We left Las Vegas Monday morning and headed northeast on Interstate 15. The border town of Mesquite was filled with last chance (or first chance depending on your direction) casinos. It was a fairly large little town. As we entered Arizona the road deteriorated, I suppose because Arizona only had about 30 miles of highway. We were on a high desert, flat with mountains in the distance, and it looked as if we would have to climb over them but instead a surprise, narrow canyon opened up and the highway zigzagged through the mountains.
Soon we entered the state of Utah, the 11th state on our road trip, and changed our clocks and watches for Mountain Time. We turned off on highway 9 to the pretty town of Springdale at the entrance of Zion National Park. In fact our hotel was the last along the highway and a short walk to the park visitor center. After lunch we walked into Zion National Park where cars are not allowed past Canyon Junction where highway 9 heads east. Shuttle buses take visitors into the park and we took one to the Zion Human History Museum where we looked at exhibits and watched a short film about the discovery and settlement of the park. Outside the museum stands a mountain named Altar of Sacrifice. Zion has some of the highest sheer cliffs in the world.
We took another shuttle bus (they run every 7 to 10 minutes) to the stop labeled Court of the Patriarchs with great views of mountains named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with another peak called Mount Moroni. Can you guess that a Mormon preacher was one of the first explorers and named several of the mountains? After a short hike and photo shots, we caught another shuttle bus to the Zion Lodge where we walked around the old lodge and dining hall. Finally we caught another shuttle bus back to the visitor center and walked to our motel. It seems that nearly half the tourists are from Europe and Asia. We had a good conversation with one young man from Australia who had two cute little girls.
We went to a large screen (IMAX size) theater next to our motel because they gave us free tickets to see the movie about Zion National Park. Some of the rock climbing and hang-gliding scenes gave us fits of vertigo. After the movie we drove to a restaurant and ate on the outside porch. The winds increased, the skies darkened and soon rain came down. We were not surprised as it seemed to be building all day.
We dedicated Tuesday to spending time in Zion National Park. We slept late and got a late start but once we were organized, we took the shuttle bus to the end of the line at the Temple of Sinawava. I had to Google Sinawava to discover that it is the Coyote God of the Paiute Indians. The Paiutes were in this area for hundreds of years before the Mormons discovered it. We hiked the Riverside Trail which hugs the Virgin River. This river created the Zion Canyon and where this trail starts, the canyon narrows with steep cliffs straight down to the ground. We stopped at the point where you have to wade across the river into the area known as The Narrows, a place where many people in the past were caught in flash floods.
Next we took the bus to the Big Bend stop where we got off to view the peaks named Great White Throne and Angels Landing. One of the most strenuous hikes (and most dangerous) is to the top of Angels Landing and using binoculars we could see hikers along the topmost ridge.
Our next stop was at Weeping Rock where we hiked the short trail to the wet overhang. The sandy rock above absorbs rainwater but the shale below forces the water out the side making it look as if the rock is weeping water. We took another shuttle bus to the Grotto stop where we departed and hiked to the Zion Lodge. Since we had a late breakfast we decided to just snack on energy bars and a few almonds for our lunch. We sat in rocking chairs in front of the lodge and nearly fell asleep in the warm breeze. From the lodge we took one last hike to the Lower Emerald Pool which resembled the Weeping Rock somewhat. Finally we took the bus back to the visitor center, left the park, and bought some local beer to take back to our hotel. We sat outside and enjoyed our cool beers while looking at the majestic cliffs once more.
Wednesday we said goodbye to Zion National Park. As we left we had to head east on highway 9 and exited through the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel, a 1.1 mile tunnel blasted out of the rock by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from 1927-1930. There were more scenic rock formations in reds, whites, browns, and orange colors as we exited the park and headed towards Kanab, Utah.
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