Zion National Park
— — the canyon the river is still cutting.
Not only on a wall.
“A 593-square-kilometre canyon country in southwestern Utah, where the Virgin River has cut nearly half a mile down through Navajo sandstone. The walls run apricot, cream, and a red so deep it reads almost violet in the last light. The road through Zion Canyon ends at the Temple of Sinawava, where the river goes on into the Narrows and the visitor turns back.
Zion National Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Zion National Park covers 593 square kilometres of canyon country in southwestern Utah, on the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. The Virgin River has cut Zion Canyon roughly 800 metres deep through layered Navajo sandstone over the past several million years. The park ranges in elevation from about 1,100 metres at the south entrance near Springdale to 2,660 metres at Horse Ranch Mountain. It was established as Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909 and redesignated Zion National Park in 1919, making it Utah's first national park.
The dominant rock is Navajo sandstone, deposited about 180 million years ago as wind-blown dunes in what was then one of the largest deserts in Earth's history. Iron oxide pigments give the cliffs their range from cream and apricot through deep rust; the strongest reds collect at the base of the great walls. The vertical jointing that produced the Court of the Patriarchs, the Great White Throne, and Angels Landing is younger — fracture lines opened as the Colorado Plateau lifted and the Virgin River cut down through them.
The shuttle bus runs the length of Zion Canyon Scenic Drive from March through November; private vehicles are not allowed on the canyon road in that window. Angels Landing requires a timed-entry permit issued by lottery, drawn from applications submitted seasonally through Recreation.gov. The Narrows — a wade upriver through the slot canyon — is open when flow rates are safe, typically late spring through autumn. The south entrance is two and a half hours from Las Vegas and four and a half hours from Salt Lake City.