On today's Outdoor Nevada, I visit the amazing Cathedral Gorge State Park.

Here I meet up with Dawn, the park's interpreter.

She takes me on a walking tour of the park, shares some of its history, and shows me the park's amazing slot canyons.

Then I head over to Pioche and check out a one-of-a-kind bus that is serving up barbecue.

Get ready for some fun and adventure.

♪♪♪ I'm Connor Fields, your new host for my favorite show, Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪ Cathedral Gorge State Park sits in the eastern part of Nevada near the town of Panaca.

It is a mesmerizing natural wonder characterized by its unique geological formations and stunning landscapes.

Covering over 1,600 acres, the park is renowned for its intricate maze of narrow slot canyons, towering spires, and dramatic cliffs carved out of a soft bentonite clay.

Visitors are drawn to the park's surreal beauty, which offers ample opportunities for exploration and outdoor recreation.

Today I'm meeting up with Dawn, the park's interpreter.

She's agreed to show me around the park, and I can't wait.

So tell me a little bit about Cathedral Gorge State Park.

How did it become a park?

(Dawn Andone) Cathedral Gorge was set aside in the 1920s to actually be preserved for future generations.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was here in the 1930s to build the facilities.

And once those facilities were built in 1935, we actually became a state park along with three other state parks.

One of them was Valley of Fire.

The other two are Beaver Dam and Kershaw-Ryan, which are right here in Lincoln County.

-That's really cool.

So what makes this park special?

-Well, what makes this park special is the geology, of course.

People come here from all over the world to see the slot canyons.

Those slot canyons are the remnants of what used to be a lake back at least 15,000 years ago.

But those lake deposits were brought in from basically volcanic ash from volcanoes that went off over millions of years.

Then it was eroded, came into the lake, and once the lake drained away, all of that was open to erosion.

And it's created these really cool formations and slot canyons.

-It is absolutely crazy to be standing right here now and think about the fact that at one point in time, we would have been underwater.

-Absolutely.

You would have needed gills.

-Exactly.

So I'm here today.

I've got time to do some stuff.

What do you recommend?

What should we do today?

-Well, I think that we should go view the park from above and then go to the slot canyons.

But we're gonna go to the Eagle Point Trail right now.

-Awesome.

Let's do it.

-All right, cool.

-All right.

Here we are Eagle Point.

-Yes, we are.

Today is kind of a warm day.

But always make sure, even if it's not warm, to bring some water with you when you go hiking.

-Yeah.

It feels like the air up here is pretty dry.

-It is indeed.

And people don't realize, but they can get dehydrated not just in the heat, but also in the cold.

-Oh, really.

I didn't know that.

-Mm-hmm.

So you always want to have water with you.

-And how long is this trail?

How far are we going?

-Well, it's about a mile out and back.

And it's just a really nice little scenic trail that takes you to an overlook where you can see the entire park.

-Oh, wow!

Look at that.

-Pretty amazing, isn't it?

-Yeah, that's really cool.

It feels almost like I'm on a different planet when I look over at all the shapes and the way this is all built out.

The first thing that I notice is just how green it is down there.

-It's very green because it's very fertile.

You have to remember, all of this is volcanic ash that was deposited here over time.

And after millions of years of volcanoes going off around here-- -Wait.

They're not still active?

-No.

-Okay.

-Although we are in a caldera complex.

-Okay.

-The Caliente caldera complex.

-Do I have to worry?

-Not today.

They've been dormant for probably 11 million years.

-Okay, sweet.

Okay, quick pause.

I had no idea what a caldera complex was.

So for anyone else who doesn't know, this is what a caldera complex is.

So a caldera complex refers to a geological formation created by the collapse of a volcanoe's magma chamber after an eruption.

This collapse results in a large depression known as a caldera.

The complex may include various features such as lava flows, ash deposits, and other volcanic formations within the landscape.

Okay, back to it.

-So we're probably okay.

But as those volcanoes went off, what happens is volcanic ash is laid because our volcanoes were mostly ash, they were mostly pyroclastic flows.

-Okay.

-And so as that exploded and that ash was hot in the air.

As it came down, it actually welded together on the ground.

So it's called "welded tuff."

And over millennia as that eroded away and was carried into what was then a lake into this area through rivers and streams, it laid all of this depositional material here.

-Wow!

That's pretty cool.

-The other thing that you can see down here is all of that dark soil.

-Yep.

Yeah, you can see it down there.

-That's called cryptobiotic soil.

And cryptobiotic soil actually helps with the erosion.

It holds all of the sand, basically, because it's like talcum powder.

This is called siltstone, as opposed to sandstone like you have in Valley of Fire and other places.

-Okay.

-So it's just like talcum powder.

It just blows away.

It gets in everything.

But this holds it down-- -Makes sense.

- --so other stuff can grow on top of it.

But that's actually a living soil.

-The other thing I'm seeing when I look out there is you can see layers, right?

You can see where there's vegetation up on top, and then it changes colors.

And there's very clear lines.

Why is that?

-That is because of the depositional material.

So as those rivers and streams brought that material in here, it would have laid it on the bottom of the lake as it went.

So in different areas, you have different layers because some of the rivers would have been moving fast, some of the streams wouldn't have been moving so fast.

And so it just depends on how they move as to how much depositional material they leave behind.

Each one of those would have been the bottom of the lake at different times.

-That's really cool.

All right, shall we?

-Absolutely.

Let's continue on.

-So are you allowed to actually walk down in that, in that area down there?

-Yes, you are.

That is actually a trail.

That's the Juniper Draw Trail that goes around there.

And it comes all the way from the day use area through the gorge and back to the campground area.

-Oh, cool.

I think I saw the head of it at the campsite.

-Yeah, probably.

You would have.

But you have to stay off the black soil-- -Okay.

- --because the black soil is called cryptobiotic soil.

And that soil actually helps prevent erosion.

So it holds all the silt down, which allows all of these trees and the different foliage out there to be able to grow.

-That makes sense.

And I see all the marks and everything.

Does it flood if it rains?

-It does indeed.

It can.

In 2018, we actually had a pretty good flood here.

And it was the greatest example of how this was actually formed.

-Were the volcanoes going off?

-No, thank goodness.

No, this was after the volcanoes.

When the rivers and streams were coming in here, well, when we had that flood, it was like a river coming in here.

-Was the water flowing?

-It was, yeah, just like a river.

-Wow.

-And it deposited about up to like 5 feet of silt in some places.

So you would actually be able to see-- and if you go out there, you can still see some remnants of it where like, foliage hasn't grown on it yet.

-From that 2018 flood?

-Yeah.

-How long have people been coming and visiting this area?

-Well, actually, since the 1800s.

They didn't settle this area then.

They settled in Panaca, which is the oldest town in eastern Nevada, but they would use this as recreation area.

-Okay.

-But when we became state parks in 1935, prior to that, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the facilities here.

And those facilities actually were built out of these juniper trees.

-Do you think they actually took pieces of this tree here to build some of the structures around?

-Absolutely.

They probably cut it down with, I would say, an axe.

-Looks like it took them a couple hits.

-Yeah, right.

-It wasn't a clean cut.

-This was a perfect tree, because look at how many different places-- -It goes all over.

- --they could get wood off of.

So if you look back, actually over this way, there's a pavilion that was built of this.

And there's also one down in the park.

-That's really cool.

So are there just kind of the stumps littered around the park that you could tell that they took the wood from?

-Yeah.

Especially up here on Miller Point.

-[in unison] Looks like another one over there.

-So they would take all of these different things, and then they would make a pavilion.

Most of them are shade structures, because it's a little warm out here.

-It's hot.

-Yeah.

So people like to come and have picnics here under a shade structure that was built of juniper trees.

-Cool.

Dawn is great, super knowledgeable.

Make sure you say hi when you visit, and make sure you visit.

-So I always tell people, kind of the best of both worlds.

People might come and they only are spending an hour or two here.

-Just driving through?

-Yeah.

And they found us because we're driving through.

So this is the perfect trail.

You come up here, you get to see all of this from up here, and then you get to go down to the slot canyons and take a look down there and actually experience the park.

It gives you the best of both worlds because you get to see it from up here and down there.

-Yeah.

It is beautiful up here.

As I look out, you could see some of the different areas.

You could see the defining lines even clearer.

-Yes.

-Like that one out there.

It looks like an island out there, but you can really see the lines.

It probably was an island in the middle of the lake at one time.

You see that hard pan kind of, that really-- -Yeah.

- --defined line?

-Like you can walk on it.

-Yeah.

That's a layer of limestone.

That layer is harder than the rest of the siltstone.

And that's actually how these things are formed, how the hoodoos are formed and the really cool formations, because that layer of limestone acts like a hat on your head.

And it protects the softer materials underneath.

When it rains or it snows or it does anything like that, it goes around it.

And then it cuts all of this in there so that it cuts all of these different shapes, as the water finds the path of least resistance.

-I love how the campsite is right there, smack in the middle of the entire canyon.

And you can see all surrounded, 360 degrees, with the hoodoos and the different formations.

-Yes.

And it's beautiful.

Those trees are not native.

-Yeah, I could tell.

They do stand out a little bit.

-Yeah.

But that's-- but it does provide some shade for everybody.

It's definitely a nice spot to come camp and spend some time.

-I have a question for you.

What is the craziest thing you have seen since you started working here?

-You know, people usually ask me that all the time.

So it's kind of a funny thing.

And it was way back when I first started.

I'd been here a year or two maybe.

And as I was walking on the Juniper Draw Trail down there, and I came out over on this side above these formations right over here--it was a cloudy day, so you couldn't see totally--but there were three little lights stacked on top of each other.

They looked round.

You couldn't make them out because of the clouds.

I stood there and I looked at them for a while, and I watched them.

And after about 5, 10 minutes, all three of those that were stacked on top of each other took off at a high rate of speed in different directions.

-Aliens.

-Who knows?

-Or an unidentified-- -It's definitely a UFO because it was flying and it was unidentified.

-Wow.

That's pretty cool.

I would love to see the slot canyons.

Wanna check them out?

-Absolutely.

-Let's do it.

Hopefully, there's no aliens today.

-Ah, you never know.

[whizzing sound] -So what is a slot canyon?

-So a slot canyon is an area that is formed when-- when the water drained away, it left these areas that were kind of soft.

And it had softer materials that were able to be pushed out during rainstorms and stuff and pushed out onto the valley floor.

-Yep.

-So as that happens, and you have different snow events and rain events, it pushes back further into the canyon.

So they just get deeper and deeper.

And they get deeper this way, and they get deeper back into the hillside.

-Oh, cool.

And so we're here.

How many slot canyons are there?

I see one there.

How many are there total?

-Too many to count.

-Well, can we go see one?

-Absolutely.

Let's go this way.

-All right.

Oh, wow!

You can immediately just feel the temperature drop.

-Yeah.

Isn't it amazing on a hot day-- -Yeah, it's wonderful today.

- --to come back here in the cooler?

-And I noticed when I touch it, a little bit almost falls right away.

-Yeah.

You can see how it will fall off a little bit.

And the outside is pretty friable.

This is siltstone.

So it's much finer than a sandstone like at Valley of Fire or somewhere like that.

So it erodes a lot faster, because it's not as hard.

But you can see that when it rains or there's some kind of water event, how it would run down and then just be able to push the sediment wherever, through holes around here or out onto the valley floor.

-You can almost see in some areas where it looks like wax and looks like it's dripping, but then it stopped and it cooled or-- What is that from?

-Well, it's from the way that the water is weathering it.

So as the water comes down and it runs down, it can actually just drip like a candle does because it's coming down from the top.

But if you knock on this... Can you hear that?

-Sounds hollow.

-Yeah.

So a lot of these places are hollow.

So these act, getting back to your weather comment and how cool it is in here-- -It's wonderful.

- --it's like insulation.

So inside here, it's hollow.

But water always finds the path of least resistance.

So it comes down in all these holes.

And it comes down the sides.

But it also goes inside.

And so when it freezes, you have that freeze/thaw process.

And as it freezes and thaws, it causes more and more erosion.

And then that sediment is pushed out.

So it doesn't just erode from the outside in, but from the inside out.

-Wow.

That's really cool.

And the other thing that I've noticed, even when I look right here, not so much up high, but if you look below, there's like rocks kind of, seems like they're wedged inside of the walls.

-They are.

So and if you look over here, you can see-- -There's a lot on this side.

- --there's a lot over here.

These rocks would have been the stream bottom at the time.

So what happens, when this deposition or material was laid, a stream would have been running through here.

And depending on how big the size of the rock is-- bigger rock takes more water, right?

It's moving faster.

So this probably would have been a slower stream, and then it would have just dropped these rocks on the bottom.

And then as more and more depositional material came in here, it would just build it up.

-Higher and higher?

-It would keep going higher.

-I have more time today.

I'm gonna explore more of the park.

What do you suggest I do?

Well, I think you should go explore more of these slot canyons because every single one of them is different.

-And it's nice and cool in here.

-Absolutely.

You don't want to be in that sun.

But if you are, make sure you have water.

Make sure you have some sunscreen on.

And while you're hiking around in these places, make sure you have some good shoes on.

-Perfect.

Well, I am ready to go.

-Awesome.

Let's go.

-Cathedral Gorge State Park boasts a network of hiking trails that wind through its breathtaking landscape, offering visitors the chance to explore the park's unique geological formations and scenic vistas.

From leisurely strolls to challenging treks, there are trails suitable for hikers of all levels.

One of the most popular routes is the Cathedral Gorge Loop Trail, a moderate 4-mile circuit that meanders through slot canyons, past towering spires, and along the rim of the gorge, providing panoramic views of the surrounding desert landscape.

For those seeking a shorter hike, the Juniper Draw Loop Trail offers a gentle 1.5 mile loop that showcases the park's iconic cathedral-like formations and allows hikers to experience the tranquility of the desert environment.

In addition to these main trails, the park also offers numerous side trails and offshoots, allowing hikers to customize their experience and explore hidden gems within the park, like the water tower.

The water tower in Cathedral Gorge State Park is a historic landmark within the park's landscape.

It was built during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corpse.

The water tower adds to the park's picturesque scenery, standing tall against the backdrop of towering cliffs and sculpted formations as a symbol of both resilience and conservation.

I've lived in Nevada for my entire life.

And before today, I had no idea that this gorgeous place existed.

If you get a chance to make it to Cathedral Gorge State Park, I suggest doing it the way that I did it today.

Start out by hiking the Eagle Point Trail and getting a view of the entire area from up above.

After that, head on into the slot canyons and explore some of them for yourself.

I'm gonna go check out a few more.

In addition to the amazing sights, there are plenty of accessible trails and campsites.

Once I was done exploring the park, I was a bit peckish.

Well, more than peckish.

I was really hungry, so I had an idea.

Before we arrived in the park, we drove through Pioche and passed by a bus, an interesting looking bus, a barbecue bus to be more specific.

It was the perfect time to say hi.

Chef Greg and his family run Get Sauced NV.

It is one of the most interesting barbecue places I have ever seen.

And of all places, it's in Pioche.

I sat down with Chef Greg to learn more about him, the food, and Pioche.

(Greg Anderson) We've had a passion.

My wife and I have been cooking a long time.

I grew up around it.

We've always wanted to have our own place because we do things different.

You'll never get barbecue somewhere else the same way you get it here.

Everything's just different, and we've always wanted to do it.

We've always loved Pioche.

So, when the opportunity came up, we threw all our money into this, and so far, so good.

-That's awesome.

So you said your barbecue is different.

What makes it different?

-So, from the beans to the corn to the sauce, we felt like every barbecue restaurant you go to, it's almost the same, same type of baked beans, same-- I mean, just a different.

There's no difference.

So we don't have any-- you'll never taste beans like ours.

Ours are black beans, pinto beans, ground beef.

They're not like a baked bean you would ever, you'd ever eat.

So it's just unique and different.

Like our corn is in a cheese sauce.

So it's just, yeah, it's different.

It's got green Hatch chili in it, and it's just amazing.

-That's awesome.

What would you say is your best selling item?

-Definitely our barbecue tacos.

So it was something that I was flirting with not even putting on the menu because it sounded weird.

Just "barbecue" and "tacos" didn't go together.

-Right.

-But it's been a huge hit.

We sell a ton of them.

You can get chicken, pork, or tri-tip.

And like I said, they're killer.

People love them.

But it's not like something you'd get anywhere else, and that's what we wanted to do.

-Cool.

You're making me hungry.

Why Pioche?

-We've been vacationing here for years.

We have friends and family here.

We've always loved the atmosphere.

The people are fun.

Just kind of, it's like you're living in the '90s here because everyone's just friendly and happy.

And there's-- we don't have a stoplight.

-You don't have a single one?

-When you leave Vegas, it's the last stoplight.

-When you're not barbecuing, what do you and your family like to do to have a good time?

-Well, we're rarely not barbecuing.

But when-- we have ATVs, four wheelers.

-Probably tons of trails around here.

-They're everywhere.

You could drive for days and never see them all.

There's a lot of cool stuff out here, a lot of old mines, old cabins, all kinds of cool stuff you can see that's still intact.

So we like to do that.

And we have friends out here that typically wind up at the house, and somehow I'll get started barbecuing, yes, on my days off.

But that's pretty much it.

It's really kind of low, but low key and kick back, and we relax.

-Nice.

-Yeah.

-So how did you find this bus?

-So there was a-- somebody had posted it.

They bought it from the Illinois School District-- -Okay.

- --and brought it to Vegas and gutted it to turn it into like a motorhome.

And apparently he, after a year or so, his wife said, All you've done is gutted it.

So he had to get rid of it.

-It saved you from having to gut it.

-Saved me from gutting it, yeah.

But we weren't going to do a school bus.

I was going to just build a regular food trailer.

And price-wise, they were out of my price range.

So I bought this, and we did it ourselves and spent double what it would have cost if I just would have bought the trailer.

-That's how it goes.

-Yeah, so that plan didn't work out.

We got something super unique.

-Yeah, super cool.

-We have never seen anything like it.

We love it, and it came out awesome.

-I'd love to see inside of it, maybe get some barbecue.

-Let's do it.

[horn honks] -All right.

This is a legit barbecue joint.

Chef Greg and his wife take great pride in what they do, and it shows.

Everybody who knows you honks as they go by.

-That was my neighbor.

-Thank you, sir.

-Tight squeeze back here.

-That grill is warm.

-Yeah.

It's gotta be.

-What do you season that tri-tip with?

-That's my own rub, paprika, garlic, pepper corn, onion powder.

You want to put the other ones on?

-Yeah, I'll help you out.

All right.

I asked if he needed any help, and he was more than happy to put me to work.

After we took care of the dinner crowd, well, truth be told, I was probably more in the way than a help.

But hey, I tried.

All this in Pioche.

I love it.

Anyway, it was time to eat.

At this point, I was starving.

I couldn't wait to dig it.

Chef Greg made me a plate, and, oh, boy!

Greg, thank you so much for walking me through the whole process.

I saw how it was put together, and now the best part, I get to eat it.

-Yep.

-I really appreciate you walking me through that.

And honestly, this looks incredible.

So here we go.

-I appreciate it.

Enjoy.

-That tri-tip, I see why it's your favorite.

-Yeah, can't go wrong.

Tender.

-Absolutely.

I never would have guessed I was gonna get some of the best barbecue I've ever had, in Pioche.

Keep killing it.

-I will.

Thank you, man.

Appreciate it.

-Every time I hit the road, I am always amazed at everything we have here in Nevada.

I mean, I spent the day on a caldera complex, hiked through ancient slot canyons, then I had crazy good barbecue out of a rigged-out bus.

Come on!

Right?

I can't wait to come back.

There is so much more to explore.

Till next time, I'm Connor Fields, and this is Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪