The North Fork Virgin River created an oasis in southern Utah, carving a 5 miles long and up to half a mile deep Zion Canyon. Cut through the Navajo Sandstone, the towering cliffs of the red and tan-colored canyon walls enclose a lush valley that that was Utah's first national park. Created in 1909 as Mukuntuweap National Monument, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity.
Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, Zion with its high plateaus, a maze of narrow, deep sandstone canyons and striking rock towers and mesas, contains some of the most scenic canyon country in the country.