Zion

 

On the third day of the trip, we left St George to drive over to Zion National Park.  We spent most of the day there, hiking first the River Walk trail along the Virgin river to where the “Narrows “ starts, and then hiking to the Lower Emerald Pool before lunch.  The Narrows is where people can wade up the river.  Here is a link that describes the hike. On our way to and from the River Walk trailhead, we were able to see at least 4 California Condors circling above the cliffs.  I had been to Zion several times, and this was my first time to see the condors. 

The walk along the river was lovely.  We stopped where the trail ran out and people were wading into the river to continue hiking.

Upon finishing that hike, the bus took us back to the Zion Lodge to take a break before hiking to the Lower Emerald Pool.  Shortly after getting there, an ambulance and park police car with sirens wailing drove past our location on the way to where we had just left the end of the River Walk Trail.  We found out later that some small boulders had dislodged from the upper cliffs above the start of the Narrows, and one of the boulders had struck a female hiker.  Her injuries were not life threatening, but I would assume severe enough.  At Zion, there are frequent rock falls that can happen at any time. 

The Lower Emerald Pool Trail was next.  Lovely! 

Here is the actual Lower Emerald Pool.

Water is constantly running off of the rocks above into the pool below.  Check out the rainbow at the bottom of these rocks.

On the way back down the trail to the Zion Lodge, we saw a very nice lizard, and then a deer browsing at the side of the trail.

We had box lunches that we ate while sitting on the lawn in front of the Zion Lodge.

When we were finished, we proceeded through the tunnel to the east side of the park, and on to Ruby’s Inn and Bryce National Park.