About 12 miles north of St. George, Utah and around 30 miles west of Zion National Park, lies a protected wilderness area known as Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. It is well know to locals who frequent the area to hike, picnic and camp out…but not so well known to the rest of the world.
On my last trip to Zion, I took a side trip to this lovely spot in the desert and found a few interesting places to photograph. I hiked into the wilderness area along the Red Reef Trail. It was here that I found this lovely scene of a cascade flowing from one quiet pool above, into another quiet pool below the falls.
The trail first leads you along Quail Creek to the lower pool…then it goes up on top of the rock to give you this elevated view. While the falls are lovely, the rock walls and their contours have an almost surrealistic appearance, making the scene quite unique. What I found out later is there is a water-carved cave underneath where I am standing.
From here, the trail continues on to a beautiful slot canyon that I will show here soon. I could only hike into it so far as it had rained a couple days before I got here, so Quail Creek was pretty high. Often there is no water in the creek and one can hike through the canyons where the creek usually flows. I hope I can do that someday. Again, this is one of those areas where you have to watch the weather forecasts to make sure you don’t get caught in a flash flood.
So if you make a trip to Zion and have the time, be sure and visit this lovely, relatively unknown spot in the Utah desert. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.
(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)
To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.
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