The Sentinel

The Sentinel is a sandstone summit near the Court of the Patriarchs, a little over a mile north of Zion's park headquarters, towering roughly 3,000 feet above the canyon floor. About 4,800 years ago a massive rock avalanche off the Sentinel — one of the largest landslides in the park's history — dammed the Virgin River and created a lake that lasted 700 years before filling with sediment to form the flat valley floor visitors see today. In 1995 a smaller slide at its base again dammed the river and washed out a section of the park road.

Good to know

• No maintained trail leads to the summit; informal paths exist but aren't tracked or maintained by the park service
• A backcountry permit is required to explore off-trail routes here