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Zion National Park

Zion is even better than we expected! We camped right in the town surrounded by beautiful canyon walls and beside a river.They have a great, free, and informative shuttle service throughout the park, so you can just hop on, learn about the stops, then go explore them. The kids loved them, and even got to announce our next stops.We like visiting parks during the week while people are at work and in school, but this Friday/Monday was some school holiday in Utah (doh!) so it was packed. We planned to wait it out for the weekend and go on Tuesday, but Allen found out Angel's Landing was closing Monday (maintenance on the chains due to too many fatalities!), so he just HAD to go on Sunday. Welcome to my life. So Allen & the kids did the Emerald Pools trail Saturday while I worked. Then Sunday we all did Angel's Landing, Weeping Rocks (where we saw a tarantula, wow are they big!), and Riverside Trail (beginning of the Narrows). We skipped the Narrows because it was so cold and hiking in water didn't sound appealing (well, to me).
Angel's Landing was crazy steep, but had great views. One part looked like Lombard Street in San Francisco. The kids and I stopped at Scout's Lookout (the non-death part) while Allen climbed to the top. Weeping Rocks was very cool with water constantly dripping out of the sandstone. The kids finger painted with different colored dust/mud like they imagined the Indian kids probably did there. We watched a tarantula cross the path and while they're not scary, their size just makes them intimidating. The Narrows look really fun and we'll certainly be back to hike that, in the summer though.
Sunday we took the truck through the 1.1 mile Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel to the east side of Zion. It was like a whole new world! The features were completely different from the rest of the park, but just as amazing, if not more. It's hard to describe, see pics. :)
The kids also finished up the Jr. Ranger program and got their badges.
We didn't really get enough of Zion, more like a taste, so we'll be back!

More pics... 10/16 - Emerald Pools Trail:

10/17 - Angel's Landing, Weeping Rocks, Riverside Trail:

10/18 - East side through the Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel:

Comments

Beautiful! We've not made it to any National Parks out West yet, but hope to on a road trip later this year. We saw a couple tarantula's in Mexico. Yikes! :(