Howdy!! Trying to catch up from Sunday. This is where I spent my morning yesterday (Monday)...the laundry must get done, so took advantage of this great laundry facility at Canyon Trail RV Park. This is about the nicest laundry facility we have experienced....cruising as well as 'land cruising.' In any event, I needed to get us some clean clothes before we took off for Utah.
Our drive from Nevada took us about 3 and 1/2 hours...along amazing rock formations. We passed back into Arizona for a bit, before coming into Utah.
We arrived at Zion River Resort in Utah yesterday afternoon about 4:00PM (Mountain Daylight Time). What a great location...we will be here a week. I will post some pics of the site this week sometime.
Today, we visited Zion National Park....what an amazing experience. There are shuttle buses that take you throughout the park, offering many stops along the way where hiking and sightseeing just immerse you into the park environment.
The sandstone rock formations are simply stunning, having been formed over millions of years of sandstorms, volcanoes, floods, erosion and shifting of the earth's plates. There is surprisingly lush greenscape throughout, including much vegetation growing out of the rocks, Seems the water from rain, snow and ice seeps down into the mountains, and is forced out through the rock walls...looks almost like they are weeping.
We did a good bit of hiking today...probably about 5-6 miles on various trails. The hiking here was very different from the Grand Canyon, and I actually liked Zion Canyon much better. We kept to the easy and moderate trails, but there are many very challenging options. The vertical lift of the mountains looks like artistic skyscrapers. We actually saw a group scaling the rocks...climbing straight up. Amazing!!
If you look closely, you can see the small group of climbers scaling the rock elevation....look toward the right and you can barely make them out.
There are special permits required for this type of climbing. Do not hold your breath waiting to see Dick or me attempting this level of climbing!
The trails we hiked were really well defined....this was one of the easier ones called the River Walk, following the Virgin River. This river runs through Zion Canyon and into Lake Mead, which feeds into the Hoover Dam.
While the Virgin River looks pretty tame right now, a passing storm can create a 'wash' that floods the area and can send a wall of 12 feet of water raging through the narrow canyon bed in a very short period of time. There are information boards warning of these flash floods; they include early warning signs and strategies for escape.
Throughout the river run, there are rapids that can be pretty brisk. In this shot, I am sitting on a ledge taking a picture straight down at the rapid run.
Since there has been little snow this past winter, the river is much lower and calmer than usual. The guides told of the raging floods from the huge snowfalls in 2010 - so much so that there were a number of trails washed out and had to be repaired.
We saw a deer wading through the river. He (she?) just wandered through the river bed, then leaped up into the mountain slope and scampered up into the trees. It was amazing how agile the deer was at scampering up the steep slopes.
Many were crossing the river bed either in their bare feet or....just plowing in with their hiking boots or sneaks. We decided to skip that crossing, as we had about had it for the day.
There are may more pics I took of the lower and middle 'pools'...a much more difficult hike. But, for some reason, I cannot get them to upload to the blog. So, I'll work more on it tomorrow.
There are many shady areas to rest in Zion Canyon....one reason it was a more comfortable hiking experience. The elevation is about 3,000 feet, and dry....but not nearly like it was in the GC. The temperature today was mid-90's, but the shade helped to keep us pretty comfortable.
So, that's it for tonight....
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