Zion - April and November 2017

April 2017 - Visit with Ingrid aka 'oma' or 'mams' 

In April 2017 Geert's mom visited us for 2 weeks. As it was her first time in Utah, we had to at least show her some of the National Parks (NPs) in the South, and Zion NP was one of them.

We left friday after school, and after a 5 hr drive straight south on the I15 (a highway we take close to our home and which goes all the way to San Diego ... 771mile or 1234km away from us ... travelling in the US is just so easy!), we slept in La Verkin before continuing to Zion NP the next morning. 
La Verkin is located half an hour from the park and the hotels here are much cheaper than in Springdale, the town at the entrance of the park. 
The weather was perfect and we were all looking forward to this day as none of us had already visited this park.

During busy periods (which spring break is), you cannot enter the park with your own car as the parking spaces at the different view points/trail heads are limited. There is a free shuttle service within the park, which has the feeling of a guided tour bus, where you can jump on and off at all the different trailheads.

When you arrive early enough, you can park your car at the parking lot near the southern park entrance outside of the park. But if this one if full, do not stress ... there are plenty of free 'Shuttle Parking' lots along the road towards the park, where a free bus passes every 15 minutes to bring you to the park entrance. 

As in all NPs, there are no shops inside the park, so if you're planning to do a picnic somewhere in the park, don't forget to grab yourself some sandwiches and some bottles of water with you before entering. At some of the trailheads you can refill your water bottle. There is a 'Subway' (sandwich shop that we use very often to get our lunch when visiting a park) close to the South entrance, which was closed however when we were there. Luckily there is also a little supermarket, where we got some 'ok' sandwiches.

There is however 1 restaurant inside the park at the Zion lodge stop, called 'Red Rock Grill'. We haven't been there, because we were not aware of its existence, so I don't know if the food is any good, but the views have to be grand!

We took the shuttle straigth to the last stop in the park, 'Temple of Sinawava' and walked the popular 'Riverside Walk' to get a first impression. It's a very easy level walk on a mostly paved path, next to the river. 

At the end of this walk the very famous 'The Narrows' start. Hiking The Narrows, means hiking in the river which can be strenuous ... not a hike we were going to attempt with Ingrid, but the access was prevented anyway when we were there due to high water levels. But we'll definitely return to do this one later.

The Riverside is a perfect location to have a lunch and that is exactly what we did.

 

Our next stop was the 'Wheeping Rock'. Several trails start from this stop, but we only did the short hike to a rock alcove with dripping spring, aka 'Wheeping Rock', from which you have a gorgeous view into the Zion Canyon valley.

 

After this short hike, we jumped again on the shuttle and got off at the next stop 'The Grotto'. From there we took the 'Kayenta trail' to the Lower Emerald pools and continued after that to the up the 'Upper Emerald pool trail'. It was getting warmer and the trail was also longer and steeper than the previous ones. 

Especially the part from the lower pools to the upper pool is steeper, but Ingrid did great 👊!

 

On the Kayenta trail

View from the Lower Emerald Pools

The Upper Emerald pool

After a well deserved beer and some food on the terrace of the 'Zion Canyon Brewpub', located just outside the park at the South entrance, we headed towards our next stop, Bryce Canyon NP.

As the energy level was pretty low at that moment, we decided not to do the 'Canyon Overlook Trail' anymore which we wanted to do on our way to Bryce. But no worries, this would definitely not be our last visit to this park!

November 2017 - Angel's Landing & Observation Point

Indeed, during the Thanksgiving long weekend of 2017 we returned to Zion, but this time just with the 4 of us. We had 2 hikes on our agenda ... 'Angel's Landing' and 'Observation Point'.

Angel's Landing (formerly known as 'Temple of Aeolus') is a tall narrow tongue of rock with sheer rock walls on three sides standing more than 1200ft (360m) above the valley floor.
TBC...