Different Trails

ZION (Day 14 - part 1)

I packed up and left the house a bit before 5:30 am. Of course, I got lost immediately. Yup, it's just what I do. Fortunately I figured it out fairly quickly and managed to cut back to the freeway I needed. It did give me a nice distant view of Vegas I otherwise wouldn't have gotten.

Leaving Vegas in the dust... literally

I left Nevada, passed briefly through Arizona, and eventually found myself in Utah en route to the first of my National Park tour... Zion.

A layout of the land

I arrived around 8:30 am. My goal of arriving as early as I could was to get a camping spot. I had planned this trip too late in order to reserve one so I was hoping to find something in the first-come-first-served campground. Fortunately the rangers were convinced there were still plenty of available spaces. I ended up taking the first open space I found, just to be safe. There probably would have been better ones but the place was super crammed all over.

I set up the tent, had breakfast and planned the day.... all the while listening to a woman in the neighboring spot screaming at her kid for getting the car dirty (... in a place covered with loose dust and dirt). It was warm but not super hot yet.

The deer certainly looks happy about it!

Zion National Park is split into several different sections. My focus was just going to be on Zion Canyon (a 15-mile long slice created by the North Fork of the Virgin River through Navajo Sandstone). In 1909, the area became protected under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument. In 1918, it was changed to Zion (the name used by the Mormons who had settled the area in the early 1860's). The reason? Apparently it was believed that Spanish and Native American names would deter visitors (especially if they couldn't even pronounce it). It became a National Park in 1919 and the Kolob section was added in 1956.

I walked the short distance to the visitor center and caught the free shuttle. It was set up in 2000 after traffic congestion was recognized as a major problem in the 1990's. It ran continuously throughout the day and one could get on and off at various stops along the canyon.

Heading into the canyon. It was standing room only so I actually had wedge right behind the driver.

I got off at the Zion Lodge, which was the start of the Emerald Pools Trails as well as the Grotto Trail. My plan was to do a big loop up to the pools, down the Kayenta Trail to the Grotto picnic area, then the Grotto Trail back to the lodge. Unfortunately the Middle Pool Trail was washed out so I had to join the crowds on the Lower Emerald Pool Trail.

The shuttle drives off.

The trail system

Nearby was also the starting point for Angels Landing, a far more treacherous trail than I would care to do alone. Six people have died from falling off this route since 2004.

Wait... no NORMAL squirrel would ignore food like that!

I crossed the river and headed up the trail. Massive rocky cliffs jutted up from all sides! The geology represents 150 million years of sedimentation... ranging from warm shallow seas, to streams, ponds and lakes, to vast deserts, to dry near-shore environments. Starting 13 million years ago, the region was listed up 10,000 (during the creation of the Colorado Plateau).

The Virgin River

The Lower Emerald Pool is located under to a long rocky ledge. The rock of the ledge is harder and more weather resistant than underlying rock formations. Over time, the softer rock eroded away, leaving this 100-foot drop.

A glimpse of the ledge through the trees

Lower Emerald Pool. It is the green algae that grows in these perennial waters that give the pools their emerald hue.

The path led directly under the ledge.

It was extremely wet and misty from the waterfalls the poured from overhead. They weren't very big at the moment (it wasn't the season for them) and the wind prevented most of the water from reaching the ground.