Touring the West – Day 2 – Zion National Park
Zion National Park ranger Colton Winder holds a photo of Brigham Young while delivering a talk about the early history of Zion National Park.
“The story of Zion begins in New York, with a man named Joseph Smith and a new religion, called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” began the ranger, in a sweltering outdoor amphitheater. “You may know it as the Mormon church,” he continued. A campground bulletin board billed the ranger’s program as the story of four lost boys of Zion. Maybe “lost boys” was a religious metaphor that had escaped me.
My girlfriend Liz and I had decided to cap an exhausting day of hiking the famous Narrows with a more passive activity. We walked gingerly on tired feet over to the amphitheater, collapsing on an aluminum bench in time for the nightly presentation.
South Campground at Zion National Park has 127 campsites. They usually fill up early on a July afternoon, yet I counted only eight people including myself in the audience for that night’s program. We were greeted by a polite young ranger named Colton. He had a boyish face and could have passed for 16 if not for the ranger uniform and his wedding ring, which he absently twisted now and then. His speech was evenly-paced and formal.
Colton’s Mormon-themed introduction set me into panic mode. Had I stumbled onto a sales pitch for the Mormon church, disguised as a ranger talk? With such a small audience I knew I couldn’t leave unnoticed in the first two minutes of the program. I decided to hold out, at least long enough to politely excuse myself and act like I had enjoyed myself.
I eased when Colton got to the heart of his story. The Mormons had been run out of the Midwest and some settled in Zion, so the story went. One day four local boys went hunting, climbed up the famous Watchman peak, and decided they didn’t want to climb down the same steep path. The boys got lost and spent days on the rim of Zion Canyon with just their rifles before remembering stories of a Native American footpath near what’s now called Echo Canyon. They rediscovered the route and returned safely home.
“One of those boys was my great-grandfather, John Winder,” added Colton.
I squinted at his name tag. Colton Winder. Now he really had my attention. Out of the millions of park visitors every year I wondered how many could trace their family to Zion’s Mormon settlers. And out of those how many felt a glowing personal nostalgia for a place that become a tourist destination?
John Winder in Echo Canyon, 1913.
Just Colton, for all I knew. He passed around some more photos, including one of his great-grandfather standing on his horse’s saddle while the horse stood in Echo Canyon. The eldest Winder of Zion had several accomplishments, including turning that Native American footpath he had found as a boy into the East Rim Trail.
After the photos Colton passed around some family artifacts, including John Winder’s cattle brand, with pocked iron letters spelling “JW.” The heavy tool was still in good shape, though Colton pointed out his family switched to a different cattle brand decades ago.
The iron looked just like the ones my family still uses. My great-grandfather had also owned cattle. Only no one turned my family’s ranch into a national park.
Another one of those four lost boys, David Flanigan, eventually built a massive cable to the top of the East Rim, which delivered lumber to the settlers below. This, Colton said, fulfilled an 1863 prophecy declared by Brigham Young that timber would be delivered down Zion canyon “like a hawk flying.” The rest of the ranger talk delved into the story of Flanigan’s cable, which eventually deteriorated and crushed some school children in the 30s.
After the talk Colton initiated the two children in the audience as junior rangers. As I left I couldn’t help imagine the Winder homestead sealed underneath a parking lot somewhere, near the ranger station perhaps.
