The Colours of Zion

The campground here is almost as packed as in Yosemite. They also get close to the same amount of visitors per year, or around 3 millions. There are 2 campgrounds for the park, but both are just at the entrance of the main canyon. Inside the park itself then there is only shuttle service and no private traffic aside for a short strip that then sides off into a tunnel that takes you out of the park on the east side. We would take that road to go to Bryce Canyon once we left this place.

We spent the day hiking in various parts of the canyon, then walking along it or riding the shuttle to get to the different parts. We hadn't really walked much now for a couple of days, so the exercise was welcome. We first rode to the Court of the Patriarchs from where there was a good view of the three peaks called so. We then cut to the other side of the canyon and hiked along it in the hillsides up to the trail of Emerald Pools.

We had a little luncheon there while we thought up a hiking plan. Some of the trails had been cut off due to rock and mud slides in the spring. We decided to take the trail up to the Lower and then the Middle Emerald Pool. It was a steep hike, but no really strenuous aside from the fact that the sun was hitting hard. Some of the drops were a little scary though. But the trails generally good, if you just played it safe.

From Emerald Pools we continued alongside the canyon up in the heights, then descended to a foot bridge to cross the river at The Grotto. From there we walked mostly along the river. The park is packed with creatures, and aside from the splendid grasshopper I caught in photo, we also saw a number of wild turkeys and I very briefly caught view of a mountain goat as it stormed through the bushes right in front of my eyes, startled by the strange sounds C was making at it.

At Weeping Rock it looked as if we had come to the bottom of the canyon. In fact, the canyon made a swift turn there. We gathered ourselves a bit. We had been walking for some six hours and both of us were starting to get a little weary. So, we jumped on the shuttle bus until the next stop at Angels Landing. The canyon walls there were quite overwhelming. Not to C though, and I saw sparkles in his eyes as he probably made plans of climbing all of this. We actually spotted a team of climbers close to the top of The Organ.

I had to get C out of there before he would begin expanding on some crazy ideas! We took the shuttle further, and this time all the way to the bottom of the canyon, from where we walked the Riverside Walk to the Narrows . The bottom of the Narrows is where the canyon gets ... narrow! One can walk up the Virgin River from there, with the side effect of getting really wet, crossing, wading and swimming through the river in parts of the canyon. One can also hike down the river from the other side, a 16 miles hike that takes 10 to 14 hours.

But that was not going to be for now. Although one could say that we had already "walked the shit out of" Zion Park by now! We had been walking all day. And now we took the shuttle back again, to walk only the last part back. A good day of walking!