Virgin River

Spade.

Just outside of Kanab on Virgin River.

Kanab, the Pearl of the West.

Uh-huh.

There is no estimate on when Mount Carmel Highway will be back open, so if you plan to head to the park over the weekend, check which entrance you're using.

Over the last few days, there has been flooding in the area from the Virgin River, some of the flooding hitting Orderville and Glendale.

Brianna Willis, KSL Newsradio.

A hiker had to be life flighted to a hospital after falling about 100 feet in Iron County this morning.

In one of the earlier years of exploration, I stood on the summit of the Pink Cliffs of the Paunsaugunt Plateau, 9,000 feet above the level of the sea.

Below me, to the southwest, I could look off into the canyons of the Virgin River, down into the canyon of the Kanab, and far away into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

From the lowlands of the Great Basin and from the depths of the Grand Canyon, clouds crept up over the cliffs and floated over the landscape below me, concealing the canyons and mantling the mountains and mesas and buttes.

Still, on toward me the clouds rolled, burying the landscape in their progress, until at last the region below was covered by a mantle of storm, a tumultuous sea of rolling clouds, black and angry in parts, white as the foam of cataracts here and there, and everywhere flecked with resplendent sheen.

The Gray Cliffs are composed of a homogeneous sandstone which in some places weathers gray, but in others is as white as virgin snow.

On the top of these cliffs, hills and sand dunes are found, but everywhere on the Gray Cliff margin the rocks are carved in fantastic forms, not in buttes and towers and pinnacles, but in great rounded bosses of rock.

The Virgin River heads back to the Pink Cliffs of the Markagunt Plateau, and with its tributaries crosses one of these plateaus above the Gray Cliffs, carving a labyrinth of deep gorges.

This is known as the Kolob Plateau.

It is but a muddy creek.

Two hundred miles above this, the Rio Virgin joins the Colorado.

This river heads in the Markagunt Plateau and the Pine Valley Mountains of Utah.

Its sources are seven thousand or eight thousand feet above the sea, but from the plentiful course of the upper region, it soon drops into a great sandy valley below and becomes a river of flowing sand.

Still farther to the north, the Chemehuewas lived, partly along the river and partly in the mountains to the west, where a few springs are found.

They belong to the great Shoshonian family.

On the Rio Virgin and in the mountains roundabout, a confederacy of tribes speaking the Ute language and belonging to the Shoshonian family have their homes.

These people built their sheltering homes of boughs and the bast of the juniper.

Thanks, Sam.

Just outside of Kanab on Virgin River.

Kanab, the Pearl of the West, is it?

Uh-huh.

In the Pink Cliffs above, and the Gray Cliffs and the Vermilion Cliffs, there are many notches that mark channels running northward which had their sources on these plateaus when they extended farther to the south.

The Rio Virgin is the only stream heading in the Pink Cliffs and running into the Colorado which is perennial.

The other rivers and creeks carry streams of water in rainy seasons only.

When a succession of dry years occur, the canyons coming through the cliffs are choked below as vast bodies of sand are deposited.

From which of these features shall we select a name? We decide to call it Glen Canyon.

Past these towering monuments, past these mounded billows of orange sandstone, past these oak-set glens, past these fern-decked alcoves, past these mural curves, we glide hour after hour, stopping now and then as our attention is arrested by some new wonder, until we reach a point which is historic.

In the year 1776, Father Escalante, a Spanish priest, made an expedition from Santa Fe to the northwest, crossing the Grand and Green, and then passing down along the Wasatch Mountains and the southern plateaus until he reached the Rio Virgin.

His intention was to cross to the mission of Monterey, but from information received from the Indians, he decided that the route was impracticable.

It's a totally different watershed.

The Virgin River, the Armagosa, those flow into those water sources.

The Muddy River.

Those are all where that water is being provided.

Spade.

Just outside of Kanab on Virgin River.

Kanab, the Pearl of the West.

Uh-huh.

Gorgeous.

It follows the Virgin River and then at the end of it there's steps that take you down into the river to start the Narrows.

Mm-hmm.

So when we're on the Riverside Walk and just seeing people pass us by and stuff, we saw a whole group of people just wearing sandals, and Jon and I both looked at each other like, "They're not gonna make it very far." Like, we already know.