Grand Circle Utah - Zion National Park

 Zion National Park's steep red cliffs continue to impress no matter how many times one has visited.  It has one of the most scenic drives that I've seen in all the National Parks I have visited.  The drive-in from either entrance over the red road is equally breathtaking.  This time, we drove in from the east and timed it with the golden hour.  We couldn't help but stopped at every turn, so we covered a half hour's distance in two hours.  The amazing thing was, when we left the same way three days later, we couldn't help but stop again as this time we were looking at the cliffs from a different angle.  

We spent three nights in the park, and had time to sit around to soak in the scenery without too much rushing around.  We took leisurely walks down easy trails, walked as far as our bodies would take us without overdoing it.  There is stunning scenery for every ability and you can see below that even on easy/moderate trails, there were jaw-dropping views.

This panorama confronted us shortly after we entered from the east

Checkerboard Mountain, one of the first stunning landmarks on the red drive - the Zion Mount Carmel Highway.  I remembered the drive as much redder when I first visited in the 70"s but it could be just the initial shock of seeing the red carpet rolled out for us.  On the other hand, the 26 mile red drive was built in the 1920's and 1930's - so I wouldn't be surprised that the colour has faded after a hundred years of traffic!  But it must have been repaved...?

This is the entrance to the shorter of the two Zion-Mount Carmel tunnels.  The longer one is 1.1 mile long and seemed to go on forever but then in the middle of it, all of a sudden you glimpsed a light, but it's not the end - just a window opening on the side of the tunnel.  It was truly quite amazing!

Red cliffs surrounded the valley - this is golden hour glow

In  the morning, we walked the Riverside Walk as far as we could, basically until we saw hikers wading into the river outfitted to confront the famous Narrows.

Just before the narrows

Walkers were much entertained watching the rock climbers hard at work

A close-up shot

The early spring green provided stunning contrasts to the red rock face

Even on an easy trail like the Pa'rus Trail, the red rocks were at their showy best

In fact the best sunset view in the park without too much effort is from the bridge overlooking the Pa'rus Trail just inside the south entrance.  Photographers came here for the iconic sunset shot - but no pedestrians were allowed on the bridge. The ranger drove by to warn us to get off it so after I took my not-quite-sunset shot, I went down to the riverbank and looked for another viewpoint.  As it was, I found another spot right on the Pa'rus Trail.

The view on either side of the Virgin River along the Pa'rus Trail

The setting sun touching the tips of the mountains - this is all one could do for sunset because of Zion being in a valley.  The best we could hope for are reflections of the sun on the red rocks and clouds.  The same seems to apply for sunrise as you can see from the photo below.  Without a strenuous hike in the dark on some treacherous trail,  this is all I could get for a sunrise in the valley...

Another early riser - wild turkey lady

The red rocks did catch the glow shortly after sunrise

I did the one "real" hike on part of the Kayenta Trail, and the views were totally worth the effort.  While there were some challenging rocky sections, it was a moderate hike, doable on a fine day.  I didn't get up to the Upper Emerald Pool but the Middle and Lower Emerald pools were a tat disappointing because they were almost puddles - hard to believe that there is so little water when it is only early spring.

Expansive view of the valley from the Kayenta Trail

How unusual to see cactus plants growing in the same spot as deciduous trees

Middle Emerald Pool

Lower Emerald Pool

Doesn't look hard but it's steep when you're tired

Love the different views of the valley with the river meandering through

The notorious "Angel's Landing" - best I could do is take a shot of it caught by the golden hour light.

The Court of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - the shortest trail in the park - that we could do!

The Watchman, iconic sandstone mountain summit standing watch over the south entrance of the park

Eagle's Crag just outside the south entrance to the park

The morning drive as we left the park took almost as long as the drive in, with us still stopping wherever we could safely park.  We were still struck dumb by the stunning views and you could understand why...

Close up of the rocks - looks like wood!

Panoramas give a better sense of the grandeur confronting us, but close-ups like the one below could really put one in awe!

With this amazing rock, we said goodbye to Zion and move on to the next awesome spot - Bryce Canyon National Park.  It is supposedly only an hour away but it took us two hours just to get out of Zion!