1993/07 Rockies trip - Zion |
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Sunday July 11th
We moved further south the next day to be closer to Zion and the Grand Canyon. 
None of the campgrounds looked all that good, and we settled on one in the middle of Kanab. This was small, but had lots of shade trees, which made for some interesting parking problems. I wrapped the trailer around a tree, but without more than a paint scrape.
We set off for the Zion park as soon as we were parked. It was slow going into the park, partly because of road works, and I was really glad I didn't have to take the trailer through the mile of narrow tunnels.
I thought John and Edna would have been scenicked out by this time, but Zion is a really fantastic place, with the colours and shapes changing at every turn. Sandie was a lot happier here as it's a looking up park rather than a looking down one like Bryce.
Also, although it was 105F in the canyon, the Virgin River keeps things cool if you can stay close to it, so we took the opportunity for some paddling. 
We hiked up to the narrows, where the river fills the whole canyon..
Away from the river there are some areas of weeping rock, where the moisture from springs allows plants to grow high on the canyon walls.
John and I also went up to the emerald pools, where tiny waterfalls drop over the cliffs onto the
hikers.
The first Europeans to settle the area were Mormons and they gave the canyon's geological features their Old Testament names. So the vocabulary includes Patriarchs, Angels, Temples, and even Zion itself.
Zion also seemed to be full of bus-loads of tourists, but they were confined to their cages and to the lodge's restaurant, whose staff had little idea of how to deal with foreign languages.
There's also another group of people, locals from Nevada, who come to the park to tube down the river, though there seems to be a high death rate among the tubes!
Another place I'd like to come to in the spring or fall, away from the buses and the tubes. Zion is actually much bigger than just the canyon floor, so there are lots of hiking 
trails in the high country.
