Ausflug 37

April 18th - 19th, 2013: Zion NP, Utah.

We arrived around noon and they had not finished refreshing the rooms, so we just put in a reservation for that evening and continued on to Zion National Park.

There we jumped on a shuttle bus, the only way to take the drive up the scenic canyon, and took it up to the northern end of the road. There we disembarked and walked about a mile on a concrete trail to the place where the Virgin River flowed into Zion canyon. Very pretty!

Hopping back on the shuttle bus we backtracked down the canyon drive to the Zion Lodge, where we jumped right back off and hiked across the river and up to the Emerald Pools. There are three such pools and the trail leads to all three of them, but we only had enough energy to walk up to the first two. The first pool had a thin but steady waterfall plunging into it, which was rather a dramatic setting.

The second Emerald Pool directly above the first on a stone shelf, had a small, steady stream of water flowing into it. That was less dramatic but the pool itself was nicely shaped and very calm, so we attempted to take mirror pictures using the pool’s still surface as a reflector. We thoroughly enjoyed both walks and Chris drove us back to the hotel in the Prius, which gave him a chance to drive the car and me a chance to relax from driving the car, a win-win situation!

Chris had told us about a pretty but rather challenging trail up to Angel’s Landing, one of the impressive stone promontories jutting out into Zion Canyon, so we decided to try that the next day. Taking the shuttle bus, we again disembarked at Zion Lodge, but this time we walked a short trail over to the Grotto where the trail really began by crossing the Virgin River.

, we had an introductory flat section of the trail before it began to relentlessly climb over 1,000 feet through a series of switchbacks. The first series got us to a relatively flat section that led us around the mountain to the second set of switchbacks and these were man made.

That was pretty exhausting, but not really dangerous. But when we arrived at Scout Landing, the final section of the trail out to Angel’s Landing was quite daunting. Essentially, you had to hold onto a chain to keep yourself from sliding off and falling off the cliff, then walk across a narrow ledge to finally get to the landing. All of us had vertigo at the very thought of doing that, so we took a bunch of really great pictures and turned around.

The walk back down the switchbacks was hard on the knees but not at breathtaking as the climb up had been, but we were still pretty knackered (and hungry!) at the end of it all.