Cathedral Gorge State Park is a great place to stop for an hour to scramble through narrow slots or to spend a half day exploring the park trails. If you can, come near dawn or dusk when the eroded rock spires have deep shadows and are bathed in golden light. This state park is located in eastern Nevada outside the small town of Panaca. Despite being in a remote part of Lincoln County (population 5500) and over an hour from the nearest major town, the area is popular enough to attract some visitors, but definitely not crowded.

The park was named Cathedral Gulch in the 1890s by Mrs. Earl Godbe, a resident of a nearby mining camp, due to the resemblance of the rock formations to cathedrals. The canyons were later explored by two teenage boys from Panaca, Nephi and Elbert Edwards, who built ladders to allow them passage through the twisting slots. The Edwards family led the movement to protect the area, leading to its designation as one of Nevada’s first state parks in 1935.

Things to Do
If you are limited on time, spend it all exploring Moon Caves, Canyon Caves, and Cathedral Caves on the east side of the park. These “caves” are actually slots in the rock formations that are sometimes so narrow that they appear to be cave-like. There are an endless number of passageways to check out, some leading to dead-ends and some becoming so narrow it doesn’t seem wise to continue. You may need to crawl, squeeze, and climb to get around. While in the area, you can view the water tower and picnic area built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

There are a number of options for hikes from the CCC picnic area. All the trails in the park that I explored were well-marked, with rocks along the trail edges, frequent markers, and clear signs at every junction. There is a short (0.5 miles) Nature Loop that leads to the campground and back with informational signs about the park’s plants and wildlife. There is a slightly longer out-and-back trail (0.8 mile round trip) that heads up a sandy canyon bottom and then up a series of stairs to the Miller Point overlook, offering fine views of the formations (there is also a parking area at the overlook). And you can enjoy the longer but still mellow Juniper Draw Loop that takes you to the park campground, up a wash and down along a series of formations before looping back to the CCC picnic area (3.25 miles round trip). If time allows, I would recommend doing the following: hike from the CCC picnic area on the Nature Loop trail to the Juniper Draw Loop, detour to Miller Point overlook when you reach that junction, return the way you came to complete the Juniper Draw Loop and then explore the slots around the parking area to your heart’s content.

Maps

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