1st – 3rd June 2019
We had a leisurely three hour drive up Interstate 15 from Nevada, through the north-west corner of Arizona to Southern Utah, and then to our next destination, Zion National Park. Possibly the best named of all the parks. Zion is a steep-sided canyon carved out by the river Virgin. Although inhabited on and off by small tribes of various native peoples since about 6000 BCE, it was almost unknown to the outside world until the early 20th century. Now Zion is one of the most visited of the National Parks, seeing 4.5 million visitors in 2017, an issue which has caused signifiant traffic congestion in this relatively small canyon park in the past. Nowadays cars are banned from the majority of the park in the summer, there being a compulsory shuttle bus system scooping up people from the visitors centre and stopping at various look-outs and trail heads along the scenic route. This has created a rare environment for this country, the car-less zone. I got the impression that this had encouraged many more people to tackle some of the walking trails rather than just doing a ‘tour-by-car’. The park is serviced by the town of Springdale, which sits right at its southern entrance, and this was the location of our next camp. Springdale is linked to the Visitors Centre of the park by another very efficient shuttle bus system, which had a stop right outside our campsite. We had planned to use it to get to the park until we realised it was only a ten minute walk. The wait for a bus was often longer than this.
Our camp was large and busy, but surprisingly quiet, even when two coach-loads of twelve year-olds on a school camping trip arrived and set camp right behind us. That could have been far more disastrous than it actually was! The camp, like the whole town, sat sandwiched between the tall peaks of the surrounding rocks of the canyon sides which glowed red as the setting sun hit them. Quite beautiful. It was still quite warm here, so we planned another early start the next day to beat the heat and the crowds for our expedition into the park. Sandwiches were fashioned, water bottles filled, hats, sunnies and rucksacks gathered. We filled the evening with a BBQ dinner, again, and sat outside and watched the world go by.
We were up and out by 7.30am the next morning which was quite a feat for us as we are generally quite lazy. Our ten minute walk to the park included a stop for a take-out coffee from a very well placed cafe and we joined the moderate sized throng of fellow backpack-adorned day-trippers in the queue for the shuttle bus. Unfortunately, although it was already June, and the daytime temperatures are nudging 90F/30C, some of the more interesting, quieter hikes into some side canyons were still closed due to snow pack. Just shows how cold and snowy it gets here in the winter. You may remember that we had planned to visit this area and the big parks in January on our last trip, but snow combined with the federal shutdown had scuppered our plans. In retrospect, I am glad, because I think we probably been quite limited in what we could have seen and done at that time of year. Over the course of the day we did 4-5 different trails, winding our way slowly back to the visitors centre. A couple were very popular climbs up to lookouts, called Angels Landing Trail and Watchman’s Trail. The views were amazing and well worth the effort, but it was already busy despite it still not being high season. The Angels Landing Trail in particular was like a two-way procession of ants. Ants of all shapes, sizes and ages. Some ants dressed to tackle the north face of the Eiger, some dressed for a quick trip to Walmart. The other trails that we did were flatter and along the river, with the rocks towering above us. These, by comparison were almost deserted and a real pleasure. In the end we covered a total of 16km on foot, having found a quiet, ant-free spot in the welcome shade of a tree, atop a grand escarpment looking up into this most magnificent canyon. A fine spot. A good day.
We arrived home mid-afternoon, weary and hot, but revitalised ourselves with a dip in the swimming pool (before the hoards arrived) and a shower, in anticipation of a meal out in town. In the end our dinner was a bit mediocre, but we has a very pleasant few hours sharing some drinks and tall tales with our camping neighbours,Keith, Ann, Alex and Rachel (who were having a family trip in a sizeable rental RV) beforehand and afterwards. In the morning we bade farewell to the neighbours (having inherited some supplies as their trip was near its end) and headed of towards our next ‘big ticket’ destination, Bryce Canyon, a 90 mile drive away. The drive commenced with some slow traffic in the upper canyon as we waited for our turn to drive through a small narrow 1.5 mile tunnel. During the day this is alternating one-way-only having been constructed long before RVs and coaches came this way. It was a bit of a scary passage, even being able to drive in the middle of the road. Despite the excellent driving skills of my husband, it was seemingly very hard to follow a yellow line. I can appreciate that it messes with your head.