20-22SEP12 - Zion National Park, UT (start of the grand circle tour)

Thursday, 20SEP, we drove from Baker, NV, to Virgin, UT, to visit Zion National Park. This will be our first stop on what is called the Grand Circle of National Parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, & Canyonlands) in Utah. Upon arrival at the RV park we set up camp & headed to the Zion Visitor Center to sign up for tomorrow’s “9AM Ride with a Ranger” bus tour, & view the Center exhibits. Then we drove to the Zion Human History Museum to view a short documentary about the park & view more exhibits, before heading back to the RV.

www.grandcircle.org

Friday morning we were up bright & early to insure we did not miss our Ride with a Ranger. In our opinion this is a must do! First of all no private cars are allowed on the dead end scenic canyon road from May to November. A propane powered bus system has been in place since about 2000. Usually we are not a fan of these “forced” public transport systems; but we can see how a park that gets three million visitors a year had to take drastic actions. The end result is no more gridlock when 65,000 people try to visit the park on long weekends, & a 75% reduction in air pollution! Anyway, one bus a day has park ranger onboard giving a very informative & interesting talk; & the bus gets to stop at pullouts that the other busses don’t stop at.

After riding with the ranger we then hiked the Weeping Rock Trail & the Lower Emerald Pool Trail. After a brown bag lunch on the lawn of the Zion Lodge, Corrie headed back to RV for R&R, while Dan hiked the Riverside Walk Trail which leads to the Narrows Trail thru a slot canyon; he hiked a little of the Narrows before heading back to the Visitor Center to meet up with Corrie. Note – when you hike the Narrows trail, over half the time you will be wading in the Virgin River which created Zion Canyon. It seemed to Dan that half the tourists hadn’t read the park brochures & were taken by surprise having to get wet? Also, our informal survey shows Dutch to be the second most common language in the park, after English!

Early Saturday morning, 22SEP, we jumped in the Toad for an auto tour of the “rest” of Zion National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, & Kolob Canyons. First we had to drive back into Zion National Park so we could drive state road 9 thru the Zion-Mount Carmel highway tunnel. Since the tunnel was finished in 1930 (at the time the longest tunnel in the USA), it is not large enough for today’s RVs, trailers, campers, or even boat trailers. So during the day they only allow alternating oneway traffic, & large vehicles drive down the center of the tunnel. The tunnel takes you to the east side of Zion park where the rock formations have a different visual appearance & the vegetation is some what different than that found in Zion Canyon itself.

http://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm

Once we left the east side of Zion Park, we continued in counterclockwise direction on state roads to Cedar Breaks National Monument. This is a natural scenic wonder that is overshadowed by Zion National Park & therefore receives few visitors.
We continued on our circular route to our last stop, the finger canyons of the Kolob Canyons portion of Zion National Park. The Kolob Canyons are in the NW corner of Zion but cannot be reached from within Zion itself. To reach the Kolob Canyons you must get on I-15 & take the appropriate exit. Again this scenic wonder is overshadowed by the rest of Zion, & receives few visitors.

http://www.nps.gov/cebr/index.htm

We can not even begin to describe the beauty & awesome vistas of Zion National Park or Cedar Breaks National Monument, so we won’t even try to in this BLOG. Even the hundred or so pictures we took don’t do them justice. All we will say is don’t add it to your so called bucket list, just do it & get here soon!