And then there was Zion
On Saturday we went to Zion! It was beautiful. The pictures I took cannot do it justice. We had a perfect day. Blue skies, sun, a bit of a breeze. We began our wonder at the beauty even on the ride there.
We got to the park entrance pretty early, around 8 or so, and already the sign said parking was full. It said to park in town but we didn’t want to do that. We’d have to find a space and then, it looked like we’d have to pay for a shuttle to the park, then get on the park shuttle once we got there. We asked the ranger at the gate about it and he said, “Take the second right to go to the overflow parking.” We did that and there was plenty of parking. Awesome!
You can drive through the park, and we did that in the afternoon, but first we got on the shuttle to go to the various stops and paths to hike. I am no hiker, but the brochure lists all the hikes and rates them as “Easy, Medium, or Hard.” We took two easy hikes–the Riverside Walk and the Emerald Pools (doesn’t that sound like a name Anne of Green Gables would come up with?)
The Riverside Walk was just beautiful. It is the beginning of the walk to “The Narrows.” The Narrows walk was closed and I would not have attempted it anyway. It’s a tough one. The Emerald Pools was a pretty walk, too. All together it was around 4 miles and that was plenty for me. A wonderful, awesome day!
Here we go!
As we attempted a selfie a nice woman asked if we’d like her to take our picture. She did a good job.
Another time we drove through in the morning. The trees were bright patches of green in the morning sun.
On our morning drive there was a little snow.
This is called Checkerboard Mesa, and you can see why.
The Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel, 1.1 miles long.
The stripes on the red rock were so interesting and pretty.
Waterfall by the Emerald Pools.
Part of the path we walked.
Driving through.
Another small, natural tunnel.
An arch in the rock.
A selfie in front of the arch.