hastening erosion

as if cutting into a cake to expose its many layers.

The Virgin River slices through the canyon.

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At Zion, water is everything.

>> The Virgin River itself truly is the lifeblood of this region,

it's how we still today are able to grow gardens

and have agriculture

and it plays a very big role for the last 10,000 years

in human inhabitants here in this region.

>> In the 1850s,

Mormon farmers settled in the valley of the park,

building communities along the river.

The canyon floor was farmed until the 1900s

when Zion became a national park.

Named by these Mormon pioneers,

"Zion" means a "place of peace and refuge".

The Virgin River is an oasis in the middle of a dust bowl.

Rimmed by the Mojave and Great Basin deserts,

Zion lies at the intersection of three separate ecosystems.

The park blooms with more than 900 plant species

found nowhere else in Utah.

The river flows year round providing vital drinking water

to a surprisingly wide diversity of wildlife.

Five-hundred more species of animals

live along its banks than in the surrounding desert.

In the southwest, water is a cherished commodity.

Down in the valley, southeast of Zion,

a long and arid stretch of land, called a Dry Wash,

lies in the foothills of the high plateaus.

With less than 1 inch of rainfall a year...

The soil is robbed of color.

The air deprived of moisture.

The land, bone-dry.

But not for long...

Summer months bring heat.

They also bring the North American monsoon.

>> The actual overall weather pattern of the area

completely shifts.

And that's actually where the word "monsoon" comes from.

It's an Arabic word from " mausim "

which actually means "season".

So it's a seasonal shift in the wind patterns

in the entire region.

>> Ancient traders sailing the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea

were the first to describe this weather spectacle.

They observed a system of alternating winds

across the tropics.

In winter, the wind blows dry

from the mountains to the northeast.

In summer, it gusts from the opposite direction.

A difference in temperature

between warmer land and cooler sea

causes wind to flow from the moist ocean to the dry land,

creating the seasonal monsoon.

>> This wind pattern shift sucks moisture up

from the tropics up into the southwest

and when the moisture comes up into this area,

it combines with daytime heating

and you get these really large thunderstorms

that form over the higher terrain.

(Rain pouring)

>> Heavy thunderstorms in the high terrain

dump as much as 2 inches of rain in just 2 hours.

Spread over a 20-square-mile dry wash,

millions of gallons of water flood this parched land.

>> All of that water has time to accumulate

and start running down this wash.

If you can imagine

this is about the size of a 6-lane freeway.

And right now it's bone dry,

I mean the ground is just--

there's just very little moisture here at all.

It can go from the conditions that we have now to--

I could be under 3 or 4 feet of water right now

where I'm sitting, almost instantaneously.

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>> Flash flooding,

a sudden, destructive rush of water,

provoked by heavy rain.

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>> This massive torrent of debris laden carnage

just comes tearing through these washes.

And you'll just see this dark wall of debris

come rolling around the corner

and the only way to describe it is a tsunami on land.

Branches, boulders,

entire trees become debris...

left behind in the destructive path of the flash flood.

>> There's a lot of evidence here in this wash

of a flash flood that came through here.

If you look around, there's tree branches,

there's bushes,

things that just don't belong in the wash.

And, you know, even this pine cone right here

is a good example of debris that can be carried down a flood.

There's no pine trees for 30 miles of this location.

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There's a quote around here:

"There's two easy ways to die in the southwest:

thirst and drowning."

>> The walls of the canyon tower more than 2,000 feet high.

The trails wind for hundreds of miles.

Southern Utah's slot canyons attracted venture seekers

year round.

But they become a deathtrap, prone to flash flooding.

>> That is a dangerous place to be

and you can lose your life in that situation,

which happens every few years out here.

People will die in the slot canyons

and the reason for that is,

in a slot canyon there's nowhere to go.

You're literally in a groove

that's been carved in the sandstone hundreds of feet deep.

You can touch both walls and see miles ahead of you

and there's a flash flood approaching you from the back,

you only have one option: to run away from it.

And you're not gonna outrun a flash flood.

If you're gonna come hike into the backcountry

in the southwest,

know your weather forecast for that day.

>> The destructive power responsible for taking lives

is also the creator

of Southern Utah's striking canyons,

carved into the landscape with abrasive force.

On an average day, the Virgin River

flows at forty cubic feet per second.

>> For a large part of the year, it's not flowing very high.

There's not a lot of this erosion happening.

But when a flash flood happens,

it can really intensify the river,

and that's when it starts picking up more of the material

from the bottom of the river

and really carving the way at the sandstone walls.

>> During a flash flood, the river can swell up

to 200 times its original volume, in minutes.

Strong enough to carry a boulder the size of a car,

fierce enough to rip full-grown trees out of the ground...

the Virgin River moves debris

at a rate of 300 million tons a year,

carving out the canyon walls and floors with every deluge.

Scoured by wind, sculpted by water,

and wrinkled with time,

Zion's cliff face tells the story of its creation.

More than 200 million years ago,

as the ground rose and fell,

the landscape changed:

transforming shallow seas

into one of the world's largest sand dune deserts.

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Groundwater filled with minerals

seeped through the layers

binding sand particles together like cement.

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Over millions of years,

desert sands turned to sandstone,

as sediment transformed into rock.

In the eastern corner of the park,

a natural wonder bears witness to Zion's desert past:

Checkerboard Mesa -

named after its distinct crisscross pattern.

The engravings etched into the rock

tell the story of Zion's geological history.

Horizontal ridges reveal the region's past life

as a sand dune.

More than 200 million years ago,

ancient winds blew across the desert,

piling sand dunes one on top of another.

Hardened over time to stone,

these ripples were preserved

in the sandstone walls of Checkerboard Mesa.

When the desert sun retreats,

temperatures drop by as much as 60 degrees.

Water rolling down the mountain freezes in its tracks,

leaving behind deep vertical fractures,

like cracks in pavement after a harsh winter.

In the mid-sixteenth century,

Spanish explorers arrived in the American southwest

in search of gold and gems.

Instead, they discovered the geological treasures of Zion.

Among the canyons, plateaus and arches,

explorers found isolated flat-topped mountains.

Fascinated by their form, they called them "mesas",

meaning "table" in Spanish.

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Hidden amid Zion's geological grandeur

are hundreds of natural arches

chiseled into jagged canyon walls.

Tucked away in the remote

northwestern corner of the park

rests one of Zion's most spectacular wonders.

Suspended high above the rugged cliffs,

a ribbon of rock stands proudly against the canyon wall.

Stretching more than 280 feet,

the Kolob Arch is one of the longest natural arches

on the planet.

The arch is nestled in Zion's Kolob Canyons,

a remote 50-square-mile expanse,

where soaring cliffs and deep slot canyons

stand largely undiscovered.

Overlooking all of Zion,

Kolob Canyon's tallest peaks

soar 8,700 feet above sea level.

In the 1850s, Mormon settlers arrived at Kolob Canyons.

They used the area for timber and grazing stock.

Astounded by the soaring walls of sandstone,

settlers called these canyons "Kolob",

a word derived from Mormon scripture,

meaning "residence closest to heaven",

Along the jagged walls of Zion.

future arches begin to take shape.

The formation of an arch begins with water,

trickling into cracks along the surface.

Water freezes and expands each ridge

applying pressure to the structure.

Eventually, the fragile sandstone gives way,

crumbling and flaking.

While tougher strips of rock remain,

forming a natural arch.

In architecture,

the arch is the most stable load-bearing structure.

But over time, the erosion that created these arches

will eventually destroy them.

In the heart of Zion's main canyon,

perched high in the clouds,

more than 1,400 feet above the canyon floor,

is one of the world's most extreme hiking trails,

Angel's Landing.

>> It's a 1,400-foot elevation gain from river level here

all the way up to the top,

and the last half mile of Angel's Landing

is a vertical drop on both sides.

So you're pulling yourself up a series of chains

to get all the way out to that edge.

>> In 1916, on an exploration up-canyon,

the Methodist Minister Frederick Fisher looked up

at the monolith and proclaimed,

"Only an angel could land on it."

By 1926, a trail was cut into solid rock,

leading hikers up to the heavens.

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Down in the valley, ringed by towering rock,

seeps and springs trickle down sandstone,

collecting at the canyon base.

The Emerald Pools.

Hanging gardens bloom from the jagged walls,

watered by moisture seeping through the sandstone,

and a gentle mist of spray from the falls.

Junipers and towering ponderosa advance thirsty roots downward

in search of nutrients.

Water weeps into the canyon, streaking the rock face black,

while droplets dance on fallen boulders below.

>> It's a little surprising for some people who come here,

and, you know, they expect to see a barren landscape

but really, it's like a little oasis in Zion.

>> Water, carving its path through Zion's porous sandstone,

hits an impenetrable roadblock...

a rock layer called the Kayenta Shale:

sandstone packed with silt, mud and clay,

resistant to erosion.

Forced to change its course, water gushes out of the rock

in a series of cascading springs,

spraying the canyon's parched walls

on its descent into the Virgin River.

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Down in the valley,

towering walls tightly envelop the Virgin River-

creating a 15-mile maze of winding trails, through water.

The Zion narrows.

A gorge, 2,000 feet deep

but only 20 feet across,

zigzags through the park:

One-hundred times deeper than it is wide.

Whether hiking in the Virgin River...

or climbing 2,000-foot cliffs...

Zion is a playground for those who seek adventure.

More than 160 miles of hiking trails

wind through Zion National Park.

From short, single-day hikes to backpacking trips,

spanning several days,

some choose to sightsee vertically.

2,000-foot canyon cliffs

entice thrill-seekers from around the world.

Treacherous multi-day climbs are made more daring

by the slick rock surface of Zion's sandstone walls.

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>> I like to get out into the back country.

I like the wilderness locations.

I really enjoy being able to spend a whole day here

and not see anyone.

If you just put a little bit more effort forth

and hike some of the more strenuous trails,

you can find complete solitude.

>> Zion's landscape of soaring cliffs,

forested plateaus

and deep gorges

extends beyond the boundaries of the park.

To the southeast lies Canaan Mountain Wilderness area,

a high and wild plateau of slick rock

dotted with ponderosa pines.

>> It's a multiday backpacking trip

across a waterless expanse of sandstone.

So it is very, very strenuous and it's just very difficult

because you do have to pack in a lot of water

and then filter the tiny amounts of water

that you can find along your way.

There are hundreds of miles of established trails

and slot canyons and peaks

that are still waiting to be explored.

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>> Zion is a wild and remote paradise

for hikers and explorers.

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Down in the valley,

the morning sun pours light on the canyon's western wall,

igniting Zion with a golden glow.

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In the foothills of the shaded canyon,

mule deer graze,

savoring the coolness of early dawn.

Named after their greatest desert adaptation,

these deer have a set of large mule-like ears

atop their heads

that functions as a cooling system.

Blood vessels, close to the skin's surface,

release body heat into the surrounding air.

The mule deer's grey coat blends in with desert shrubbery

to provide camouflage from potential predators:

cougars, coyotes and, for young deer, eagles.

In fall and winter,

mule deer survive on a meagre diet of desert shrubs.

The changing seasons and summer monsoons

bring a feast of greens.

As the desert sun climbs above the canyon,

mule deer take shelter

in the shadows of the soaring sandstone walls.

Like all desert creatures,

they have mastered a game of hide and seek,

with the beating rays of the daylight sun.

Down on the simmering canyon floor,

a gopher snake seeks refuge,

retreating into fleeting shade,

afforded by the tangled branches of the desert brush.

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As the evening sun descends,

the silhouette of Zion's majestic mountaineer

is burned into the desert sky.

The bighorn sheep -

one of nature's most talented climbers...

Bighorns inhabit the steep, soaring mountains

of eastern Zion.

This seemingly inhospitable landscape of vertical rock

is home.

Elevated more than 2,500 feet above the valley,

these rugged cliffs are a safe zone.

With ledges as narrow as 2 inches,

scaling a mountain this steep is a treacherous task

for large predators, like coyotes and mountain lions.

But for the bighorn sheep,

it provides a quick escape route.

Desert bighorn sheep are born equipped

to scale these steep mountains.

Their outer hooves are like toenails,

formed to hook onto even the smallest of rocks.

In the 1960s,

desert bighorn sheep were extinct at Zion.

Early pioneers brought livestock

and with it, diseases that decimated the wild sheep.

Eventually, the species vanished completely from the park.

A decade later, the national park service

reintroduced this icon of the Rockies

back into Zion's canyons.

Today, the population is at more than 500

and growing every year.

After a day of rest, in the canyons' shaded caves,

desert bighorn sheep emerge from hiding.

Mothers and their young assemble on a mountaintop

to feed in the final hours of daylight glow.

Bighorn sheep find safety in numbers...

Females, called ewes,

band together in herds of up to 15.

Groups of males are much smaller,

with as few as 2-5 members.

The sexes only get together during breeding season.

>> Springtime here in Zion is a very neat time of year

for looking at the desert bighorn.

They have lambs right now

and you can see the families on the rocks,

you can see the lambs

trying to learn how to make their way

across the landscape following their parents.

>> Protective mothers supervise their young, watching,

as they take their first steep steps into the world.

Cautious lambs tread carefully across the rock,

hesitant to make their way down.

While others throw caution to the wind

and learn to run before they walk.

Soon, these lambs will develop their signature horns.

Males will grow a large, curling rack

that weighs as much as 30 pounds.

The females don't quite live up to the bighorn name.

Theirs are much smaller and don't curl.

Rams use their horns as weapons

during the rut of mating season.

The horns of desert sheep are also everyday utensils:

they are used to break open cacti -

a desert plant that keeps the sheep hydrated

when water is scarce.

In the cool setting sun, bighorn sheep are in no rush

slowly nibbling on nearby shrubbery.

Well-adapted to the desert,

bighorns can go a week without drinking,

sustaining their body moisture from their food alone.

In times of need, a desert bighorn can lose

as much as 30% of its body weight in water -

almost as much as a camel -

and still survive.

As the setting sun shades the canyon,

bighorns take a final nibble

before heading back up canyon for the night.

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East of Zion,

nature slowly sculpts intricate formations

from the limestone walls of Utah's highest plateau.

At a towering elevation of more than 6,600 feet,

the Paunsaugunt Plateau is blanketed by snow.

More than 16 feet

collect on the plateau each year.

Paunsaugunt means "home of beavers",

named by the Paiute,

the indigenous people of the Great Basin area.

Bristlecone Pine Forests - alpine meadows -

lakes and streams,

stretch 25 miles long and 10 miles wide.

Carved into the high plateau of deep green forest

is one of Utah's most stunning natural treasures...

Bryce Canyon National Park.

A sea of soaring spires

extends across 56 square miles

of Southern Utah's Colorado Plateau.

The park curves along a semicircle

referred to as an amphitheater.

Down in the bowl,

the bright orange pinnacles of Bryce

shift shapes and shades

as nature's spotlight moves across the sky.

>> When you step onto the rim of the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater,

it's really a scene that's not like anything

you've ever experienced anywhere.

And it's just a feeling of awe

that nature can create some place

that is just so spectacular.

>> More than 50 million years ago,

an ancient lake covered this land.

And its unique pinnacles

were nothing more than sediment on the lake bottom.

Layers of calcium-rich mud, silt and sand

settled at the base.

Iron-rich minerals dissolved in the water

and seeped through the sediment, like food coloring,

rendering it a deep orange hue -

the signature shade of Bryce's brilliant peaks.

Over millions of years, the calcium-rich sediments

solidified into limestone and mudstone.

The building blocks of Bryce canyon.

These colorful layers of sediment surfaced

as the ancient lake was drained

by the uplift of the Colorado Plateau.

Despite its name,

Bryce is not considered a real canyon

because it was not carved by flowing water.

Its towering spires were chiseled

by the freezing and thawing of rain and snow.

At nearly 9,000 feet above sea level,

Bryce is the highest point on the Colorado Plateau.

On a clear day, the view from Bryce

is a breathtaking 150-mile expanse

of rugged cliffs and desert plains.

But, as the elevation climbs, the temperature drops.

With the setting sun,

temperatures at Bryce can plunge by as much as 40°F.

Winter nights can get as cold as -30°F.

Snow, thawed by the warm sun, then freezes overnight.

Bryce canyon goes through 200 of these cycles each year.

Snowmelt trickles down the walls of Bryce,

pooling in the rock's vertical ridges.

As water freezes overnight,

it can expand by as much as 10%.

Bit by bit, ice pries these cracks open,

expanding them slowly, like potholes in a city street.

Eventually, openings are cut right through the rock

and holes, called windows, form in the walls of Bryce.

When a window grows too big, the top stretch of rock

linking the two vertical walls collapses.

From small pebbles

to large, boulders the size of a minivan,

the rocks of Bryce come tumbling down

to be washed away by snowmelt and flash flooding.

Left behind are bizarre and mesmerizing pinnacles:

hoodoos.

Like a fingerprint,

every hoodoo in Bryce canyon is unique.

These orange pinnacles, shaped like totem poles,

vary in size.

Some are the height of an average human,

others as tall as a 10-story building.

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The Paiute, a nomadic tribe

that inhabited the Paunsaugunt Plateau of Bryce,

believed these soaring pinnacles

were solidified remains of people,

turned to stone for their evil deeds,

frozen for eternity by a vengeful god.

Early Spanish explorers

believed that Native Americans worshipped these stones.

The Spanish called them "hoodoos", in reference

to an African-American spiritual tradition.

As the evening sun descends,

the hoodoos of Bryce burn red against a crisp blue sky.

Crowded into 2 miles of Bryce Park

is the largest concentration of hoodoos on the planet.

Each layer of rock that makes up Bryce Canyon

erodes at its own pace,

sculpting the unique curves of every hoodoo.

Mudstone is the softest and most easily eroded.

It is usually the narrowest part of every pinnacle.

Limestone is the toughest,

it is the wider, top block that caps the hoodoo.

Acting as a protective layer,

limestone shields the mudstone below from erosion.

But even this protective rock eventually erodes away

and the hoodoo becomes nothing more than a pile of dirt.

As old hoodoos vanish, new ones are created.

Eventually, the erosion that creates these hoodoos

will also destroy them.

It is estimated, in fewer than 3 million years,

the hoodoos of Bryce will disappear:

worn down by wind, water, gravity

and the ravages of time.

From the colorful pinnacles of Bryce,

to the deep and winding narrows of Zion...

The high plateaus of Utah

are a natural and geological treasure.

>> It's premiere country, premiere landscape,

just beautiful formations to come see.

A once-in-a-lifetime place.

>> The highest peak of the plateau offers a front row seat

to one of nature's most beautiful spectacles.

>> When you first walk up

to the edge of the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater,

it's just an absolutely awe-inspiring experience

to see these thousands of brilliantly colored hoodoos

right in front of you.

>> A rugged landscape

of soaring cliffs and boundless canyons...

>> The vastness of Zion is what makes it special to me -

the reminder that I get every day that I'm a speck.

I'm so tiny in the grand scheme of things,

and I love being completely surrounded

by the rocks and the canyons

and just being a little tiny piece of this vast area.

>> This wild stretch of Southern Utah

is a window into its rich geological past.

Zion's walls reveal the history of ancient desert dunes.

The forces that continue

to carve through the high plateaus of Utah

remind us that the story of this majestic land

is still being written.

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