Zion to Bryce

When we only have a couple of days to see an area, it’s always a tough decision, deciding what to do and see, to try and hit the highlights, without killing ourselves physically. Our 8 mile hike took a lot out of us, but we wanted to see the “Emerald Pools”, which was a 3.5 mile hike. In retrospect, we could have passed it up, since the Pools weren’t really green right now, more of a muddy brown. From there we walked the Riverwalk, which runs along the Virgin River, towards the Narrows. The river is beautiful in this area, and it was a nice stroll. It also gave us the chance to see a little of what we were missing because we couldn’t hike the Narrows. The Park Ranger said it could be closed for weeks, due to high water. Once we had walked as far as we could, I waded in the river to cool off a bit. The water temperature was in the 50s, so I didn’t wade very long. We would have had to have special boots (which you can rent) to hike in water that cold. By the time we had cooled off, we were pretty tired, but we wanted to stop at the Museum of Human History on our way out. We watched a ranger talk about the Navajo sandstone and how the layers of rock got to be here. Millions of years ago, before the Rockies were formed, the Appalachian Mountains were the tallest around, and the 2000 ft deep sandstone here, came as run off from them. They were the old Continental Divide. The theory is that millions of years ago, a Pacific Plate slid into a different Plate, causing the Rockies to rise up and changing the landscape of the west. The canyon here was formed solely by the Virgin River flowing through soft sandstone for millions of years. Hard to believe when you see how small the river is now. Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon and Grand Canyon make up the Colorado Plateau, with Bryce being the highest elevation. The lowest elevation of Bryce is the highest of Zion, and the lowest elevation of Zion is the highest elevation of Grand Canyon. Today we are on our way to Bryce. We hope to stay in the park itself so we may have no internet or cell service for days. Our next big stop after this, may be Denver.

Zion National Park, UT

It was a 2 day drive to get from Yosemite to Zion National Park. There wasn't anything we planned to stop and see along the way, so we just drove through California, part of Nevada and arrived in Utah. Its really my first time in Utah, so I get to color in another state on my map. We hadn't made any reservations anywhere, which turned out to not be the best idea. There aren't that many RV parks really close to Zion and the only one that had availability is a "resort". Its actually really nice (Paul has commented twice that he really likes it). Its well laid out, has great amenities- a game room, pool, and lots of activities,etc., but Holy cow, its not cheap. Ah well. We stayed in one spot last night and then had to move today since they are pretty booked and just squeezed us in. Our first trip into Zion itself was today. We have heard of several hikes in the park that are supposed to be awesome, but the trails up to the canyon rims here have extremely sheer, long drops, with very little trail width. The most famous hike is Angels Landing. I researched it pretty thoroughly and reluctantly decided I would not be able to hike a trail that is 4 feet wide with 1000 ft drops on both sides- even if there IS a chain to hold onto. Not that the whole trail is like that, but even so, I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it. We would also have liked to hike "The Narrows" which is a really unique hike- the trail is the river, so you literally hike in the water. That would be so different, it would be really cool! Unfortunately, the hikability depends entirely on the weather, and there were flash flood warnings yesterday, into this morning, making it too dangerous. We are going to bring our water shoes to the park tomorrow and at least go check it out. So what we elected to do was the Observation Point Trail (8 miles, 5 hrs, 2150 ft elevation gain). It offers some of the best views in the park. When you start at the bottom of a canyon, its really hard to believe that you're going to hike all the way to the rim of the enormous wall that looks like its straight up from the canyon floor, but hike it you do! This was an easier hike, physically, than the hikes in Yosemite, but there were a couple of times that I had to mentally regroup in order to be able to handle the trail. Its not my favorite thing to be standing on a narrow trail with nothing between me and the ground 2000 ft below. The picture with Paul in it was taken close to the top, and he is standing about 2 ft from the edge- a 2100 ft drop. Me- I was pretty much hugging the wall. But- the views were amazing, and the hike was well worth it. As we worked our way to the top, stopping to admire everything around us, we were reminiscing about a hike we did in Kentucky- it supposedly had "views". It was a 10 mile hike and at the end, we saw nothing. There was no view, just an equestrian campground, deep in the woods. This hike today was far from that, thats for sure! Tomorrow its Zion again, and then we move on to Bryce Canyon.