The great formations along the Lighthouse Trail — Capitol Peak, Fortress Cliff, and the Spanish Skirts — and the hard cap-rock that lets these towers and mesas survive erosion.
Stop and look up for a minute, because you're walking now among some of the grandest rock formations in the whole canyon. That big flat-topped mesa standing off on its own is Capitol Peak — folks named it for its resemblance to a capitol dome — and those long, sheer, layered ramparts running along the canyon side are called Fortress Cliff, and you can see exactly why: they look like the walls of some vast natural castle.
Here's what you're really seeing, and it's the same trick that makes the Lighthouse itself. Every one of these towers and mesas and standing walls wears a cap of harder, more stubborn rock right across its top. That hard cap shields the softer, crumblier red rock underneath it from the rain and wind. So while the unprotected land all around slowly washes away and lowers, these capped columns and tables hold their ground, standing tall on their pedestals of protected stone. A mesa is just a hill that had a good hard hat on. When you look across this canyon at all these flat-topped towers, you're seeing the last defended survivors of a landscape that used to be much, much higher — the rock that hasn't washed away yet.
Down at the bases of these slopes, watch for the banded formation called the Spanish Skirts, where the layers of color ripple and flute down the hillside in soft folds, just like the ruffled skirt of a dancer. It's one of the prettiest sights in the park. Take a breather here, drink up, and gather yourself — the Lighthouse is close now, and the last little climb up to it is the steepest bit of the whole walk.
Photo: Kimberly Vardeman from Lubbock, TX, USA · CC BY 3.0
