BRYCE CANYON A Geologic and Geographic Sketch of Bryce Canyon National Park

A GEOLOGIC AND GEOGRAPHIC SKETCH OF BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK

HISTORY

The pre-Indian inhabitants of Utah seem to have found the Bryce Canyon region an unfavorable place for large-scale settlement. The Basket Makers—the earliest people whose archaeological remains are sufficient to identify a culture—are represented in Paria Valley only by fragmentary textiles woven in fiber, fur, and feathers. The Puebloans, who followed the Basket Makers, occupied many sites along tributaries of the Paria, on the flat lands extending westward to White Cone, and eastward along the base and top of the Kaiparowits Plateau. A few of the dwelling sites are marked by stone walls, traces of cultivated fields, baskets, crude pottery, implements, and textiles, but most of them show no evidence of long-time occupation. Some of them doubtless were used only when crops of corn, beans, and melons needed attention. Brief examinations give the impression that the ancient settlements in southern Utah were the homes of pioneer colonists and essentially were outposts of the large Pueblo settlements in Arizona and New Mexico which attained a cultural peak about 1100 A. D. and left a notable record of excellence in architecture, agriculture, social organization, and the making of pottery. In the Bryce Canyon National Park region, the Puebloans were followed by the Piutes—peaceful tribes who built no permanent houses but from time to time occupied places favorable for hunting deer, rabbits, and insects, for gathering grass seeds and pinon nuts, and for cultivating small fields of corn. Piute arrow heads are often found. In contact with the Piutes were the linguistic relatives and also enemies, the Utes (Utahs), powerful tribes that once dominated Utah, Colorado, and Nevada. In the summer of 1872, Thompson met Piutes in camp and when the Paria Valley was settled, Piutes were living near Cannonville. At present there are no Indians in Garfield County nor in the adjoining Kane and Wayne Counties. Only Piutes and Utes now remain in the whole State of Utah. Navajos from south of the Colorado River frequently visited the Bryce Canyon region on hunting and trading expeditions.

It seems reasonably certain that the Spanish military-ecclesiastical entradas of the sixteenth century did not reach the Bryce Canyon region, but it is highly probable that some unknown trappers of the period of 1800-1850 explored the Paunsaugunt Plateau—known to the Piutes as the "home of the beaver." Doubtless, also, scouts sent out by the Church of the Latter-day Saints (1851-1860) in search of agricultural and grazing land in southern Utah, extended their journeys to the Paria Valley, but the first recorded traverse by white men of the region that includes Bryce Canyon National Park is the unpublished diary of Capt. James Andrus, who in 1866 lead a military expedition of some 60 men from St. George through Kanab and along the southern base of the Paunsaugunt Plateau and Table Cliffs into Escalante Valley in search for marauding Navajos. A memorial of this expedition is the grave on Averett Wash bearing the inscription "Elijah Averett, 1866," one of the few men ever killed by the Indians of this region. Andrus may have seen Bryce Canyon, though he did not describe it. In fact, the Mormon pioneers of the decades 1850-1870 seem to have taken the scenery of southern Utah for granted. Their energies were necessarily given to the absorbing task of gaining the fundamentals of living. The marvelous cliffs and canyons seen from their fields and herd grounds were made known to the outside world by expeditions from Washington.

Following his second voyage down the river (1871), Major J. W. Powell, Civil War veteran and first explorer of the Grand Canyon (1869), initiated the survey that resulted in maps and reports covering much of southern Utah. Under the direction of Powell, Alvin H. Thompson, geographer, made the first scientific traverse of the base of the Paunsaugunt and Aquarius Plateaus, along the route previously traveled in part by the noted Mormon scout, Jacob Hamblin. From the head of Johnson Canyon northeastward, he crossed the borders of Bryce Canyon National Park, reached the Paria River at the mouth of Yellow Creek and proceeded up "Table Cliff Creek" (Henrieville fork of the Paria) and on through Escalante Valley to the Colorado at the base of the Henry Mountains.

In the report of this traverse (1872), the salient features of Bryce Canyon National Park are for the first time described. Thompson called the great wall facing the Paria, "Table Cliffs, 3,000 feet above us, its face a succession of inaccessible precipices and steep, broken, tree-clad slopes" and described the rim of the plateau as "cliffs that show a beautiful pink color and for the upper 2,000 feet present bold perpendicular faces." He speaks of "mesas miles in length and only a few hundred yards in width ... long narrow ridges. ... innumerable canyons that widen into little alcove-like valleys a few acres in extent, rock-walled and covered with dense growths of grass, canes, or willows." In the scientific exploration of the Bryce Canyon region, Thompson was followed by Edwin E. Howell, Grove Karl Gilbert, and Lt. W. L. Marshall, members of a survey under the direction of Capt. George M. Wheeler, 1870-1876. Howell traversed the Pink Cliffs for a hundred miles and studied in particular their exposure at "Last Bluff" (the southern escarpment of Table Cliffs). Gilbert likewise extended his reconnaissance surveys to the Paria Valley, in his note book (1872) he writes, "up the Sevier (East Fork) a few miles and then to the left a few miles more until we came suddenly on the grandest of views. We stand on a cliff 1,000 feet high, the 'Summit of the Rim.' Just before starting down the slope we caught a glimpse of a perfect wilderness of red pinnacles, the stunningest thing out of a picture." Marshall mapped the East Fork of the Sevier overlooking Paria Valley and the east rim of Paunsaugunt Plateau. A pencil drawing by John E. Weyss, artist of this expedition, is the first known illustration of the strikingly picturesque erosion remnants of Bryce Canyon National Park.

In the mapping of the Bryce Canyon region, Thompson, Howell, Gilbert, and Marshall were followed by Capt. C. E. Dutton (U.S.A.), who included in his traverses the Paunsaugunt and Aquarius Plateaus. Dutton's description of the Paria "amphitheater" and of the erosion remnants in Bryce and Campbell Canyons are recognized classics in geological literature.

In his "Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah," Dutton writes:

"... the glory of all this rock-work is seen in the Pink Cliffs, the exposed edges of the Lower Eocene strata. The resemblances to strict architectural forms are often startling. The upper tier of the vast amphitheater is one mighty ruined colonnade. Standing obelisks, prostrate columns, shattered capitols, pannels, niches, buttresses, repetitions symmetrical forms, all bring vividly before the mind suggestions of the work of giant hands, a race of genii once rearing temples of rock, but now chained up in a spell of enchantment, while their structures are falling in ruins through centuries of decay."

In the course of a land survey (1876), T. C. Bailey, U. S. Deputy Surveyor, established a section corner on a "headland over-looking Paria Valley" (Sunset Point). "Entranced by the view" before him, he wrote:

"Immediately east and south of the last corner set, the surface breaks off almost perpendicularly to a depth of several hundred feet—seems indeed as though the bottom had dropped out and left rocks standing in all shapes and forms as lone sentinels over the grotesque and picturesque scenes. There are thousands of red, white, purple, and vermilion colored rocks, of all sizes, resembling sentinels on the walls of castles, monks and priests in their robes, attendants, cathedrals and congregations. There are deep caverns and rooms resembling ruins of prisons, castles, churches with their guarded walls. battlements, spires, and steeples, niches and recesses, presenting the wildest and most wonderful scene that the eve of man ever beheld, in fact, it is one of the wonders of the world."

Though the grandeur and beauty of Bryce Canyon National Park and its nearby cliffs and plateau tops were thus made known by Federal surveys of 1870-1880, the region attracted little attention for the next 40 years. It was remote from railways and established settlements, and its approach roads up the floor of Paria Canyon, up boulder-clogged Sevier Canyon, or through Red Canyon and across the muddy top of Paunsaugunt Plateau, were unsuited for wagons, and for several months of the year deep snow prevented travel. Even after settlements had been established at the very edge of the park (1874-1891) few accounts of the remarkable scenery reached the outside world. To the few resident farmers, the painted canyons in the plateau rim were but a part of the rugged landscape that characterizes all southern Utah. Of more direct concern to them was the fact that the great cliffs, narrow canyons, and the meager supply of water and tillable land made the region unsuitable for large-scale agriculture. To the stockman, the rougher parts of the terrace now admired as scenery were obstacles. Ebenezer Bryce is reported to have spoken of the canyon that bears his name as a "dandy place to lose a cow." During the surveys that resulted in setting aside Paunsaugunt Plateau as a national forest (1905), the scenic features of the upper Paria Valley and of its canyoned western tributaries became better known and, as early as 1907, adventurous nature lovers made pack-train trips to the head of the Sevier, to Bryce, Sheep, and Willis Canyons, and to Table Cliffs Plateau under the guidance of local stockmen who of necessity knew the feasible lines of access. With the improvement of the rough wagon road from Panguitch to Cannonville (1915-1917) so that automobiles under favorable conditions could pass through Red Canyon and down the "breaks" to the Paria, visitors became more numerous.

Even as late as 1918, LeRoy Jeffers, mountaineer, who in the Scientific American (October 5, 1918) described the alcoves in the plateau rim as "Temple of the Gods"—"could learn of no one who knew the way to save the Forester ... part of the way (from Panguitch) is over meadows where it is just possible to drive a car ... at frequent intervals we had to lift and push our car uphill through deep sand. When it rains in this region, all traffic is suspended for days by impassable mud." Jeffers reached the "fantastic towers" in Bryce alcove by "sliding down the steep and treacherous slope of loose gravel and entering the gloom of a canyon only five or six feet wide, whose overhanging walls are several hundred feet high."

For the peoples of Utah, interest in the Bryce Canyon region was aroused by the florid account of O. H. Grimes (Salt Lake Tribune, August 5, 1918):

"Massive cathedrals of darker hues pushed heavenward their delicate spires; grotesque gargoyles sculptured by wind, sand, and water, glared from cornices. And to complete the illusion, splotches of the more delicately colored sandstone glistened in the sunlight like stained-glass windows. Between the massive walls were wonderful rooms and hallways chiseled by time and the elements."

"Tall and graceful pedestals of brilliant hues were topped by broad tables of a delicate pinkish white; on spires, buttresses and monoliths were perched fanciful carvings of birds and animals of prehistoric size, and below, in attitudes of watchful waiting, stood the figures of ghouls and gnomes. Figures innumerable were aligned row above row in semi-circular formation in a bowl-shaped amphitheater; while on the mammoth stage to the front, others, clothed in a brilliant scarlet, were arranged with military precision in long, straight lines, as though on parade."

Thus it was that this region of scenic beauty "dribbled into appreciation."

Official recognition of the Bryce Canyon area as a suitable site for a national park dates from 1919 when the Utah legislature, doubtless influenced by the writings of Grimes and Jeffers, addressed to the Congress of the United States the following memorial (March 13, 1919):

"On the public domain within the boundaries of the Sevier National Forest, in the Pink Mountain region, near Tropic, Garfield County, Utah, there is a canyon popularly referred to as "Bryce's Canyon" which has become famed for its wonderful natural beauty. Inasmuch as the State and Federal Governments have indicated a desire that the natural attractions of our State and our Country be protected and preserved for the enjoyment of posterity, therefore, your memorialists respectfully urge that the Congress of the United States set aside for the use and enjoyment of the people a suitable area embracing 'Bryce's Canyon' as a national monument under the name of the 'Temple of the Gods National Monument'."

This memorial to Congress, supplemented by descriptions solicited from John A. Widtsoe, President of the University of Utah, and from Herbert E. Gregory, Professor of Geology, Yale University, was given wide publicity and enthusiastic support by the National Parks Association in 1920.

On June 8, 1923, Bryce Canyon National Monument, formerly part of Powell National Forest, was created by Presidential proclamation and on June 7, 1924, Congressional authority was given for the establishment of a "Utah National Park" which should include the monument. In consequence of this authority, Bryce Canyon National Park was created September 15, 1928. In 1931 the original park of 12,920 acres in the immediate vicinity of Bryce Canyon was enlarged to include such striking features as Natural Bridge, Rainbow (Podunk) Point, and view-points overlooking the great rock terraces that descend as steps to the Colorado canyons. As thus re-outlined, the park covers 35,240 acres, or 55.06 square miles.

As the approach road to the park an excellent automobile highway has been constructed through Red Canyon (1932-1938)—the only feasible route—and within the park extended for 18 miles along the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. (See Fig. 1) Many outlooks along this rim road afford wonderful views of nearby erosional forms and of distant landscapes stretching southward to Grand Canyon and eastward to Table Cliffs and Kaiparowits Plateau. (See Fig. 2 & 3) Branch roads lead to Sunset Point, Bryce Point, Little Bryce Point, and Fairy Land where the astonishing pinnacles and towers of the alcoves are immediately at hand and where between great pine trees are vistas of the Paria amphitheater, Kaiparowits Plateau, and the far-off Navajo Mountain. From near Park headquarters, foot and horse trails descend from the rim and wind about among the brightly colored, fantastically shaped figures quarried from bare rock. (See Fig. 4)

View-points in Bryce Canyon National Park overlook the headwaters of the Paria River where six settlements have been established, all of them within a radius of about 6 miles. Three of them—Cannonville, Henrieville, and Tropic—have grown into villages; others were abandoned because of scarcity of water and the destruction of fields by floods. Permanent settlements, the first in Utah between the Sevier River and Colorado, began at Cannonville in 1875; Henrieville, 1878; and Tropic, 1891. The combined population of these villages is about 1,000. For these settlements some water for irrigation is obtained from the Paria River and more from Henrieville Creek, but the reliable source is the Sevier River on the Paunsaugunt Plateau. From a dam on the river, a ditch 10 miles long that crosses the highway near the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park directs the water over the plateau rim to lands along the Paria. But all the water available is insufficient for large-scale agriculture. The villages are essentially home sites for stockmen.

Also near the park on the road to Escalante and the Capitol Reef National Monument is the interesting settlement of Widtsoe, the site of an amateur experiment in dry farming. Though once a village of some 200 people, it is now almost abandoned.

For the entire park, a large-scale topographic map, constructed by Richard T. Evans, U. S. Geological Survey (1828; 1931-32; issued 1939) is now available. It replaced the small-scale reconnaissance map of the Powell and Wheeler surveys (1875-1878), and of Gregory and Moore (1921-24). The new map depicts with remarkable accuracy the position and form of the features that make the region of special interest to students of geography and geology.