We left Bryce canyon about 08:30. The wind was gusty and very strong making the trip a little longer due to my keeping the speed way down. We entered from the East entrance. There are two tunnels on this approach to Zion Park. If your vehicle is over 11'4" (not a problem for us, we're 10'6') or if your vehicle is over 7'10" (this is what got us, we're 8'6") then you must pay a $15 dollar fee and they hold traffic at the far end so yu can drive down the middle of the 1.1 mile winding second tunnel. the first tunnel is no problem. they also wont allow total vehicle consists of more than 50 feet. We're only 49 feet. After passing through the tunnel, you then have a nice steep winding grade to descend into the park.
We stopped at the South Campground. There are no hookups here but there is a nice dump station. The other campground in the park has electric hookups but reservations are often required. We don't need any of that stuff for our short visit. We dumped our gray water tank on the way in so Lou can enjoy her long showers while we're here. The solar panels are doing a great job of replenishing our batteries We use about 150 ah each day and the panels have been replacing it each day, or almost so.
We rode the shuttle into the canyon to the end of the road. There, we hiked the Riverside Trail to the point you need to enter the narrows and wade the rest of the way. Too much water and too bad of weather for use to do that this time. We hopped the shuttle from stop to stop to look around and take some other short hikes. For dinner, we rode the shuttle into Springdale for dinner at Bumbleberry's Restaurant.
Here's our nice new campsite in Zion NP at the South Campground. We're right next to the river.
It's extremely hard to take a picture that doesn't cut off part of the desired image. The canyon walls are so high.
Amazingly green here, if you look the right direction. They have an amazing free shuttle here. Since you can't drive in the canyon, it's nice thethe shuttle service is so good.
Nice flowers here.
Thursday:
We went over to the Zion Lodge for breakfast. Pretty good buffet.
After breakfast, we went through the Human History Museum and the Visitor Center.
Next, we hiked to the Emerald Pools. We started from the Grottos end. Went by the three pools and returned to the Lodge. The hike was easy and the pools were emerald in color. There were a lot more people out today.
Our final endeavor for the day was a bike ride. We rode the Pa'ruz Trail up into the canyon. A little above the Court Of the Patriarchs lookout, we stopped to look at some trees that looked a little like beavers had tried to bring them down. Actually it was more likely porcupines. There's only a half dozen that have the scares and they are all much bigger than a beaver would be interested in. The return trip was much nicer since no pedal power was needed. Enough for the day.
Dinner was a nice taco salad minus the chips at the RV. Quite good. Our evening move was Tora Tora Tora, though one Tora would have been enough. Interesting movie.
The view on the left is of the hwy 9 into Zion from the East. The long tunnel is exits into the canyon high on the left and zig-zags down into the canyon. On the right, the Virgin river runs trough the canyon.
Some interesting rocksa are along the road East of the tunnel. The tree on the right was in the canyon hear the Three Patriarchs. My guess is a porcupine lives nearby, that or a huge beaver? The tree is about two feet in diameter.
The waterfall near the middle Emerald Pool.
No comments:
Post a Comment