Day 23: Zion National Park, Utah

Red rock meets water and trees

As the title implies, Zion was still in red rock country, but also had lush trees and rivers flowing through tall, sheer canyons. It was beautiful, we had perfect weather, except the day we arrived was rainy so we spent it in an internet cafe catching up on previous posts.

Our drive into the park was cool with a one mile long tunnel through the cliffside built in the 30’s and not designed for RV’s or vehicles with any significant height. This basically means you spend 15 minutes at each end waiting for the one way traffic to pass until it is your turn - which was fine because we were not in any hurry.

Unlike the Grand Canyon, Zion had a fantastic shuttle system through the majority of the park. The shuttles stop at each drop-off every 5 minutes and runs from dawn until midnight. Some of the best sights from the shuttle included spying the climbers making their way up the cliffs. Apparently some of them were on a 2 day climb, which means they sleep suspended in their sleeping bags hanging from the cliff face. Incredible - who are these crazy people!

We kept is simple and did multiple short hikes, the only disspointment being we couldn’t hike The Narrows. The Narrows is a extremely tight slot canyon, in parts it is only 18 feet wide and 2000 feet tall! You basically walk in the river itself, which if there is any amount of rain quickly floods and gets quite dangerous. Due to the rain storm the day before, it was running neck deep in places, needless to say, no hiking The Narrows for us.

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park