Zion National Park

On Tuesday we decided to go see Zion National Park.  We were up fairly early and headed to Starbucks for a coffee and to check our emails.  Our house that we are staying at has really poor wifi and we cannot get very good access to the internet.  That's ok though as we can head out for a nice coffee before starting our day.  

Zion is an absolutely gorgeous park.  The only sad part about that is that it attracts millions of visitors every year. We we got there, we could already tell that it was going to be crazy busy.  You are not allowed to drive your vehicle in certain areas of the park are are forced to find parking outside in the town of Springdale.  From what we saw, no parking was to be found.  We drove through the entrance and checked out how long the waiting was for the shuttle bus that takes you through the park.  It looked to be about 2 hours. Not going to happen we. both said out loud. I personally do not like crowds and did not feel bad about avoiding the lineups and waiting time.  We opted to drive the scenic route. We had an amazing day just doing that.  There was so much to see and we really enjoyed our time there.  The views are incredible.  We saw someone doing rock climbing and I could only watch for a short while.  It was soooo high and soooo steep.  I was terrified for the two people doing the climb.  We also hiked along a dried up river bed.  The striations in the rocks along the river bed were so beautiful.  There was such a variety of rocks in the area and the colours were so different depending on where you were.  It was so pretty.

Can you find the rock climber

This is the wall the rock climber was going up....yikes

Kolob Canyon

 Today we decided to go to Kolob Canyon, which is part of Zion National Park.  Its not as busy as Zion and offers many trails that you can hike along as well as a beautiful drive with many outlooks.  It was a beautiful day for a hike so we decided to take the Taylor Creek hike which followed a stream and took you to a natural bridge (made from rock).  The hike starts with a fairly steep climb down however there are stairs provided which are made from natural rock.  The scenery was amazing while going down the stairs and the views of the mountain were incredible.  Once you reach the bottom you start following a natural trail.  It's rocky in spots and often crosses the stream itself (we were later told that you cross the stream 102 times during this hike) and our hiking shoes were soaked by the time we finished our walk.  We weren't expecting it to be as far as it was and eventually I started getting concerned about my sugar levels.  I encouraged Ralph to keep going to the end, while I turned backed and walked back to the truck. The hike itself was a 4 hour journey.  I completed 3 hours while Ralph did the full 4 hours.  We met lots of nice people along the way.  Afterwards we enjoyed a nice lunch and then drove up to the top of the mountain and enjoyed the various lookouts.  It's a beautiful area and well worth exploring.

After spending the day at Kolob Canyon we headed back to Cedar Breaks National Park to watch the sunset.  It was a beautiful evening.  The snow was melting and it wasn't quite as cold this time.  

Cedar Breaks National Park

We spent a quiet day on Sunday and eventually headed out to view the sunset at Cedar Breaks National Park.  They had received a lot of snow a couple of days previously and the park itself was closed for the winter season. The gates were open so you could still drive in however certain areas were closed to visitors.  As we were driving to the park, it got foggier and foggier and by the time we reached the top elevation (10,300 feet above sea level), we found we had very little visibility.  Wow, we didn't really know where we were going or what to look for because we couldn't see anything.  We stopped along the side of the road and took some pictures of the trees and the snow and eventually we found a path that we could walk on.  It was really cold (28F).  After a short walk we decided we would head home because there really wasn't much to see.  Just as we were leaving the park, the clouds started to clear and we were able to stop and see a sunset albeit a short lived one as it was almost over.  It was beautiful to see the snow around the hoodoo's and we said that we would return the next day and try to catch the sunset again. The park itself was only about 30 minutes from where we were staying.  

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Exploring the midwest

Ralph and I are embarking on a weeklong trip to Utah. We flew into Las Vegas and arrived a half an hour  earlier than expected which was nice as it gave us time to get our rented vehicle.   We arrived at our hotel in Boulder City (Hoover Dam Lodge and Casino).  It was late by the time we got there. We had approximately 3 hours of sleep before leaving for "Death Valley" which was in California. What an amazing place to visit. We got to Zabriskie point just as the sun was starting to come up. Wouldn't you know it, I tripped and went flying because I misjudged a step. Thankfully my camera didn't sustain any damage. My leg had a few scrapes and bruises though. When I went to set up my tripod we discovered that the center column was in backwards making it unusable. What a way to start lol.  Since you are working with a short time duration, I couldn't fix it and had to make due without it.  The sunrise was beautiful and we got some nice shots. We went from there to the Devils Golf course which was very interesting with how the salt made all these large mounds. Pretty cool. The temperature was getting hotter as the morning progressed. From there we went to the Bad Water basin where we could walk out and explore the ocean floor with all salt upon it (referred to as salt flats). It is 260 feet below sea level. It was really getting hot and windy as we walked out.  We didn't stay long and paid attention to all the warning signs about the heat and not to venture too far.  Our next stop was the visitor center where we exchanged our daily pass for a season pass. This pass can be used in all the National Parks in the USA for a year and costs $80 whereas the individual entrance fee's are $35 daily. It's a pretty good deal we thought. From there we headed towards the Mesquite Sand dunes which were in Stovepipe Wells. Wow, it was windy and hot and amazingly beautiful. We even saw some dirt devils swirling around and the sand dunes were so beautiful.  You really need a full day to photograph them but we only had about an hour.  At this point it was noon which was our planned time to leave but we were just having too much fun and we decided to extend it so that we could see a bit more. We drove to an area called the Artist Pallet. The mountains have an amazing array of colours ranging from greens, reds, purples, pinks etc. It was very beautiful. 

You really need a couple of days to appreciate the true beauty of Death Valley.  Below are a few pictures to give you an idea of some of things we saw.  

After another couple of hours we started our drive to Utah. We were craving a coffee but had to wait till we got to Las Vegas before we could get one (2.5 hours). We had a double shot as we felt the need to have lots of caffeine to keep ourselves awake.  It sure tasted good. We drove through mountains all the way to Cedar City.  We were happy to get there and looked forward to a long sleep.  What a great way to start our vacation.