Zion National Park, Utah Day One

Zion National Park   Utah

Zion and the Grand Canyon have a lot in common.  When you are in Zion you are at bottom looking up.  When you are at the Grand Canyon most of us are at the top looking down.  My understanding….and correct me if I am wrong…is that at some event,  a few years back when the Earth was in it’s formative years, there was a lot of upheaval and breaking apart of the surface.  After that break up, rivers formed along the ‘cracks’ and to some extent continued to gouge.  The Colorado flows thru the Grand Canyon and the river that flows thru Zion is the Virgin River. 

Most of the hiking at Zion, or at least what I was capable of, is at the bottom or up the lower part of the sides.  But you still get a work out!

The views are pretty breath taking

If you don’t mind looking UP!  A LOT!

You get very close and almost underneath some of these ‘walls’ but you also can get more distant views.  I like that you can get the texture left from the ‘break up’ and wonder what kind of noise was going on.  My guess,  LOUD!

There are gentle walks where you still get fantastic views

  

I chose a moderate hike to the upper Emerald Pool which totally wore me out.

Always wondering what is around the next bend, past this narley old Pine

I’m never disappointed

I’m hiking to that far wall, where there will be an Emerald Pool

But in this case I know it is what is along the journey that counts

This is how the pool gets fed…again, more impressive than the…

Emerald Pool

As sailors know, it’s the journey.  But when hiking I always look forward to that payoff at the end.  In this case, the pay off was all around.

But hang on…

Looking around from the Pool it all pays off

 

This is looking down hike from the Pool and clear across the Valley and across the Virgin River.  After I did this hike I went across the river to this spot you see…way down over there,

and this panoramic is what it looks like from there to the Emerald Pool, which is up there in the center below the ‘wall’

Another 'closer'  look

After a break under the shade of this stately old cottonwood Cottonwood

I walked along the river and this Buck walked in front of me like it was his park or something

I didn’t get upset or panic….oh, neither did he, so I tried out my zoom and got a couple good shots off before I decided to leave him graze... and I didn't even graze him!

I’m going to jump ahead now to another day that I came back to Zion (after a jog to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon).  This way I keep Zion in sequence.  I’ll come back later to GC so next blog is all about DEB!