A story about Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

On September 26, 2007, the National Wildlife Federation Southwest Canyons Expedition visited the Bureau of Land Management’s Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. We stopped at the White House campground for lunch and a hike at the White House campground in the Pariah Canyon Wilderness Area. A few days earlier, Southern Utah and Northern Arizona had torrential downpours and flash flooding. The streets of nearby St. George, Utah were beginning to flood from runoff and the Virgin River ran black and chocolate brown from ash from fires earlier in the summer.

The Pariah River was light brown and still running high at Vermillion Cliffs and most of the hiking trails along the river were too muddy and soft to enjoy. We walked through the soft coral sand and dunes bordering the sandstone rocks and cliffs bordering the river. For some, this was their first trip to a Wilderness area.

At first glance, there seems to be no life in the area. It was quiet and you could hear the Pariah River rush by can carrying tons of earth with it towards the Colorado River. The group continued to hike along the river and we saw our first sign of mobile life - a lizard scurried away from us to take refuge under some sagebrush. The lizard remained long enough for the hikers to catch up and get a closer look. It might be a Plateau Lizard. The hikers are encouraged by the lizard sighting and we start to look for snakes. Barbara from Pennsylvania wanted to get a picture of a snake to take home to her Grandson. More movement - out of the corner of my eye, I see a jackrabbit sit up on its back legs to look at the human interlopers. The jackrabbit runs off before anyone else sees her.

After three days of colder than normal weather, this is our first opportunity to warm up and wear shorts. The sun has warmed the ruddy sands and by lunchtime, we are all very warm and looking for shade. There is not much shade to be found, and several hikers hunker down under a Juniper.

Richard from Pennsylvania notes a very interesting formation during lunch. A rock shaped like a lion’s head! Of course, Richard finds something like this among the many views in the canyon – he is an artist and photographer with an eye for the unusual. Much like the Sphinx in Egypt, our Lion juts out from the rock in the desert. Richard suggests that BLM might overcome some budget woes by billing this as the MGM Grand of the desert like the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. The tourism hoards will hike here to see the lion and pay big bucks to get into the monument.

After lunch, we pack up and head out to Glen Canyon Dam. We will be returning to another part of the Monument tomorrow to look for the California condor.

Thursday we arrived at Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River adjacent to Vermillion Cliffs. We met with Tim from the Peregrine Fund to learn about the recovery efforts for the endangered California condor and its reintroduction in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. Tim took us to the base of the cliffs near the release site where the BLM has set up a picnic bench and shelter. Again, no trees for shade to be found anywhere.

Standing along the road looking up at the red cliffs, we are all scanning with naked eyes, spotting scopes and binoculars for condors. Even at over a mile away, these large birds with a 9-foot wingspan can be seen with the naked eye. After a short time scanning the edge of the cliff, we catch sight of the first bird. Sailing low over the bluff is our first California condor. He catches a thermal and soars higher. Then we see another condor and then a third! Three condors in the same place! They do not sit still and are continually moving so it is hard to get a condor in the spotting scope and move away for someone else to watch before the bird leaves the line of sight. There are fewer than 200 of these birds alive today, so it is a thrill to see three of them at once. The white fluffy clouds in the background give us the perfect contrast to make out this dark bird.

Then a condor comes in for a landing among the many cracks and caves all over these cliffs. As the condor settles in to the cliff ledge, he begins to blend into the shadows and cracks while we struggle to keep our eyes on the exact place where he landed. The condors must frequent these ledges, as there is lots of bird poop, better known as “white wash” streaming down the ledge. This mark on the red stone helps us find our place again when we are looking for the bird. There is no doubt this struggling species has found a happy home at Vermillion with lots of nesting and roosting places.

Earlier, Tim with the Peregrine Fund took us to another area of the monument where we used our scopes to look into a cave high on the cliff to takes us to another area of the monument where we use our scopes to look for the nest cave of a WILD born California Condor chick. We find the cave and the four-month old condor is sitting on a ledge outside of the cave. The cave is only 5 feet across and very dark, so we barely make out this black chick sitting in a dark cave. As we watched him, we could see him move about and wait for the return of his parents with a meal for him. It takes over a year for a pair of Condors to raise one chick, and it takes about ten years before that chick will be mature enough to reproduce on his own. Rebuilding this population is going to be slow, but with the help of caring citizens and the safety of Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, I think we are going to continue to see success for this rare species.