Zion National Park

Welcome to Zion

Zion National Park has some amazing hiking, intense rock climbing and tons of other outdoor activities. Down at the bottom of the canyon it's super hot in the summer. We parked our car at the visitors center and took the complimentary shuttle around the park to do a number of short hikes. 

En route to the Emerald Pools

Overlooking lower Emerald Pools

Start of the Narrows hike!

 

We hiked to see the Emerald Pools, and then road the shuttle up to the north end of the park to do the Riverside Walk to the Narrows. After a long hot day of hiking we set up camp at an RV park just outside of the park.

The next morning we got up very early with the intention of hiking the famous Angel's Landing, but we chickened out and did the canyon overlook hike instead. The hike short but had some tricky parts to it. The reward was a breathtaking view from up top.

The mighty Zion lizard!

The Canyon Overlook

Grand Canyon National Park

We arrived in the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in the early afternoon. We grabbed a campsite, set up and then headed over to the North Kaibab trailhead to hike down as far as we could with the remaining daylight hours that we had. 

Magic tunnel!

 In 2013 I hiked the South Kaibab all the way down to the Colorado River and back up the Bright Angle trail the next day. The North Rim is much greener by comparison. We had some amazing views on the way down. 

There is something on the rock!!

Wrap around view.

We made it as far down as the bridge and then began the strenuous accent back up to our campsite, satisfied with a hearty day hike.

We were impressed with the North Rim's facilities, they had a grocery store, laundromat and showers. We bought some beers, wine and firewood and had ourselves a nice campfire. Due to the fire ban in most parks throughout July and August, we haven't been able to have a camp fire in a very long time.

Roasting some marshmallows on our campfire

The next morning we packed up and took a much needed shower. Next we walked out to Bright Angle Point for a 360 degree view of the canyon.

Amazing View

 

Bill climbed up higher for a better shot

Satisfied with our amazing panorama, we hopped back in the car to spend the hottest part of the day driving to Zion National Park, just a few hours up the road.

En Route to Grand Canyon

From Joshua Tree National Park we continued west to Arizona. We had a late start and took the better part of the day to get to Flagstaff. 

 From Flagstaff we continued on down the interstate for another forty minutes to the little town of Winslow Arizona. If you're familiar with the popular Eagles song "Take it Easy"than you'll know that the band pays tribute to this town in the second verse of the song:

Well, I'm a standing on a corner 
in Winslow, Arizona 
and such a fine sight to see 
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed 
Ford slowin' down to take a look at me 
Come on, baby, don't say maybe 
I gotta know if your sweet love is 
gonna save me 

The town has built a park in tribute to the song with a statue and a mural of the girl in the flat bed ford in the back ground. The site is also along the famous Route 66 making it a popular tourist stop. We saw three other groups stopping to take photos in the short time we were there.

We resupplied at a grocery store in Flagstaff getting more propane for our camp stove and some dry meal ingredients for our upcoming journey into Utah's plethora of National Parks. It was getting late, so we camped in a National Forest just north of Flagstaff, driving the remaining four hours to the Grand Canyon North Rim in the morning. 

We chose the North Rim because it's typically less busy in the high season. The drive from Flagstaff is beautiful. The surrounding ecosystems change so quickly and so dramatically. Shortly after Vermilion Cliffs, we passed a spot called Cliff Dwellers. True to the name, there were a collection of make shifts stone houses alongside the road. 

Stopping in a t Cliff Dwellers, Arizona 

A little drafty but the view is great

Our car looks so small compared to to these odd shaped rocks

The area was dotted with small make shift homes, some more elaborate than others. Some were built by passing travelers as recently as the twentieth century, but the area has been home to cliff dwelling people for hundreds of years. 

After our impromptu photo session, we carried onto the North Rim.