Buckskin Gulch, Utah. Dwarfed by its high Navajo Sandstone walls, a backpacker pauses in the depths of Buckskin Gulch in the Paria Canyons Wilderness of southern Utah. The canyon goes on like this for nearly 20 kilometers above its confluence with Paria Canyon. Both canyons are prone to enormous flash floods which originate 40 miles upstream in the Pink Cliffs of Bryce Canyon National Park. As evidenced by cottonwood logs wedged between the walls high overhead, these floods occasionally reach depths of nearly 75 feet. The Paria Canyons Wilderness of Utah joins with the adjacent Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness of Arizona to form a large protected area of deep canyons, bizarre hoodoos, and swirling cross-bedded sandstone formations.