Tucupit Point is a prominent sandstone pinnacle in the
Kolob Canyons
Zion National Park is a national park of the United States located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a ...
area of
Zion National Park
Zion National Park is a national park of the United States located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a ...
in
Washington County,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
, United States.
Description
The formation lays off of
Taylor Creek Trail, and rises with a
prominence
In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...
of 138 feet. The pinnacle - visible from
U.S. Route 40
U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America (a nickname shared with U.S. Route 66), is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain States to the Mid- ...
to the west - has been the subject of numerous photographs. American artist
Thomas Moran
Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth, took ...
viewed the pinnacle in 1873 while travelling south from
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
, with the artist later rendering a
famous watercolor of the feature. The pinnacle was then named "Colburn's Butte" after Justin Colburn, a correspondent for the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' travelling with Moran; it would later be renamed Tucupit Point, "Tucupit" being the
Paiute
Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three languages do not form a single subgroup and th ...
word for
wildcat
The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while th ...
.
See also
*
List of mountains in Utah
Mountains in Utah are numerous and have varying elevations and prominences.
Kings Peak (Utah), Kings Peak, in the Uinta Mountains in Duchesne County, Utah, is the highest point in the state and has the greatest prominence. It has elevation an ...
*
Paria Point
*
Beatty Point
References
External links
Landforms of Washington County, Utah
Landmarks in Utah
Rock formations of Utah
Zion National Park
{{Utah-geo-stub