Imagine a hand almost the size of France, miles below the Four Corners (Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado) slowly lifting sediments deposited in the North American inland sea and sand dunes of a desert like the Sahara created eons ago. Slow as it went, it raised the Plateau by over 10,000 feet (3,000 m.) 

A series of coincidences has created the beautiful, savage and hostile landscapes we now explore in National and State Parks in these four southern States.

The most interesting coincidence is the fact that the hand lifted the Plateau in one piece, and at almost exactly the rate of water erosion in the Plateau.

Zion, our last National Park visited this trip, is a great example of this coincidence. (And so is the Grand Canyon -1977.)

The tiny Virgin river and its tributaries, is responsible for carving a half-mile deep gorge in Zion National Park. As the Plateau rose an inch, the Virgin river dug an inch too... slowly gouging the rocks around to leave peaks and mesas as colourful as they are visually impressive. The water followed the cracks created by tectonic forces and the ridges of ancient dunes sculpting stunning mesas, criss-crossing them as giant checkers.