CATHEDRAL GORGE 

About two hours northwest of Zion National Park are some of Nevada’s most fascinating geological formations. Drive west from Cedar City, Utah, on Highway 56 to Nevada’s Highway 93. Turn right at Panaca, Nevada, and drive another two miles northwest to the side road leading into the Cathedral Gorge State Park. In this remote park, you’ll find some of the most fantastic examples of erosion in the Southwest. 

The canyon walls surrounding this gorge are soft, bentonite clay that settled to the bottom of an ancient lake bed about a million years ago. This sediment formed a layer that was about 1400 feet thick. Surrounding mountain ranges have since risen and faulted causing the lake to drain down Rainbow Canyon to the south and into the Colorado River. Weather patterns have changed greatly in the past million years. Today the southwest has much less rain than it once did. Infrequent cloudbursts send flash floods scouring down Meadow Valley Wash eroding the soft silt and clay of Cathedral Gorge into a wonderland of columns and spires. Today, all the silt washed down Cathedral Gorge flows into Lake Mead. 

The gorge was used as a garbage dump by local ranchers back in the 1860s. It began to be appreciated by newcomers who were reminded of European cathedrals and named it Cathedral Gorge in the 1890s. Ladders were built to allow visitors to climb through the maze of spires.  During the 1920s, the area was used as a picnic grounds and as a backdrop for Shakespearean plays. The gorge became a state park in 1935. 

The canyon is open at the southern end where the road enters. The canyon walls run mainly north and south along both sides of the gorge. The canyon bottom is flat and easy to hike. It’s easy to move around the formations and set your tripod in the best position for strong cross-lighting. Arrive in the morning and the best light will be reaching the tall and short formations on the western walls. Arrive in the afternoon and the eastern walls will glow with the low rays of the sun. Early morning and late afternoon light will greatly warm up the colors of the gorge. The spires are actually a fairly neutral gray on the buff-colored side. Arrive in the middle of the day and you can shoot black and white film.  

There is a new Visitor Center just off Highway 93 where you can stop for a free trail map and ask any questions you might have about the park. You can watch a short audio-visual presentation with information about Cathedral Gorge. This is also a good place to get information about the other photo possibilities in eastern Nevada. Check out the nearby Beaver Dam State Park, the Ward Charcoal Ovens, and the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. For more information, call the Visitor Center at (775) 728-4460. 

The road into the gorge is paved most of the way to the trailheads. You won’t need a 4x4 here. Soon after passing the only fork in the road (a left turn takes you into the campgrounds), you will begin to see patterns of eroded canyon walls on the right side of the road. You can easily fill most of a day in this park and never walk more than a few hundred feet from your car. 

There is a $3 free for day use, which you can pay using envelopes provided in the parking areas at a few of the  trailheads. Stop and park where the pavement ends. Signs mark the location of several “caves” along the right side of the road at that point. These are very narrow “slot” canyons that lead back into the face of the cliffs. Some are covered with slabs of stone and layers of sandstone creating natural bridges and giving the impression of caves. Several of these caves extend more than a hundred feet into the canyon walls with branching side canyons. 

About a mile farther north, at the end of the unpaved stretch of road, there is a covered picnic area, several barbecue pits, and some restrooms. There are also some impressive, free-standing formations (photo below) on the edge of this parking area. At the north end of this parking area, the “Juniper Draw Trail,” a four-mile loop, begins. Mostly level, this trail makes a large loop around the perimeter of the gorge, along the base of the formations. This trail can be muddy after a rain. You may not feel like walking all the way around the loop, but you shouldn’t miss the first formation of spires, about a half-mile up the gorge. 

A short distance north of the parking lot, there’s a fork in the trail where a half-mile side trail to the right leads up to the top of Miller Point. More about that overlook in a moment. Bear left at the fork in the trail and, in a few hundred feet, you’ll reach one of the more impressive formations along the trail (photo on page 6). There are several levels with many more spires rising behind this formation. They are accessible via an unofficial trail leading up to some even better viewpoints. To prevent more erosion, visitors are asked to stay on the official trails. 

On my recent trip back to Cathedral Gorge, the sky was filled with dramatic cloud formations. A late spring snowstorm had passed through eastern Nevada the week before and more rain was forecast for the next day. Great clouds raced across the sky. I used a red filter for most of the exposures I made on black-and-white film. I made vertical and horizontal compositions each time I set up my tripod. A warming/polarizer was ideal for exposing color film in Cathedral Gorge. It darkened the blue sky, emphasizing the clouds and warming up the mostly gray canyon walls. 

In the late afternoon, strong winds began to blow dust up the canyon. I wrapped a plastic bag around the camera attached to the tripod over my shoulder. At the far northern end of the gorge, the trail loops around the base of the formations and heads south again, along the western side of the gorge. I especially appreciated the lack of information signs along the trail naming all the formations. Those things always get in a photographer’s way. The trail circles around the far side of a large, free-standing formation in the center of the gorge and finally reaches the edge of the campground. Carry plenty of film, there are good compositions all the way around the trail and the light will probably keep changing as clouds drift over. From the campground at the end of the trail, it’s only a short walk over to your car in the parking lot near the picnic area. 

The soft, sandy soil in the gorge is constantly eroding away and supports no cactus and only a few wildflowers and some native plants. There are some shade trees around the campgrounds where there are 22 campsites with restrooms and hot showers operating from April through November. The weather in this part of the Southwest can be brutal with heavy winter snows and sub-zero temperatures–too cold for cactus. Summer days often reach well over 100˚F. with thundershowers being common in August and September.  

Don’t miss the side road out to Millers Point, located about two miles north of the main entrance to Cathedral Gorge on Highway 93. Park and walk out to the viewpoint for a great view of two side canyons. At the end of the overlook, you can follow the trail down into the gorge. There are several wooden ladders and stairways on the way down. This trail leads about a half mile south where it joins the loop trail near the parking area inside the gorge. 

There are very few services available in the nearby town of Panaca. The highway passes by the old section of town. The town of Pioche, about ten miles north of Cathedral Gorge, is a fascinating relic of a hillside mining town. I have enjoyed many hours photographing its old buildings and rusting remains. You’ll find a few restaurants and lodgings in Pioche. But my favorite motel is located about fifteen miles south of Cathedral Gorge in the railroad town of Caliente, Nevada. The Shady Motel is located across the tracks from the old (restored) railroad station right in the middle of Caliente. The Shady Motel is clean and quiet (until a freight train passes through town in the middle of the night). Call (775) 726-3106 for a reservation and ask for one of their new rooms. I’ve tried several restaurants in Caliente, Panaca, and Pioche, but can’t recommend any. Please let me know if you find a good restaurant in this part of Nevada.

 If you are planning a photo exploration of the best remote locations in the Nevada desert, read my Photograph America Newsletter #58 - “Nevada Back Roads.” If you plan to visit Nevada’s Great Basin National Park, read my Photograph America Newsletter #48 - “Great Basin National Park.” More reasons to subscribe to the most detailed bimonthly photo/travel available. For more information check out:  http://www.apogeephoto.com/800get_foto.html

Previous Great Locations:

Up the Hudson River  
At the Base of the Kaiparowits Plateau  
Durango to Silverton Railroad along the Animas River  
Sunrise through the cottonwoods behind the old Johnson Ranch
Winter in the Tetons
Autumn Color in the Village of Waterville, Vermont   
Salt Valley Road in Arches National Park  
Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City, California 
Victorians along Steiner Street on Alamo Square in San Francisco 
Toroweap Overlook on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon   
Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park  
Desert Tortoise in the Mojave 
Formations along the White Rim Trail, Canyonlands National Park 
False kamani roots - Hana, Maui 
Bristlecone patterns along the Devil’s Backbone 
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Old miners' cabin above the Salmon Glacier in British Columbia   
Aspen groves along the road to Ophir, Colorado
Reflections on a small pool in the mountains of British Columbia
Afternoon shadows on snowdrifts in Jackson Hole, Wyoming   
Coral Pink Sand Dunes after a storm
In the South Desert of Capitol Reef 
Goblin Valley Buttes  
Willis Canyon Narrows above the Paria River 
The Trona Pinnacles
The Kelso Dunes
The Lost Coast
Bowling Ball Beach