Vacation Review part 3- Zion Canyon

After having two wonderful days at the Grand Canyon we headed North to Zion Canyon. We left the Grand Canyon Village, and headed north along the scenic highway. Right before we were leaving the park, I said to Tim. "You know we haven't seen any large animals, just squirrels and rabbits!". Well out of the blue walk these two huge elk. I'm not sure if you've ever seen Elk before, but they were huge. I'm kind of sad, because we didn't have any time to grab our camera's to take some shots. We stopped at a few smaller overlooks before exiting the south rim. One was an old Watch tower and the just another overlook to check out the canyon.

We drove for about 4 hours, through the Indian Reservation until we came to Lake Powell. I thought for sure, we had gone back into time, because it was dry, hot and there was nothing there. Here are some pictures that we took on the road. The first shot is of the road and the emptiness and the second shot is us driving into the mountain (well it looks like it).


We finally arrived at Zion Canyon around 4 p.m. and I was just taken away by the beautiful of this national park. We had to drive through the park, which took us awhile, because we got stuck behind a tour bus and it was driving quite slow. We finally arrived at our hotel the Driftwood Lodge. The second day we decided to take the shuttle into the park, where we stopped at almost every stop before heading in for the night. The best stops of the second day was the Middle and Upper Emerald pools, the weeping rock and Angels Landing, which we didn't attempt, because I was pregnant. Here are a few shots of the Emerald pools and the weeping Rock.

The first set of pictures are from the Emerald pools. Now you must understand there was three trails you could take to all three pools. Tim decided to take the trail to the middle pool and once we left there, he wanted to go to the upper pool. It had to be the hottest day on record at the park, because I roasted and drink almost a one liter of water just that day. Obviously very good for the baby and me, but I did complain a ton and I'm just graceful that Tim didn't kill me.





The second half of the day we spent check out the weeping rock and some other parts of the park. Here is the weeping rock, in these pictures you can't really see the water seeping from the rocks, but it's there. It was a nice relief from the hot weather to just walk under the water.



The last day at the park we decided to take the trail to the Narrows. Again if was so overcast and I wasn't pregnant, we would of different hiked the Narrows. The trail starts off on a paved walk way and ends up walking in the River. The morning we went out there, the water temperature was 45 degrees, just a tad chilly and the forecast was calling for a chance of rain. There was no way we could hike the narrows with the chance of flash flooding. But I did take some pictures of Tim braving the cold water, crossing the narrows and walk almost until I couldn't see him again. I wasn't sure if he decided to go without me or what. The first picture is us walking on the paved trail to the river. Check out the nice rock hanging over. The second picture is of Tim in the river and then third picture is of me in the river.



The last picture is of a deer we spotted on the way back to the shuttle bus. As we were exiting the park heading toward Bryce Canyon, we decided to take one last shot of Zion. We had a great time in Zion and definitely can't wait to return with our children one day.