Zion National Park

Zion is considered one of the most beautiful places in the world, so naturally it was high on my to-do list. The problem is that it’s high on everybody else’s to-do list as well. In order to get a campsite we had to wait in a line for an hour and forty-five minutes. When we finally did get a campsite we set up our house, then drove another three hours to Vegas to pick up my mom at the airport. Some of you might be wondering why my mom was at the airport.

Let’s go back. About a week ago she flew home to find our cat. Now let’s go back even further.  One of my mom’s friends is living in our house while we are away. And about three weeks ago she told us our cat hadn’t been seen since we left. Naturally this made us sad. After a few days my mom was so worried about her that she flew home to find our cat. She told us that she got home at eight o clock and the next day she got up at four in the morning and kept looking. After finding nothing she went back to bed. At about eight she woke up again and kept looking until she heard a meowing. She thought she was imagining it until our cat came out of the ferns. After a while my mom got our cat in the house and turned on cat pheromones to calm her down.  When all was said and done she flew to Vegas and met up with us.

Back to the present.  On day one we did the Narrows. The Narrows is a hike through a canyon carved by the Virgin River. The river is still there, so we had to walk through freezing water for several miles. Overall it was

pretty fun. Half the time I felt like my feet were going to fall off but getting to hike through a canyon was worth it. The trail also has frequent flash floods so the walls are smooth. The smooth walls made it a little scary, because if there was a flash flood the walls would be impossible to climb. On the way down we saw a buck mule deer grazing right next to the river. We had no idea how he had gotten there because there were sheer cliffs on either side, and we hadn’t seen him on our way up.

If you look closely in the center of the picture you can see the buck

Day two involved another hike and a visit to the human history museum.  The hike was called Emerald Pools. It was a two mile hike to three pools that looked green because of the algae growing in them. After Emerald Pools we visited the human history museum. The human history museum told us about the people who settled Zion. We watched a 22 minute film on the park and how it was formed. Afterward we learned that the visitors’ center and museum had WiFi (score)!

Day three we did yet another hike called Angels Landing. Overall it was my favorite. The view was unbeatable, and the terrain was my favorite type: rocky and steep with sheer thousand foot drop offs on either side. The first part was called Walter’s Wiggles.  It was a set of 21 paved traverses that went up a ravine. When the traverses stopped they gave way to the rockier terrain which I practically ran up. At the top there were about a half dozen chipmunks that seemed not at all afraid of people.

Now I’m in the car writing about this on our six hour drive to Los Angeles. Honestly why does everything have to be so far apart. Just once I’d like to drive 10 minutes to our next destination.