Our second visit to Zion and we couldn't have picked a better day. It was a quicker drivethru visit that yesterday, we were headed to our next stop at Bryce. Nevertheless we still had enough time to park the car for a few hours early in the morning and take the shuttle up the canyon. We started with a short walk across the river from Zion Lodge.
Next stop was the Court of the Patriarchs where we got to look at the three massive Patriarchs from several viewpoints. The Patriarchs are perhaps three of the most impressive peaks in the park given their position, colouring and prominent summits.
After picking up Samuels Zion Junior Ranger Badge we hopped into the car and headed up the spectacular Zion - Mount Carmel Highway. The highway starts by winding its way up a side valley of the Zion Canyon. It took a while to make much progress as we probably stopped about once every kilometre at the well placed pullouts and lookouts to enjoy the views.
We drove through an impressively engineered long and narrow tunnel through a mountain and emerged to a different world. Zion Park outside the Canyon is a crazy rocky desert. Massive slaps of textured and coloured bare rock tilted at all angles from flat to vertical, huge rocky knolls, sandy patches with shrubs and even some fancy cacti. Again we made plenty of stops to enjoy the views and we went for a short walk which involved a bit of rock scrambling. Eric and Samuel as usual had an eye on the terrain for its orienteering potential (good in the rare flatter bits).
Our final stop in the park was the famous Checkerboard Mesa. For the pictures it's easy to see where it got its name. Eric went for another short walk to get the sun on the right side of the Mesa for a few photos.
It was sad to say goodbye to Zion. It would have been good to take a longer hike here like we did at most of the other parks we visited. Definitely a place we would like to return to some day and do a bit more hiking.
Next stop was the Court of the Patriarchs where we got to look at the three massive Patriarchs from several viewpoints. The Patriarchs are perhaps three of the most impressive peaks in the park given their position, colouring and prominent summits.
After picking up Samuels Zion Junior Ranger Badge we hopped into the car and headed up the spectacular Zion - Mount Carmel Highway. The highway starts by winding its way up a side valley of the Zion Canyon. It took a while to make much progress as we probably stopped about once every kilometre at the well placed pullouts and lookouts to enjoy the views.
We drove through an impressively engineered long and narrow tunnel through a mountain and emerged to a different world. Zion Park outside the Canyon is a crazy rocky desert. Massive slaps of textured and coloured bare rock tilted at all angles from flat to vertical, huge rocky knolls, sandy patches with shrubs and even some fancy cacti. Again we made plenty of stops to enjoy the views and we went for a short walk which involved a bit of rock scrambling. Eric and Samuel as usual had an eye on the terrain for its orienteering potential (good in the rare flatter bits).
Our final stop in the park was the famous Checkerboard Mesa. For the pictures it's easy to see where it got its name. Eric went for another short walk to get the sun on the right side of the Mesa for a few photos.
It was sad to say goodbye to Zion. It would have been good to take a longer hike here like we did at most of the other parks we visited. Definitely a place we would like to return to some day and do a bit more hiking.
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