Zion Canyon National Park
Trip Start
Nov 22, 2007
1
37
55
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
Springdale,
Utah,
United States
Thursday, July 10, 2008
We headed out of Vegas to tour the canyon country of Southern Utah. First stop, Zion National Park. I had been here once before, but Bob hadn't. We camped for a week at the Zion Canyon Campground and RV Park about one-half mile from the park's south entrance. This campground is surrounded on three sides by the cliff walls of Zion Canyon-very nice views. We got a site right on the edge of the Virgin River, steps away from a sandy beach where we spent lazy afternoons watching collared lizards basking in the sun on the other side, hummingbirds suspending millimeters above the river to drink the water, and swallows chasing insects--performing astounding high-speed dives from 10 feet over the river and pulling up just before hitting the water surface. The Virgin River is a great place for tubing, and there is a put-in spot at the edge of the campground. We had a lot of fun tubing, although the river was a bit low, so you had to keep your bottom up to avoid scraping on the rocks from time to time
Bikes at the entrance
. The cool water was a nice relief from the high temps encountered during July. We also had a fantastic view of the Milky Way Galaxy the first night we were there-the skies are very dark here, so the stars are very intense on clear nights! Zion National Park is a fantastic place to visit, with lots to do for every taste. It is very well-organized and, in the summer, they close the main road through the park to visitor traffic and run natural gas powered shuttle buses at frequent intervals from the wee hours of morning 'til quite late at night. This is the only way to get around the main section of the park-the heart of Zion Canyon. But the park is actually much larger than this would lead one to believe. There are vast areas of the park to be discovered to the east and the north as well. We did some of the short hikes along the shuttle bus route, as well as day trips on the motorcycles to ride or hike in the other sections.
Zion Canyon is unique among the canyon parks in that you enter at the bottom of the canyon-whereas most of the other canyons you visit you view from below, at Zion you typically are looking up at some of the most amazing cliff sides and rock formations. Daylight dances at the tops of the cliffs in the mornings and at sunset, with the walls of the canyon lit up during the interlude. The view, the shadows, and the colors-yellows, reds, greens, blues, and grays-of the canyon change on a constant time-weather continuum
Bob swims in the virgin river
. In the main canyon, we took the shuttle bus and stopped at each stop at one point or another to see the sights. We hiked to the Emerald Pools-so named for the color of the accumulated pools of water that are teeming with algae. In July, the two waterfalls that feed the pools are just minor drips, and the pools are not so spectacular, but it's an easy hike in the heat. We also hiked up to Weeping Rock-another of Zion's unique phenomena. Weeping rock is a cliff face that "weeps" spring water trapped in the canyon walls, creating a habitat for lush fern growth as well as other greenery-reminiscent of Fern Canyon in Redwood country. We walked the Riverside walk and the Pa'rus trails one evening to look for wildlife (we were rewarded with deer and wild turkeys) and to watch the full moon rise over the Virgin River. We rode our motorcycles on the twisty-turny Route 9-the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway to the East entrance of the park. This is a neat scenic ride that offers some sense of the diversity of the park-from switchback panoramas of Zion Canyon and cliff walls, through the rock itself in a tunnel over one mile long, to the sand-colored, slick-rock mesas with on the east side of the park.
The favorites of the things we did (aside from the fun we had tubing down the river) were an all day hike through "the Narrows," and our motorcycle ride and subsequent hike through Wildcat Canyon on the Kolob Canyons side of the park
Carrie tubing in river near campground
. The Narrows is not for the weak of ankle-literally. The trail is the river-you hike up the river itself, finding footing on the slippery rocks that create the riverbed. One person likened it to walking on bowling balls. I don't think it was quite that bad, but that idea would certainly prepare you for the day. Hiking the Narrows is quite an adventure. You always are in water up to at least mid-calf and sometimes over your waist-and that is when the water is fairly low, like it was for us in early July. Yet this is the only way to get to a place called "Wall Street," the very narrow part of Zion Canyon, where the walls are only a few feet across. Along the way, you traverse the slippery rocks, resting from time to time on small beaches, admiring the birds, butterflies, and flowers that grace the shores. We hiked in about three hours to Wall Street and then hiked back out. It was physically a fairly challenging experience, but a greatly rewarding one.
Our other "fave" was the ride we took on Kolob Terrace Road to the northwest side of the park (take Route 9 west to Virgin and make a right). Kolob Terrace Road is about a 30-mile road that leads to Kolob Resevoir. The ride is spectacular-cliffs and canyons, switchbacks, pastures, slick rock, and forests-the landscape changing at every turn. We rode the first 15 miles and dropped off one of our motorcycles, the drove the next 5 miles to Lava Point. We took a right onto the dirt road and checked out the Lava Point scenic overlook, altitude 7890 feet, looking across Zion Park to the south. Then we continued on Lava Point Road (a rutted dirt road that descends to the canyon floor) until we reached the trailhead that would take us on a five-mile hike through Wildcat Canyon and back to the other motorcycle. We really enjoyed this moderately strenuous hike through Wildcat Canyon. This side of the Park is much less-traveled and virtually no one else around for miles
Our site at the RV park
. The trail leads along the bottom of the canyon and climbs slowly up to scrub and pinion pines, along a path that is sometimes rocky but often flanked abundantly with wildflowers and the occasional prickly pear cactus. As we walked along we could sometimes see hundreds of butterflies of all colors and sizes along stretches of the trail ahead, flitting among the wildflowers. Eventually, the trail led through tall pines to an open meadow, again spotted purple and yellow, white and red with wildflowers. The meadow gave way to a sandy approach leading to the end of the trail, where the land was sparse and the slick rock mesas sprung up, dotted with the occasional evergreen. You could spend a day or a couple of weeks here. We spent a week and plan to go back to do an overnight hike along the rim of Zion from the Kolob side to the main Canyon, and we'd like to hike the Subway and Angel's Landing. We'd need at least another week before feeling we'd done all we'd like to do there.
