vacation pictures #2: Zion National Park, Utah

[ilanarama]

We arrived at Zion about noon, nervous about the prospect of getting a campsite, but it turned out that not only were there several sites free, one of them was next to two other Sportsmobiles! (Not the greatest photo, but if you're curious about what our van looks like...) It was kind of like the boating days when we hailed anyone with the same make of boat - it gave us an excuse to come over with beers and chitchat.

Britt had been somewhat reluctant to visit because he remembered Zion from an earlier visit long ago as crowded, noisy, and polluted due to all the traffic; I'd never been, so I really wanted to come. Well, it turns out that in 2000 cars were banned from the valley other than propane-fueled shuttle buses. We bicycled up the peaceful canyon and it was magnificent. (Full disclosure: I'm actually biking down in this picture.) That first afternoon we biked the length of the canyon and did two short hikes: the paved path at the head of the canyon (which gives access to the Narrows, which were closed because of high water flow on the Virgin River) and the Emerald Pools hike, which took us to three different waterfalls.



The next day, we biked upcanyon again with all our hiking gear and set out to hike to Observation Point, a more ambitious climb of about 2300 feet in 3.6 miles. (I'd originally wanted to go up Angel's Landing, like all the tourists to, but when I noticed Observation Point was way higher I picked that. Also, I figured there'd be fewer tourists.) The trail began with some serious switchbacks and then entered beautiful Echo Canyon, which is the canyon in the teaser photo above:



Then we broke out over a saddle and hiked up the steep back of a mesa = more switchbacks, sometimes carved into the rock thanks to the hardworking CCC who did so much in the national parks in the 30s. Trees clung to the steep rocky slopes by extending their roots whereever they could find purchase; because of the harsh environment they were all twisted and gnarled.



If you have been paying attention you will have noticed I'm wearing a lot more in the last phot than I was in the one above it. Yep, the weather turned icky on us, although it never really poured down but only sprinkled. Still, when we got to the summit the valley was filled with mist and rain. As we hiked back along the mesa, just before we started our descent, we were rewarded with a sunnier view. (By the way, the famous Angel's Landing is the skinny right-center mesa top in the misty picture.)



We backtracked down the trail most of the way, to where the Hidden Canyon trail branches off about a mile from the trailhead. (If you looked at the "switchback" picture, the Observation Point trail goes to the left, and the smaller trail to the right is the Hidden Canyon one.) Yep, more switchbacks. And also more ledges chiseled out of the rock to serve as trails. Some parts of the trail were narrow enough that chains were bolted to the rock to serve as handrails for nervous tourists; generations of nervous tourists repeatedly grabbing the chains had caused them to rub grooves into the soft sandstone in many places.



After visiting Hidden Canyon, we went down to look at Weeping Rock, too, for a total mileage of something on the order of 10.5 miles and 3000 feet elevation gain. Woo.

In addition to all the pretty macro scenery, there was a lot of very nice micro scenery, as the wildflowers were in bloom in a big way. Here are just a few of the photos we took (prickly pear cactus flowers on the left, Palmer's Penstemon on the right); more can be seen on Flickr by searching our wildflower+zion tags.



Or just see all 21 photos without the blah blah blah on our Flickr page, tag: zion.

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Awesome. You saw way more of the rawness of Zion than I did when I was there, probably more than a dozen years ago now. I was with my family, including grandmother and overweight mother, so we didn't do anything so ambitious. Kudos to you, and congrats on the gorgeous photos.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Definitely what you are able to get out of a place depends a lot on the people you are with, and what they want to do. Fortunately both Britt and I are very active and tend to want to get out and crawl as much as we can. (Also, I think the whole feel of the place has changed since the days when people drove up the canyon by themselves. When you drive and stop at overlooks etc you usually just look around for a few minutes; when a shuttle drops you off and continues on its way, you might as well hike around while you wait for another.)

We actually want to go back sometime in the (a) summer, so we can do some of the canyoneering Zion is famous for.

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

These are so beautiful -- thanks for sharing them! I haven't been to Zion in over 20 years, but I have fond memories of going there with my parents, several times, when I was young. We also went to Brice (Bryce?) two or three times, usually in conjunction with traveling to Zion. I particularly liked your shots of Peach Wash, and the pic of the red paintbrush flowers growing in the rock crevice. The Palmer's Penstemon is so delicate and pretty! They remind me of snapdragons in a way. Lovely photos!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! You should go again, although it's quite a bit farther for you from the Front Range, of course.

We also went to Bryce, but that will be, hmm, I have three more sets to go before getting there. (We kinda took the long way around.)

Yeah, Palmer's Penstemon has that same kind of compound structure (there's a botanical word for it but I don't know what it is) as a snapdragon, but to me it mostly looks kind of orchid-y. The way each of the flowers opens up in a sort of vertically asymmetric mouth, with the delicate petal bits curving up. It's such a pretty flower, and we saw a lot of it.

And hee, PANSIES! I am totally not surprised.

[delurker.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, I refresh my flist and there are more pictures! Sweet!

Looking at all the rocks, it reminds me a lot of the trip I went on to Central Australia. This kind of mountainous landscape is so beautiful.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

There are some similarities, probably - red desert anywhere is formed by pretty much the same stuff. (I've only been to the northern bit of the Northern Territory but I've seen National Geographic specials :-)

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

So amazing! I want to get out there and hike (or "hike," knowing me) someday.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Well, if you come out here I shall lead you on a nice, gentle deathmarch. :-) But seriously, there are options for all sorts of fitness levels; the first hikelet we did was a fairly level and paved path of about a mile, and there were some seriously overweight people and families with little kids, lots of people who don't ordinarily hike at all but who were lured to their feet by the beauty.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow. These are so amazingly beautiful. How cool is it to go and see all of this in person. Running aside, I'm not that much of an out door person, but this makes me want to rethink that attitude. *g* Lovely photos!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

That's one reason I could never do long stints on a treadmill - I actually started running just as a way to get outside and see the neighborhoods and the scenery.

[hedda62.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous! We were in Zion for just a few hours several years ago (had to get out of Vegas on Easter Sunday) and I really want to go back and see more. And we were really pleased by the buses - traffic choking spoils these parks.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I think that no matter how much time one spends there is always more to do.

[beledibabe.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous! I've never been to Zion, and now I really want to go!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Zion and Bryce (where I had also never been) were my big goals for the trip. I felt like I was a bad outdoorsy person, living out here and never having visited these premier national parks. It's a bit of a long drive from here, but if you ever want to do an American Southwest Circuit vacation, you are welcome to stop over in our spare room.

[jeddy83.livejournal.com]

Fabulous photos, but my favourite thing is the picture of the prickly pear, which is a noxious weed in Australia.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee! It's a bit of a noxious weed here as well, but it's native, so that's okay - I assume it's an exotic in Australia? It grows all over the drier parts of the Southwest, including Colorado (there is some up the hill from our house) and provides food for birds and reptiles and some people, too. The flowers are SO PRETTY, and the bees seem to adore them, because many times we'd look into a cactus flower and there would be a bee, rolling around, just wallowing in the pollen. We saw pink, red, and yellow cactus flowers this trip.

[jeddy83.livejournal.com]

Yes, though it originally came to us from South America or so I was told. Unfortunately being an exotic it doesn't have any natural predators and grows everywhere in the drier parts of the country, which is pretty much everywhere a couple of hundred kilometers from the east coast. *g* The flowers are pretty though. I remember seeing them growing along the train lines when I was a kid.

[cahotage.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've been on that Echo Canyon trail only I came down into the main canyon from a backcountry trip of several days. Amazingly beautiful - and I could never remember the name of the canyon. Thanks!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I saw that trail on the map - it comes into the trail we took from the east side of the park.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a gorgeous place. I'm putting Zion way up high on my "Must See...Someday" list. I'm glad the weather was (mostly!) nice for you, and that you got to see what looks like a lot of this place. I don't think I've ever seen canyons like that. They're so beautiful!

[(Anonymous)]

Beautiful! My memories of Zion are 25+ years old, but I remember a lazy afternoon floating down the stream in inner tubes. Your pictures have whetted my appetite to go back! Do they rent bicycles at the entrance?

Eric W.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee, Britt and I thought about how much fun it would be to float the river!

You can rent bikes in Springdale at the entrance, yeah. The shuttle buses have racks, and there is a very nice bike/ped path to bypass the first bit of the road (where cars are allowed).

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

It's a really nice park, and I think you ought to do a big family trip to the national parks of the southwest US. And while you're in the area, swing by here. :-)

[wychwood]

These are gorgeous! *is almost tempted to do some walking. Or, well, perhaps mountain biking. Maybe*

Some parts of the trail were narrow enough that chains were bolted to the rock to serve as handrails for nervous tourists; generations of nervous tourists repeatedly grabbing the chains had caused them to rub grooves into the soft sandstone in many places

Hah! I liked that photo :) Although I wondered whether wind blowing the chains around might not have had more impact than the tourists? Either way, it's a cool picture; I like how you can see the grooves from the individual links.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

*is almost tempted to do some walking. Or, well, perhaps mountain biking. Maybe*

Hee, wait until the next set which are all mountain biking! (And Britt dragged me up a local mountain-bike ride yesterday, which was literally up a mountain. Oog, 7% average grade for 4 miles.)

I wondered whether wind blowing the chains around might not have had more impact than the tourists?

Oh, maybe. I figured that when someone grabs one end, a lot of pressure is exerted on the other, but yeah, wind, too. On our previous trip to the Escalante area last fall (I posted photos, but I think not this one) we saw a place where an old telegraph wire had worn deep grooves into the sandstone due to wind.

I'm glad you're enjoying the photos!

[wychwood]

(And Britt dragged me up a local mountain-bike ride yesterday, which was literally up a mountain. Oog, 7% average grade for 4 miles.)

Wow! *hides*

I'm not fit enough for something like that *g*, and I've never done any off-road biking at all. But that shot of you on that gorgeous smooth road with the amazing scenery... I could get behind that! (And cycling, at least over the short distances I deal with, is a lot easier on my body than walking; my feet really start complaining after a mile or two *g*)

I figured that when someone grabs one end, a lot of pressure is exerted on the other

That's a good point. I was partly thinking about "number of tourists per year" versus "hours of wind strong enough to move the chain", though I admit I know nothing about how visited that area is!

I don't remember seeing the photo of the wire and the rock, though I did look at the pictures from that trip. Sounds pretty cool, anyway.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Mmm, landscape porn. I hope you had even more fun hiking throughit than I had looking at the pictures.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I really do love getting out and hiking in beautiful scenery.

[dementordelta.livejournal.com]

Wow, these are gorgeous! Glad you had a good time!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (Moooooose!)

[avantbard.livejournal.com]

Stunning. Can't believe I skipped Zion on my way through Utah last year.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And Utah has an incredible amount of (and variety of!) stunning scenery, so every trip through has to be a compromise between the available time and energy you have and what you want to see and do.

Pretty Yosemite icon!

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

Those are really amazing photos. I love the one of the switchback path, which makes me want to put my feet on it!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

It was remarkably well graded, and actually paved in many places. I don't know how much you know about the history of US parks, but in the 1930s depression the Civilian Conservation Corps was formed by Franklin Roosevelt, to combat unemployment, and they did huge amounts of trail and structure building throughout the national parks. The trail has obviously had work done to it since, but the sheer effort of putting these things in would never be done today, I think.

[accioslash.livejournal.com]

I'd have clung to those chains like a limpet. "Nervous Tourist" would be my middle name. ;D

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Believe me, most people used them! We helped talk one particularly nervous woman up the trail: "honest, this is the most exposed part, when you turn the corner the trail gets lots wider," and her boyfriend thanked us when she made it through :-)

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

That tree! I can't get over how different everything looks from anything I've ever seen.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

That is the cool thing about the American Southwest (and why it's so popular with European and Asian tourists). The scenery is unique and very distinctive, and the animals and plants have evolved to fill these particular niches.

I don't think I'd want to actually live in the redrock desert - we're just on the edge here - but I like living close enough to visit frequently.