Friday June 20, 2014

 

Non-Travel Day

 

This morning we headed north on U .S. 89 and then west on UT Rt. 9 “Zion Park Scenic Byway” to Zion National Park. The ride over was very enjoyable through desert and mountain vistas. Upon entering Zion National Park we encountered high mountains of light colored sandstone that were almost void of vegetation but with fantastic shapes and sculpting's by
the wind and water. The road traversed several mountains up steep grades, around sharp curves and along the mountain side without any guard rails all the while displaying beautiful rock formations. We approached a tunnel where the traffic was stopped as if only one way traffic could pass through, we later found out that when a large vehicle wanted to go through, such as a camper, it had to use the centerline of the roadway to go through the tunnel; it was
constructed in the 1930’s when vehicles were not as large as they are today, normally traffic can proceed in both directions. After passing through the tunnel we noticed that the appearance of the mountains was different, the rock was darker, the cliffs and rock face was steeper and there was quite a bit of vegetation . Along the way, on both sides of the tunnel we
stopped at numerous overlooks to gaze out at the mountains and rock formations. We stopped at the visitor’s center and History Museum to view the film and get some information on the park. The area of the park up Zion Canyon is off limits to private cars, you are required to use the park’s shuttle busses; they ran every 5 to 8 minutes and were extremely efficient at
moving a large number of tourists up and down the Canyon. We decided to take the bus to the furthest point on the route, the “Temple of Sinawava” and work our way back to the
Visitor’s Center. From here we took the “Riverside Walk”, a 2.2 mile roundtrip walk on a paved path along the “Virgin River”, at the end of the paved path you could proceed up river into the canyon, but it was necessary to walk in the riverbed, and we decided that we would rather maintain dry feet than go further into the canyon. Using the shuttle bus we went down the canyon to the stop for the trail to the “Weeping Rock” . This is short .5 mile round trip hike up the mountain side to a point where water seeped out of the mountain side and cascaded over the rock and fell to the valley floor like rain. It was a wonderful sight to see all this
water in the middle of the desert. Our third and final hike was 1.6 mile hike to the “Emerald Pools”, the first mile was along a trail that paralleled the Virgin River, but the trail worked its
way up and down along the side of the hillside, and the last .6 mile it was over a semi paved walkway. We were both glad to complete the hike and return to the Lodge for a drink. Driving back through the park the mountain views were just as fantastic going this was as it was driving into the park. Along Rt. 9 we came upon a large area of grass land where a good size herd pf buffalo were grazing. It was great to see these large animals in their natural habitat. Returning to Kanab we found a Mexican restaurant for dinner. This was a long and tiring day.