Zion National Park

Hey lady, you know you can just get on a shuttle right?  

It's true, you can efficiently be whisked from one end of Zion to the other on a quiet, natural gas powered shuttle and take in all the majesty of nature, the wildflowers, the waterfalls, the birds and bees, the flowing rivers, behind a closed window that protects you from well....nature.  Because we all know that actually communing with the outdoors might involve heat or cold or bugs or scratching or some other equally terrible malady.  But here's the thing, that bus is crowded with kids who will complain loudly about not being outside of the bus, exasperated parents, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses who just need a beer and a break from all this damn fun with the family.  All of which can make for a less than ideal nature outing.

Back to the beginning though, this is what will likely be your first sight at Zion.  I have chosen to interpret these dreaded words as "Welcome, we're glad you're here".

Actually, that is not the first thing.  This is the first thing:

Long lines of slow-moving tail lights leading into the entrance.  You can avoid this mess if you just listen to me.  Take a bike.  I know, I know it involves actual peddling and maybe a bug or two and possibly even sweating but you can do this.  I know because my bicycle skills are limited to riding around the block in my neighborhood and I managed to bike from one end of Zion to the other with minimal effort and only a minor amount of sweating.

If you bike, you get to avoid all the congestion and you will be rewarded with peace and quiet and burbling waters.  You can hear the birds sing, feel the wind in your hair, it's like your own personal Irish Spring commercial.

I love Zion and I absolutely love this bike ride.  If you get tired, you can just plunk your bicycle on the front of the shuttle and they will haul your lazy butt back to whence you came but because Fred and I are "real" cyclists we just hauled our lazy butts to the ice cream stop midway at the Zion Lodge and took a little break on the way back down the valley.

We rode the length of the valley in Zion and stopped along the way to take some short hikes, admire the scenery and snap some birdy pics like that western tanager and watch some crazy people climb the side of a sheer cliff wall.  The last stop for the shuttle is the Narrows where you walk along a paved trail down to the river and are rewarded with this:

Hordes of tourists all trying to talk themselves into crossing that shallow, very cold portion of the river to get to the other side where supposedly a narrow canyon awaits.  I say supposedly because we did not do the hike because a) all those people were kinda getting in the way of me communing with nature, and b) just as I took my boots and socks off it started to rain.  Rain and canyons, no gracias.  Sure enough as we started back up the trail it really started to pour so I was glad about not being stuck on the other side waving at Fred to wait for the river to subside before abandoning me for ice cream.

We spent the whole day doing our biking thing and we did not want to go back into this section of the park the next day because of the crowds and we were here once before 8 years ago and have done all the more popular hikes including Angel's Landing, but if you have never done that you should put that at the top of the list.  

Instead, we opted to drive to the non-Disneyland section of the park called Kolob Canyon.  It's a bit like a park within a park.  Most tourists can't be bothered to make the short drive out here and the big bang for your buck is really the main section of the park but if you have the time or if you need a break from the crowds, this is the place to go.

We only had the day here and we're old now otherwise it would have been nice to backpack this area. Instead we hiked a 5 mile trail to the double arch.

We took the Taylor Creek trail, which is an easy trail with lots of shallow water crossings, and at the end of the maintained trail you arrive at this double arch.  It's not really an arch but more like two large, recessed alcoves but you say tomato, I say well, tomato but that's beside the point.  

That's the second "arch" above.  It's kinda like a double rainbow but different.

This is a popular place to sit and eat lunch and, if crowded, can get noisy because of the echoes but we waited till things got really quiet and you could hear the water dripping down from above onto the canyon floor.  Ahhh, nice place to enjoy a granola bar and as much water as you can carry.

On the way back down the trail we kept hearing this very load "crrreeaaakkk" which we knew was a frog or toad but we could never pin down the location.  We eventually ran into a ranger who said they were canyon tree frogs but to look for them on the rocks because they are never in trees.  Which makes total sense.

Sure enough.  Tree frogs, you can tell because they're not in the trees.

As you've inevitably discerned by now, I have a particular fondness for Zion.  Maybe it's the immutable, yet ever changing red cliffs, maybe it's the melody of waters soothing the desert-parched sands, maybe it's the rapidly disappearing pinot noir as I type.  Regardless, I'll be back in the years to come but maybe I'll just go ahead and book my campground reservations now.