We left the RV Park early and spent the day in Zion, using the free shuttle service to go up and down the canyon (lucky we had a National Parks pass as we had been through Zion the previous day and were glad we didn’t have to pay again!). Our first stop was the end of the line at the Temple of Shinawava. We did the short walk there, seeing lots of gorgeous, photogenic squirrels. Little posers. So darn cute though – lots of squirrel photos. Will kept saying no more! And he’d take another one. Too cute. We also saw lots of maiden hair ferns, thriving in the wet sides of the canyon (reminded me of my mum, as she used to grow these ferns when I was a kid!). Unfortunately we didn’t see the Zion snail which is only found here and is the size of a little finger nail. Just as well, cos it would’ve been hard to resist squishing it like the true gardener I am hehe.
As we were going up the canyon, the electronic tour guide on the bus told us about the various mountains in the park. There were lots of towering mountains of rock with religious names thanks to the Mormons who first founded the canyon and farmed it 200 hundred years ago. E.g Court of Partriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), Angels Landing. Temple, Altar of Sacrifice – you get the idea! South-west Utah is predominantly Mormon.
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| On the trail at Big Bend. |
Next stop was Big Bend, and we walked along the trackless track to Weeping Rock. We took photos of waterfalls and the high sides of the canyon – started to get sore necks! We caught the bus back down and had lunch near Betsey in the visitor centre car park where we had left her. We watched crazy squirrels running from a dog, running up trees, running out from under cars and digging holes. We generously shared our table with ladies from New Jersey who weren’t scared of us, as we had a good table in the shade (completely accidental choice on my part – and then I had goosebumps!). Another couple were too scared to ask and suffered in the sun. They were friendly and told us about New York and the ‘far east.’ One of the ladies is over 60, so with her Golden Age National Parks pass, she is able to go in and out of all National Parks (with her friends) for free!
After lunch we caught the bus up to Zion Lodge and walked to Emerald Pools. We saw the waterfall cascading out over the path, but Will was too scared to walk underneath because the water was going everywhere and we were afraid for Niki the Nikon.
Then we went to the Zion Human History Museum to watch the introductory movie - 22 minutes of sometimes interesting info (I know, probably should have watched this before we started our tour of the park, but oh well!). Mainly promotional, how-amazing-is-this-park comments. We bought postcards and a nice drink bottle for Illiam. Loving all the water refill stations at the national parks – this one included! We asked ranger at desk about the weird animal we saw in holes outside the visitor centre. She consulted her bible (animal and plant book) and told us it was some kind of gopher! So cute! We saw it yesterday and another today, poking its head out of a hole and pulling sticks and things around. Then the holes were covered and no sign of Mr Gopher.
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| Mr Gopher. |
Our last stop of the day was to walk up to a (crap) archaeological site up a little hill from the car park. No exciting ruins, just a couple of largeish rocks and a sign saying how things might have looked when there was an actual dwelling up there. A nice view though and we took some lovely last photos of Zion.
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| The environmentally friendly, two-part buses. |
We drove to Panguitch to look for Will’s imaginary free camping spot. No luck. So we decided to head towards Bryce Canyon. Stopped for camping at Red Canyon which had an awesome sunset on blood-red and orange rocks.
Freaking spicy chicken burgers for dinner (‘oh no, they can’t be that hot’ – well they were!!)
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