Zion National Park

Words cannot describe Zion National Park. I could try with words such as spectacular, magnificent, stupendous, glorious, but those words don't go far enough. It was truly an awe inspiring experience. Driving up to the park we were greeted by the Checkerboard Mesa. Checkerboard Mesa is a giant white wall with criss-cross patterns all over it. That was extraordinary enough by itself, but as we continued into the park through the East Entrance we saw a sign for a tunnel. We've been through tunnels before, the kids love them, I usually get slightly freaked out by them, but a tunnel is a tunnel, right? Wrong. The first tunnel was fairly short. We could see the end as soon as we entered. The second tunnel is the one everyone must go through. It is a mile and a half, through the mountain, down hill. At several spots throughout the tunnel they have cutouts, I assume to provide fresh air, but you can see little glimpses of the canyon as you are going through. Just when you think there is no end to the tunnel, finally you see the light. What a feast for the eyes. You are now fairly high up in these gorgeous canyons with sheer cliffs of every color around you. You have to wind your way down to the canyon floor before you can continue your journey to the Visitors Center. The Visitors Center was fairly mundane, but we had to get the booklets for the Junior Ranger Program. Now comes my one and only complaint. You have to buy the Jr. Ranger Booklet. It's only $1 and I have to assume the funds are going to help maintain the beauty of the park, so I didn't complain too loudly, but this is the only time we have had to pay for the Jr. Ranger booklets.

Armed with our booklet and a map, we devised a plan for seeing as much of the park as possible in one day. Zion has a fantastic shuttle system, so we hopped aboard a bus and headed to the Emerald Pools. To see all three pools, the lower, middle and upper you have to hike about 2.5 miles. The first part of it is pretty easy, but it gets slightly more treacherous the higher you go. From the middle pool to the upper pool is only about three tenths of a mile, but it is all up hill over rocks. We all made it without incident and the wildlife was out in full force to keep us entertained during the hike. We saw a garter snake slither out of the grasses right in front of us, deer off to the distance, the boldest squirrels you've ever seen in abundance, lizards, elk, chipmunks, ravens, and an odd assortment of beetles.

The hike was worth the effort. The pools were beautiful and refreshing and the boy enjoyed splashing around and cooling off. It was an extremely warm day, so any chance to get wet was taken. The hike down from the pools led us straight to the lodge and since we were all exhausted, hot and thirsty we decided it would be a good time to have some lunch and sit down. Finding shade was a little difficult since the park was busy and, as I said, it was very hot. We finally found a semi-shady spot and parked ourselves while Glenn got our lunch. During our lunch I drank approximately 50 ounces of iced tea, which haunted me the rest of the day. It was hot, I was thirsty and it tasted so good. Once we recharged our batteries we got back on the shuttle and rode to the "Weeping Rock" trail. This trail was only half a mile round trip, so I figured we get up there and back barely breaking a sweat. Not so. I suppose my legs were still a little shaky from the earlier hike, but I was huffing and puffing all the way up, up, up to the Weeping Rock. The Weeping Rock is an area where water falls down from an overhang on a mountain which makes up a cave of sorts to stand in. The mountains and rocks of Zion are made of many layers. One of the layers is sandstone which is high absorbent. The water seeps into the sandstone and continues through the rock until it hits a layer of shale, unable to go through the shale, it rolls over the side of the shale. On Weeping Rock it is a huge area where the water flows continuously, making it's own little eco-system of hanging ferns, moss and small flowering plants, hanging from the ceiling of this cave. They have tested the water coming out of weeping rock and have determined it is over 1200 years old. It's amazing to think that the water we were standing under was from rains over 1200 years ago. Some of the waters in Zion have been determined to be over 4000 years old. Incredible. Sean was sticking his tongue out to catch the water as it fell. At first I told him to stop and then realized this was probably some of the cleanest, filtered water in the world.

We hobbled down from Weeping Rock and got back on the shuttle to "Big Bend" which is an area where the river takes an almost 90 degree bend. So the rock formations also curve around to follow the river. After enjoying that for a few minutes we were back on the shuttle to the Temple of Sinawava. There is an "easy" trail that meanders along the river, and since the boys were chomping at the bit to get wet again, we took the trail. It was truly the easiest hike we had all day, but with tired legs, the easy hike took twice as long as it should have. This is the area where we were practically assaulted by squirrels. For whatever reason, people continue to feed the wildlife even though there are signs everywhere asking that you not. As a result, the squirrels are crazy. They are fat and aggressive. If you stop too long to admire something along the river they are right there, expecting a handout. I have never seen anything like it. We have squirrels in our trees at our house and they are skiddish, as they should be. The squirrels at Zion have forgotten they are on the bottom of the food chain.

We walked to the end of the trail which leads to a beach on the river. The boys were able to get into the river and splash around, get very wet and cool off while I fended off the squirrels. The sun was starting to get low in the sky, so we felt it was time to end our visit. Back on the shuttle to the Visitors Center to turn in the booklet and get the Junior Ranger badges. If you're keeping count, that's six badges for Sean and five for Robert and Reid. We went back through the tunnel and as we were exiting the park we saw a small herd of Big Horn Sheep. That was the perfect ending to a perfect day.