This is going to be a long blog, but it was hard picking out pictures over others or dividing the trip up in segments. I will however, try to add in the pictures that Chris and Steve took along the way as well in a later blog.... as soon as I get them. I feel that my pics don't give the place justice. Anyway.... for a 2.5 hour trip from Vegas, it's worth renting a car for a day to swing out there.
The parkway going into the park.
The Court of the Patriarcs. If I spelled that right.
The most interesting thing about Zion was the fact that they were VERY "green". They had shuttle buses that took us to all the trail head stops along the parkway and were only 6 to 8 minutes apart allowing you to jump off to take pictures and jump on the next one that came by. They recycled but the wildest thing was the some of the lodge rooms. In order to run the lights, you had to insert your key card into a slot. The toilet had two flush buttons... one for #1 and one for #2 so if you had a #1, you didn't use as much water to flush. All the bathroom soaps and shampoos were in dispensors rather than individual bottles to limit waste. It was really nice to see how much of an efford they took in saving the environment.
In the Visitors Center. Megan pointing out Walter's Wiggles.... Steve's got a good picture of that, but lets just say it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be.
Ah yes... the infamous Poop Bags. In The Narrows, you weren't allowed to #2 on the side of the shore. In my book, "How to SH*T in the Woods", it's common knowledge to stay 200' away from a water source. In The Narrows..... you have places along the shoreline to hide, BUT not far enough away, so they ask you to #2 in the bag and take it out with you.... heheheheee!!!!! Let's just say only one of us had the honor of using the Poop Bag..... and it wasn't me.
A view from the Lodge parking lot.
The Lodge. Reminded me a lot of Fryemont Inn up in NC. OH and the food at this place.... awesome! I think we pretty much ate steak every night we weren't in a tent at this place. YUM!
Emerald Pools is a trail head AT the lodge... we thought we'd check it out before we went to bed on Saturday night, but decided after the first hill, that hiking in flip flops weren't such a great idea and we turned around.
The bridge going over The Virgin River
Emerald Pools Trail
Ok... this was Sunday Morning. We got up really early out of our nice beds in the Lodge and met up with the shuttle that took us up and over the canyon to the entrance of The Narrows. The roads were REALLY curvy and on the side of the canyon so if you took the curve too fast, you'd shoot out hundreds of feet and crash to the canyon floor..... Our driver insisted on tripling the speed limit and gasing it at the curves..... We get out of the canyon and onto dirt roads leading us to the trail head and he's gunning the van to see how far we lift off the ground when we hit the hills...... this was after he told us how bad his hang over was from the night before. I could have sworn he was STILL drunk from the way he drove...hehehe.... When we got out of the van to unload our stuff, I couldn't help but laugh at the sticker he had on the back of the van... Thunder Mountain... and I swear to you, I felt like I was at Disney World in that van on that same ride too. hehehehe!
The trail head to The Narrows on Chamberlin's Ranch. Oh to be the guy that owns this land. As long as we keep it clean, he allows hikers to access the trail through his property.
We aren't exactly on the trail here because we didn't know we were following a cow path at the time but we figured it out and crossed the pasture back to the driveway to get to the trail.
Just some things we saw as we walked.
The first of many river crossings... even though it looked more like a creek here.
That's more like it. There were many places along the river that had trails along side it but you had to constantly cross the river to get to them. It REALLY started to wear us out. I know my calves after this trip were huge knots.
THAT'S more like it. The canyon walls of The Narrows never really got closer than the 15' or so. It was still a really cool place to hike through. You felt like you were walking in a water tunnel at times because the walls would be so high and dark.
Chris and Steve have a better picture of this, but we are hiking down a trail AROUND about a 20' waterfall. Unfortunately, the water at the bottom of the falls was too deep for us to swim closer to take better pictures of it straight on. The view from above were really pretty though.
Zoomed in to look at the falls.
A view out from the falls to daylight... and our first big stop for the day... lunch!
Here are the springs that were RIGHT next to our campsite for the night. If I wouldn't have been as tired as I was when we got to camp, I would have gone and swam in those falls.
Pretty dark here.
Back at the lodge.... we ate here for dinner after the hike on Monday. This is the sun setting on the canyon walls behind the lodge.
And here's the lovely campgrounds we stayed in Monday night. Not too bad... not really pretty though. They had running water and flushing toilets... no showers which we REALLY needed at that point. Other than that, they worked out well.
Ah... the traditional BEFORE picture of us about to hike up the West Rim Trail Tuesday morning. Funny how we never get an AFTER picture when we hike a rough hike. I think the only thing on our minds at that time is taking the pack off, shoes off, and jumping in the closest shower possible.
The view up the canyon from the bottom of the trail..... just wish the colors were a little brighter here.
Ok... so I didn't take too many pictures going up the trail... I was dying because of the steep grade and well, just being out of shape. I can walk over 4 miles on flat and semi sloped ground, but put me on a 2 mile trek up steep hills and I'm done for. Here's Megan and Chris seeing how much further we need to go after we reached Angel's Landing (2 miles in). Let's just say the ranger we saw is a liar! It's not flat the rest of the way to the rim.... it's still steep and we weren't just 3 miles away from this spot... try close to 4 or more. It's mainly the steep part that got us. Turd! ; )
We're getting closer to the rim at this point. I think I took this picture halfway up the cliff part of the trail looking back at where we came from. You can see the trail at the bottom of the pic...kind of.
Finally at our campsite. We planned to stay here Tues and Wed night and hike out Thurs.... we got up here and noticed the trees were scorched and we didn't have much shade. After hiking and enjoying the AMAZING views around us.... we decided that was about all we could do and planned to hike out Wed morning instead.
Hiking around the top of the rim trail.
A view out. They say that the white rock we're looking at were once old sand dunes. The layers of rock under that were exposed due to erosion, but you can almost see how the upper layers could have been sand dunes.
I like this tree.
Watching the sunset at the top of the rim. Talk about a beautiful sight. It was also extremely windy up there too! We were getting hit on all sides by wind blowing up the canyon.
The changing colors of the sky.
I took A LOT of sunset pictures, so I'm not sure at judging which one was the better one out of the bunch..... maybe I guessed right.
Wed morning, hiking down. We're at the top of the cliff trail about to go down. Again... Steve has a lot of pictures of this because Megan and I weren't big fans of this part of the trail due to the steep cliff on one side of the trail.
A view down the trail a bit.
A better view of Angel's Landing, which none of us did, by the way. The boys wanted to, but it was too crowded. Basically, you hike up the spine of this rock holding onto chains and balancing in some areas, on bits of trail only 3 feet wide.... one side with about a 400' drop and the other 800' foot drop.... needless to say, if you have any sort of fear or heights, they tell you not to go... and that we didn't.
Here's a close up. Those aren't ants you see... those are actually people.
ALMOST to the bottom of the trail. Here is a pic looking back at Refridgerator Canyon and the side of Angel's Landing (on the right side).
Coming back on Wed gave us time to explore more trails that night and Thurs.... here is Weeping Rock... well, what it looks like under it. It wasn't as impressive as we were hoping, but it was ok.
A view of the rock itself.
While the boys were out hiking in Hidden Canyon, Megan and I decided we'd take on the 3 mile loop trail of Emerald Pools. Above is the Lower Pool.... looks like Weeping Rock only it actually had water coming off of it.
Looking up at the water.
The trail heading up to the middle and upper pools.
The middle pools looking out towards the canyon.
Another middle pool. The water gets it's name from the algae that forms on the pools, but this one was crystal clear.... it was pretty shallow so the strange color in the water was from the sandy bottom.
Climbing up some rock stairs to the upper pool. This is the wall that the upper pool gets it's water from. It was REALLY dry, so we hardly saw any water coming off the cliffs when we got there... just a trickle, but I've seen pictures of it with falls.
After our hikes, we got back together and soaked in The Virgin River for the afternoon.... kind of reminded me of the Grand Canyon and our favorite past time there....staying cool in the water.
Thurs was Chris's birthday, so we had some BIG birthday beers in his honor!
Then we came back to the lodge and saw that the deer were out in force..... he actually got A LOT closer to these guys than what I got pictures of. I'd say within 3' of them.
Little twins that showed up and sat down behind the bench we were sitting at. Too cute!
On the shuttle the last day before we headed out to Vegas.
Overall it was one of the best Canyon trips I've been on. Can't wait to see the pictures Chris and Steve took and I'll be sure to post some good ones on here when I get them.
