Zion

It might be said we were a bit unlucky with Zion. It is a beautiful park with a really handy shuttle bus system to take you from Springdale where we were staying to the various trailheads. We had perfect blue skies. But weather was a problem - not current, but the harsher than normal winter. One consequence was that there were only two types of trail for us to hike - easy ones or tough ones which would take all day. So we were left with the easy ones. 

The one Thibault particularly wanted to do was The Narrows. This is a walk actually along the middle of a river canyon, with water sometimes up to your waist. But only doable if the current has reduced enough after the snow melt. It hadn't so it was closed. Others were closed due to overwinter rockfalls. And the classic Zion trail is Angel's Landing which is effectively a whole day trail, but as T described it "probably a bit too frightening for us". Given you need to walk along a ridge holding on to a metal rail with sheer drop down either side - yes. would you have walked along this? With your eyes open?

So instead we were largely limited to hikes from the Visitors centre along the valley floor, including the tame but very pleasant Riverside Walk. All the time surrounded by these massive rocky cliffs/mountains on either side.

I always hoped to capture some sizeable wildlife. This mule deer was happily munching through the meadows by the visitors centre.

And yes a wild turkey too.

 This is Weeping Rock. You can gather how it got its name.

 Weeping Rock is quite spectacular, although hard to get one "killer" photo. You also have to be there to get the cooling sensation of the waterfall in the otherwise very warm middle of the day.

As you can see, you can get right behind the curtain of falling water.

These photos are along the Riverside Walk. A very easy pretty walk, although also a fair number of people walking on it. One of the busier trails of our holiday.

Although the Riverside Walk, it could have been called the Squirrel Walk. We saw lots.

Rocks which "weep" water, ie the water seeps down them, produce these natural hanging gardens. The thing one has to remember about Zion is this is essentially desert. Only the river valley, with water seeping out of the rocks from mountains above, prevents this from being barren desert.

 I told you there were a lot of squirrels...

 Ok, I don't look as good as the happy couple. This is why I don't get many photos of me during my trips. Just the odd one or two to prove I was there!

We did in the end walk up a bit of the start of the Angel's Trail, but in the end decided the further climb wasn't worth it, given we were not going to get to the top. It had a been a long day hiking and we fancied dinner. But the last bit of hiking did give us our best views.

 This board gives you an idea of the weather. Very nearly 100F by day

We duly had dinner. Including this "vibrant" cocktail.

Clarissa needed to do some work so Thibault and I headed out to a bar afterwards. This wasn't easy. This is Utah and State licensing is a little tougher apparently. Lots of places were licensed to serve alcohol with food, but not alcohol alone. In the end we needed to catch the shuttle bus to the Park entrance which had a small pub selling a very restricted range of beers. But one doesn't come out here for the quality of the beer, but of the company. Which in the first place was of course Thibault, but also a young Australian couple we met. We frankly had at least one pint too many, just because we were enjoying the chat. A good end to a good day.