Zion is a huge canyon with 2000-3000 ft rock walls on either side. At the bottom the Virgin river flows through the canyon, before it eventually joins the Colorado river and hits the pacific ocean in Mexico. The area gets very little rain but when it does the river can go from 15cu. ft. per second to 100 cu. ft. per second causing flash floods and bringing big boulders, trees and sand down the valley. Naturally the walls of the canyon are mightily impressive and there are numerous hikes to explore the park.
We drove into Zion NP via the east entrance in the early morning:
We even saw a few buffalo along the way:
Entering the park from the east, means you drive through a 1.1 mile tunnel which was built between 1927 and 1930. A narrow 2-lane road which winds through the mountain, sometimes offering brief glimpses of what we were about to see through the openings in the mountain walls:
On the other side of the tunnel a beautiful view of the valley below awaits:
We hit the road early so we could secure a first come, first served campsite. By 11am there was very little left but we managed to find a nice site by a babbling brook and set up camp.
Having experienced the heat pitching our tent (in fact, while we were there it was 25C/77F at 8:00 am, 35C/95F at 7:30pm, 32C/90F at 9:40pm...) we knew it was too late to undertake any hikes so we decided to drive to Kolob Canyon, a separate part of Zion accessed by a 1 hour drive on the interstate. Kolob Canyon is an area on the north west side of the park with a 5 mile scenic drive. It goes through the red rocks and canyons with spectacular views:
After stocking up on supplies down in civilization by the highway we headed back to the campsite. Since the fire risk was high there was no campsite fire or s'mores. We called it an early night so we could beat the heat while we explored the next day.
One if the hardest hikes in Zion is to "Angel's Landing," which we hiked the next day. We'll explain in detail and post some spectacular pics in the next post!
- Nick and Jo
Location: Zion NP
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