Zion National Park

We’ve known from the start of this trip that hiking in National Parks would be difficult for us because dogs are not allowed on any National Park trail. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal since we could just leave the dogs in the van. But warmer weather was upon us and the days were consistently getting into the low to mid 90s. As a result we had to alter the way we had been going about our days. Zion marked the beginning of us waking up before the sun came up and getting to the trail at first light. This way we could hike five to six miles before it got too hot for the dogs. This strategy allowed us to see some of the parks’ features with incredible lighting and get away from the swarms of people who were descending upon the parks in the peak tourist season.

During the peak season Zion doesn’t allow any vehicular traffic past a certain point. Instead park visitors take a shuttle and can depart and board as they please at designated stops. We took the first shuttle of the morning and started our day off by hiking the Hidden Canyon trail. It was a challenging hike, as are most of the hikes in Zion because you must ascend from the valley floor to the tops of the canyon walls. We had the trail pretty much to ourselves and were treated to outstanding views on the way up.

Us on Hidden Canyon Hike

dave in Hidden Canyon

Hidden Canyon Hike Scenery

The park road and the shuttle bus stop at a natural amphitheatre called the Temple of Sinawava. It was hard to capture the immensity of the area in photos but here is one to try.

Temple of Sinawava

On our way back to the visitor center we hiked the Lower Emerald Pools trail. It was a fairly easy trail which ended with a small waterfall maybe 40 feet high. There wasn’t much water flowing so our hopes to get a free, cold water shower were foiled.

Lower Emerald Pools (You have to look closely at the upper right side of the photo to see the waterfall coming down.) Just before we left the park we stopped at the Zion Canyon Overlook trail. After a short climb we were rewarded with sites of the canyon that leads visitors into the park. The road is extremely windy with many switchbacks. One portion takes you through a tunnel. The tunnel was built when the park was first formed in the 1930’s. As a result it wasn’t built to accommodate the large RVs on the road now. Park rangers would stop traffic from one side to allow these behemoths to pass. Imagine going to college to work for the Park Service and getting stuck with the job of directing traffic!!

Zion Canyon Overlook