Zion National Park

As expected, it was just an amazing day yesterday as the vocabulary consisted of mainly - wow, incredible, amazing, outstanding, Geez and wow again. We spent the entire day in the Park and we still didn't see everything. There is so much that we didn't see that we changed our schedule so we could do another day in Zion, rather than travel to Bryce Canyon today. We thought we would do Bryce next year on our trip north from AZ to Jackson. We took 153 photos and it was a challenge just to decide which ones to put in the blog today.

Our plan for the day was to park at the visitors center just inside the gate and use the free shuttle bus to tour the park. On our way to the park, we pulled into an area that had a sign saying lots and homes for sale. We are always looking for those kinds of signs. We drove up the hill and discovered an area that makes the Troon Village in AZ look like a ghetto. We took some shots of the homes and views they have, which are below:

After drooling over these homes and lots, we proceeded to the entry gate and to the Visitors Center where we parked and boarded a shuttle bus. There are eight stops along the canyon road and we wanted to stop at most of them. The first was the Zion Human History Museum where we watched a 30 minute film on orientation of the park. The next stop where we wanted to spend some time was at the Patriarchs where we took this shot:

 and where the Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - are located:

The next stop was at the Zion Lodge where we wanted to take the hike to the Emerald Pools. We were prepared with our hiking shoes and back pack containing water and snacks. There was a bridge that crossed the Virgin River that led to the trail head. This shot is taken from the bridge:

We no sooner started on the trail when we noticed this small mule deer buck grazing along the side of the trail:

The trail led to 3 pools. The lower pool was almost 1 mile into the canyon and looked like this:

The 3 pools - lower, middle and upper - were all created by waterfalls which were pretty much just a trickle at this time of the year:

After walking a total of about 2 miles, we came to the middle pool:

Each of the three pools required a much more strenuous climb than the one before. We finally reached the upper falls which was tucked into the end of this small canyon with sheer cliffs surrounding the pool:

It was huge and had a nice sandy beach although no swimming was allowed in the pool. As mentioned, the trail become tougher the higher we climbed. Below are some shots taken of the trail at various locations:

And then there is this one where Josie held up the rock for everybody to pass:

We continued the hike to what is called The Grotto, which was actually the next stop for the bus. We hiked a total of about 4 miles through some pretty tough areas and we were "pooped" when we arrived at the bus stop at The Grotto. 

It was a day of spectacular scenes and I have included some of those below:

We did take the bus to the other stops but we were tired and anxious to get back at about 4 PM.

The football report from what I could find on the Internet had Austin's team, Waubonsie High School, losing their first gane of the year, 35-34 in double OT. Austin had 252 yards rushing and 1 TD in the game. It seems that his team tried a 2 pt conversion in the second overtime, and they missed, so their arch rival Neuqua Valley won the game. Sad report, although Austin played well.

Today we will again go to Zion, but take a different route to the Kolob Plateau which we understand is a "don't miss" part of the Park...