The magic of Zion

Zion National Park, Utah

“it is like being in a little rain!” exclaims the 8-year girl, waiting in the shade for her family to join her.  We get excited by her description, so we pick up our pace to see the lower emerald pools. 

We are not disappointed and enjoy the respite from the sun under the shade and cooler grotto-like feel, as a small trickle of runoff splashes over the rocks.  We take out oranges and a few of our Costco snacks as we take a midday break.

We started the morning off with our typical yogurt and granola as we head into the park.  The sun is just starting to get into the deep valley.

We are close enough to walk into the park and hop on the shuttle provided.  A great equalizing system, as Siri pointed out, since all ages and backgrounds are forced to intermingle – no fast pass allowed here.

We head out for our first hike, to the Temple of Sinawava, a short out and back which is also the beginning hike for “The Narrows” – we also find out that this is a VERY popular park and the crowds are pretty intense – we keep calling it like being at Disney.  Later, we think it might be that we also chose to be here during Spring Break.  May also explain all the very cute families running around – great to overhear their conversations and also know we aren’t responsible at all for enticing that 5 year old to keep going up the trail – been there done that. 🙂

As we hop back on the shuttle, we get off at each stop.  We find out there around now 85 condors that have been reintroduced from Zion to the Grand canyon.  The volunteer with a large antenna tells us there are none today, but yesterday there were two in the park.  We take all the shorter hikes and soak in the whole valley.  We lunch at the lodge – I’m the third David for the day so far on the wait list – and then head back out for more.

We end the day tired, hot, and smiling.  It was a full day and found some solitude – even amongst the throngs – by taking the dirt paths along the stream and taking the secondary paths.  We can understand now why this is our friend Mike’s favorite place.  There is something special here, we realized that right when we arrived.  Being surrounded by these towering cliffs that change colors throughout the day, it does feels magical. 

We start to plan for tomorrow and as is usual for a Cline, and especially for David, we only went through a few, OK, many, many options.  Our new updated plan is to take the Tandem bicycle up the canyon tomorrow – and then hit the road off to Sedona next – should be fun as the adventure continues.