Zion National Park- here we come!
The truck is repaired and we are finally on the road!
First stop, Las Vegas. We are there for 1 night, but once we get to Utah we are going to travel by the rule of 3’s: Drive no more than 300-350 miles in a day, arrive by 3:00, and stay at least 3 days. We saw rain in the distance while driving across the desert toward Vegas, and actually got a bit!
Rain in the distance
We spent one night in the City That Never Sleeps. We got set up in our campground, then off to a delicious dinner at King’s Fish House. The next morning we headed to Zion. We didn’t get there until about 5:00 because of construction on I15- hurry up and wait! The campground is very nice, and after we set up we went into the town of Springdale, which is the gateway to Zion, for dinner.
We got up early the next morning to head to Zion. The parks are very busy, and parking can be difficult- especially for a big dually like our truck, so we drove into the town of Springdale to park and caught the shuttle to the Zion entrance. We had another “adventure” when we discovered that our Camelbacks (backpacks with a bladder to hold drinking water) leaked 🙁 so we went into the equipment store at the entrance to the park and bought a couple of backpacks to carry our waters and snacks. Then we entered the park and took the park shuttle to the Zion Lodge to start our first hike- to the lower, middle and upper Emerald Pools. It was a great hike, and we saw beautiful scenery!
On the way down you could see a bit of the Virgin River, winding through the park. The Virgin River actually carved this canyon.
We went back to the Zion Lodge for lunch and the concierge came by, and we chatted for a bit and proved again that it’s a small world! He asked us where we are from, and it turns out he lived in Bakersfield for a while when he opened some 24Hour Fitness gyms there- the start of his 100+ gym empire! He also told us that we were lucky our trip was delayed, because they had VERY hot weather (107!) and rain with flash floods- so things do work out for the best!
We took the Riverside Hike after lunch. This takes you to the start of The Narrows, a long hike up the Virgin River- you actually walk through the river! We didn’t have the right gear or a permit, so we did not continue on, but went back to catch the shuttle to go back to town and get pizza!
The whole park is beautiful!
Here is a picture of Checkerboard Mesa- you can see cracks that are both horizontal, which are caused by compression of the sand over time, and vertical, which are caused by water freezing and thawing and causing cracks in the rock:
We drove through the Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel to get to the east side of the park. We had to pay a fee to drive through the tunnel because our truck is wider than the lane- so they shut down traffic and we drove down the middle!
We exited the east side of the park and went to the town of Kanab, which is within 100 miles of lots of parks and attractions- a great place to be a home base!
On our last day for Zion we went to the last part of the park, Kolob Canyon, and hiked an overlook trail. This is a little different from the main canyon as it is more forested.
When we got to the end of the trail we could see so far! The views are amazing and the air is so clear- at this point you can see all the way to the north rim of the Grand Canyon (way in the distance, not the wall you see up close):
All the other hikes in this part of the park are long and strenuous, so we drove down to the city of St. George and went to the Dinosaur Discovery Site- it was so interesting! The have tons of dinosaur tracks and some fossils- it’s a small museum and working lab for preservation of the fossils that have been found all over Utah- I recommend a visit if you are in the area.
And as we get ready to leave Zion National Park, the leaves are just starting to change!