Zion National Park - Day 7 & 8

Day 7 - We had seen most of the park on Friday and didn't really want to do too much driving. So we decided to go to the town on the other side of the park to do some shopping and sight seeing. The only way to get there was to drive through the park, so we took our time and stopped a few times for pictures and viewpoints.

Here is a view of the windy road. I'm not sure if the road was stained this color on purpose or naturally but we really like it.

To go through the park you have to go through two tunnels that have been carved into the rock. This one was small but the second one is over a mile long. It's pretty impressive and really dark!

We did a short hike to a viewpoint of the canyon and luckily someone else was there to take our picture. It was a pretty impressive view.

Here's the view without us in the way. You can see the road cutting across the bottom of the canyon.


There were some really cool rock formations on the way.

We also found a ghost town to visit. The is the town of Grafton, an early Mormon settlement. It was established in 1859 but abandoned due to Native American attacks. The house on the right was lived in until the 40s or 50s by one descendant.

We also found this little gem, called Heritage House. Unfortunately, it was closed but it was a nice little house to look out from the outside.

Day 8 - We drove home on Sunday morning and got an early start. Again we had to drive through the Park to get onto the 15. As we were driving, the car in front of us started to slow down. I started looking up at the rock and all of a sudden I saw this.

Not a bad way to end our trip especially when this little guy showed up. We had an amazing time and took so many pictures, over 400! So it's been a challenge only choosing some of the best ones. We both can't wait for our next adventure.

Zion National Park - Day 6

Day 6 - It took all day on Thursday to drive down to Utah. So when we finally arrived we just ate, watched TV and went to bed. We were up bright and early on Friday and made our way to Zion National Park. We stayed at the Best Western Thunderbird Lodge which was about 12 miles from the parks entrance on the east side.

From the parks entrance it was still another 10 miles or so until we reached the bottom of the canyon. The drive was a windy road with the speed limit between 25 and 35 mph.

The views were pretty amazing. This was taken at the top of a ridge that we hiked up to. It over looked the canyon and if you look closely you can see pieces of the road winding down the center.

There were majestic views all around. The "Mormons" originally settled here and named many of the distinctive features of the canyon with very biblical/religious names. This is a picture of the three patriarchs: Abraham (6990'), Isaac (6825') and Jacob (6831').

Here the arch of Zion, a very famous landmark in the park.

We had to park at the visitor center and then take a shuttle system which has several stops up the canyon. We both were happy to take the shuttle as we were pretty tired of driving around. Once we got to Zion Lodge we did a hike to some pools and waterfalls.

There were a few people in the park. It was the Friday before Memorial Day so we were expecting the park to get pretty full. It wasn't too bad though and we didn't feel too crowded and always got a seat on the Shuttle.

This is the path along the river that takes you to the narrows. Later in the season when the water levels are lower you are allowed to hike up the river and through the narrows, which is basically rock walls along each side and a lot of wading through the water. We were hoping to do a small piece of it but the river was too full and so was closed to the public. Maybe next time.

The canyon is old and has gone through many geological changes and stresses to become what it is today. This is a picture of Checkerboard Mesa which was once a sand dune that has now become rock.



Here we are before dinner. We ate at the Thunderbird restaurant that night at our hotel. The food was alright but the beer was more interesting. We tried a few local beers in Yellowstone, mostly from Montana and Idaho like Moose Drool Brown Ale and Old Faithful Ale. They were ok, not great but they were fun to try. In Utah, we found some local beer that tasted better and had interesting names like Polygamy Porter and Evolution Amber Ale. Remember Utah is mostly Mormon and so a large part of the population doesn't drink. So it was a bit surprising to find some nice beer here. The food was better than Yellowstone but there was still room for improvement. The water was also interesting, it was spring water and had a very metalic taste to it. I was convinced there was something wrong with me, until we figured out it was the water that was causing the metallic taste!