When the guests at the Zion National Park hotels look out of their windows, then they see some gorgeous geological forms. From some windows they can see sandstone cliffs. From other windows they might see cliffs with more color, perhaps with layers of color. And from yet a third viewing window those same guests might see deep and narrow canyons.
To the guests who stay at any of the Zion National Park hotels near areas of Navajo Sandstone the changes caused by erosion have delivered a special privilege. Those guests can see from their windows a geological form that can not be found at any other spot within the Park. From hotels in that area the guests can see a slot canyon.
All of the canyons were created by cascading water. That water came from the Park's Virgin River. Like the cascades that branch from it, the River itself creates changes. It is possible that a few hotel guests witnessed one such change.
The windows of some of the Zion National Park hotels allow the hotel guests to see the Park's Virgin River. On a rainy day in 1998 any guests looking out of those windows could see geological changes in the making. On that day a steady and relentless rainfall produced a flooding of the Virgin River.
On that day any guest at the Zion National Park hotels who happened to glance out of the right windows must have seen the wall of water and mud that flowed out of the Virgin River. That wall of water and mud created some important changes in the maps of the
Park, because it damaged one of the Park drives. Fortunately, it was not a drive to any of the Zion National Park hotels. It was, however, a drive taken by Park visitors who wanted to go to the Zion National Park Lodge.
Before 1998 the Park visitors approaching the Zion National Park Lodge on the Sentinel Drive got a clear view of the Sentinel Slide. Since the flooding of 1998, the visitors going into the Lodge have been treated to a very different view of that same Sentinel Slide.
Yet there's one aspect of the Park that can escape the guests at the Zion National Park hotels. It is an aspect of the Park that can not be viewed easily from any window. Inside the Park exist an amazing diversity of life forms. Many different types of plants and animals exist within a limited area there at the Park. This unique combination of varied plant and animal life stems from the unusual variety of ecosystems that are all found within the Park.
Zion National Park lies at a point where the Colorado Plateau meets two distinct geographic regions: the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert. Each of those regions represents a distinct ecosystem. Each of those regions provides shelter and food to a particular collection of plants and animals.
Outside of the windows of the Zion National Park hotels those three very different groups of plants and animal have an opportunity to live side-by-side. Of course the guests at the hotels can not see all of those plants and animals. In order to do that, those guests would need to walk along one of the Park's many trails.