Long before you reach Zion, the brooding rock giants within its boundaries loom large on the horizon, towering over the wrenched plateaus, pale grass valleys, and fitful human settlements of southwestern Utah. The park stretches for 229 square miles across the lower reaches of the 10,000 foot Markagunt Plateau, from the highway of the Vermilion Cliffs through deeply incised canyons, then diagonally northwest over the lava-topped Kolob Terrace to the blood-red folds of the Finger Canyons of the Kolob, where the Colorado Plateau drops abruptly into the searing desert country to the west.