“I’ve known of people who’ve been driving the Arizona Strip at night,” an elderly Navajo man confides in a hushed tremolo. “Suddenly, they see an animal with terrible, beady eyes running alongside their car — a Skinwalker! Sometimes it’ll follow alongside for miles, just staring; other times it lunges.”

I stare at my new acquaintance, not sure what to say. Behind us, massive walls of terra cotta sandstone capped with black lava crouch beneath an azure sky. Scatterings of volcanic rock dot the hillsides, and to the south are the petrified sand dunes. We’re standing in a dirt parking lot at the Dog House, one of 14 crags at Snow Canyon State Park, outside of St. George, Utah. Here, at the convergence of the Colorado Plateau, the Mojave Desert, and the Great Basin, the atmosphere is high-desert surreal.

St. George is situated near the Arizona and Nevada borders, in an 1820-square-mile basin composed of wildly diverse rock. The volcanic Pine Valley Range, covered in lush pine and aspen, rises to over 10,000 feet 35 miles north of town; it’s flanks are dotted with basalt crags, including Crawdad Canyon and Black Rocks. The sandstones of the basin, including those here at Snow Canyon, often feature a hard patina that makes for excellent face climbing. Limestone formations straddle the Utah/Nevada border to the west of town, and to the south lurks the freestanding Phalanx of Will, a remote and ominous spike of stone laced with 21 routes and 13 link-ups. With over 30 developed crags between 2800 and 11,000 feet, roughly 800 routes, and extensive outcroppings of untouched rock, the climbing potential within 30 miles of St. George is staggering.
“Skinwalkers look normal — like you or me — but they’ve got a secret,” my friend continues. “They’re shamans who use black magic to change into animals and do terrible things without getting caught. My people believe that if you discover a Skinwalker’s identity, he’ll kill you within a week. If you reveal his secret, you’ll be dead that day!”
“This is for real?” I ask.
“Skinwalkers are a dark part of my heritage,” the old man says, glancing sporadically at his two daughters, who wait in the truck. “Many young people don’t believe the old stories, but my family knows. We’ve had encounters with black magic.”