Our itinerary had us visiting five National Parks in five days- Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Arches National Park, and Mesa Verde National Park. Plus we would have time left over to visit some ski resorts in Colorado for some rest and relaxation after visiting the parks. I found this great travel guide at the Globe Bookstore in Harvard Square that covered all of the Utah parks. This proved to be a very valuable resource, both before the trip and during it.
Since each day of our trip was so amazing I'm going to blog about them in separate posts because each day seemed like a different vacation on it's own.
We flew into Vegas on the 9th arriving around 11:00 p.m. We wanted to get to bed as soon as possible since traveling into Utah would cause us to lose an hour, and Zion was about three hours away. I'm proud to say that I didn't gamble at all during our very brief visit to Vegas. I tried to play a quarter slot machine but it only took dollars and there wasn't any time for me to dig out a dollar from my wallet.
Last year we drove through the Nevada desert on our way to California and I hated it. It felt so isolating and empty. Our drive to Utah was much better. There was still a barren landscape but every so often we would drive through a gorge or pass a neat resort like this one so it didn't feel so empty.
We arrived in Springdale, Utah just outside of Zion around 12:30. By this time it was probably close to 100 degrees but not humid at all so it was manageable. We parked in Springdale and took the free shuttle to the park entrance. This park is wonderfully organized and the free shuttle is super. One line takes you through the town, and another takes you through the entire park. In fact, during the summer no cars are allowed on the main road in the park. This creates a very peaceful environment. They don't sell water bottles in the park since they have a fresh spring in the park which allows them to provide free drinking water at most of the shuttle stops. This was really useful since we were drinking a lot of water! The first thing we did was to go to the Visitor Center so I could get my National Park Passport and get it stamped.
Even though it was really hot we were able to do pretty much everything on our list for this park including Court of the Patriarchs, Weeping Rock, Emerald Pool Trail, and Riverside Walk. The great thing about this park is that you are constantly surrounded by the huge canyon walls. They are absolutely gorgeous and a rock climber's dream. Other than Yosemite this is the most popular park with rock climbers because of the sheer height of the walls.
The Emerald Pool was very fun because the small stream pouring off the edge of the rock provided visitors with a cool "shower" whenever the wind blew.
The Court of the Patriarchs are three large canyon walls. It was fun to try to fit them into my camera lens all at once.
The Weeping Rock was neat because of the flowers and greenery it provides the desert environment.
The Riverside walk was beautiful. This is where the river cuts it's way through the canyons. As it progresses it gets more and more narrow. The path takes you to "The Narrows" where you can continue by walking down the river. I wish we had done this but the clouds were getting gray and there is a big risk for flash floods in this part of the park. We'll have to go back to do that!
On our way back to the shuttle we saw a mule deer in the tall grass.
Zion National Park was a great way to start our adventure. It was beautiful and well organized and the exit is just as impressive, if not more, than the park itself. To exit the park on the east side you need to drive on Mt. Carmel highway. For the entire day we had been on the canyon floor looking up at the massive rock walls but now we were driving up the canyons. It was pretty unreal (a word I will use for most of what we saw on this trip since pretty much everything we saw seems unreal!) A really fun part of the highway is the Carmel Tunnel where you actually drive through one of the canyon walls.
It was hard to leave the park but we had to since our hotel was about an hour away and we had to get ready for Bryce Canyon the next day. As we drove away from the park we were amazed at the rock and mesa formations that we were surrounded by. For instance, we saw this rock mesa and were sure it was something special... turns out it was just a mesa!
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