Cathedral Gorgeous

Q. What if nature played water games in a clayey old lake bed for thousands of years?
A. Cathedral Gorge State Park.


The old lake sediment must be exactly the perfect consistency - soft enough to cut through, sticky enough to hold its shape. Runaway runoff has carved and is carving an astounding succession of crannies, caves, niches and slots into the previously solid accumulation of ancient lake sediment. If you've ever seen Bryce Canyon, with its hoodoos, or Cedar Breaks, both formed by wind erosion and repeated freeze-thaw cycles on sandstone, the similarity is striking.





But the scale is completely different. The shapes recall Hindu carved walls, classical columns, nesting ledges of a thousand birds, and you can reach out and touch them, practically hold them in your hand.













The upper surface is no more than 50 feet above, much less in most places. The close quarters lead to amazing keyholes of sky and effects of sunlight filtering down over the intricate surfaces. And, much photography.

The Grand Canyon kind of does your head in but is hard to intimately connect with, whereas Zion rears above you, you're among it, literally inside it, and it is more humanly touching because your brain can comprehend the scope.


In the same way, some slots in Cathedral Gorge are too small to get through, and we were brushed either side with dirt by the time we came out - but the smaller scale, if anything, made us even more wide-eyed with wonder. (Yeah, even the teen. Fist pump! We casually - nah the truth is we pointedly - mentioned that we do stuff this cool practically every time we go away. The education continues.)

Also, it was fairly warm out there (112/44) but in among the crevices there were constant out-sighings of cool air. How can that be? And even knowing how, I shake my head. It does not seem any less amazing.

CCC water tower

The site is adorned by a few old CCC buildings: a ramada, a water tower and a very charming outhouse that is no longer accepting donations (there's one of those at Kershaw-Ryan, too) - and there is camping there too, perhaps for a cooler season.







And they had the best mud ever. I have seen mud dried into curved tiles before. This is the first time I've ever seen it curled into a fringe.

Miller Point overlook

Across the highway from the park entrance is the ghost town of Bullionville - for next time. (We were already saying 'next time' by then.) For now, we turned north on 93 towards Pioche, stopping at the Miller Point Overlook to see Cathedral Gorge from above.

Itinerary

Saturday: 317 to Caliente, turn northeast on 93. Through Panaca junction, to Cathedral Gorge State Park ...