Summary of Presentation:
The Paria River Canyon located in Utah and Arizona is part of the beautiful red sandstone country of the Colorado Plateau. This Canyon is a wilderness area within the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument which was designated by President Bill Clinton in the year 2000.
The backpack journey through this canyon covers about 40 miles before it recaches the Colorada River in Lee’s Ferry, AZ. The canyon begins shallow and wide, then narrows and deepens, with its walls rising hundreds of feet over the river. At its narrowest, the Paria River converges with Buckskin Gulch, one of the Southwest’s most famous and beautiful slot canyons. Toward the end of the trip, the canyon widens again although it remains deep.
Ralph has done this backpack trip twice and showed lots of pictures of stunning geologic formations. Evidence of human habitation in the Paria Canyon was seen from the ancient petroglyphs along the way carved by people thousands of years ago. A large natural arch 250 feet across and 165 feet high is one of the highlights on this trip.
