Finally a Break

Lately, work, remote viewing, and extra activities have kept me pretty busy.   I did set aside a day to drive down south of here for a nice long hike.   I hiked the Chinle Trail, which is actually part of Zion National Park.  This is not a summertime hike because of the lack of shade.  In spite of it being spring, it was pretty warm for this time of year, getting up to about 80 degrees by the time I was finished.  This is also the best time to photograph the spring wildflowers. 

Zion National Park is quite large, and there are ways of getting into the park for hiking along the perimeters without going through the visitor center on the main road.  This is what I did yesterday.  I drove south and then east for about an hour to Rockville, which is before Springdale, the gateway town to the park.  I then drove north through a pretty fancy subdivision to get to the trailhead.  Not too many people know about this trail, and I only met one man and his dog while hiking. 

The hike was 6.5 miles round trip which took me 3.5 hours on a sandy and fairly flat trail.  Many consider this a boring trail, but it does go through the very western edge of the park with nice views of some of the park’s mountains to the east. 

The main impressive mountain is Mt. Kinesava to the east of the trail.  Kinesava is the Paiute Indian “Deity of Trickery”.  Below are some of the many views of this picturesque mountain.

Here are some of the wildflowers that were in bloom along the trail.

At about the 3 mile mark, the trail skirts along the edge of a deep canyon.

The end point for me was a petrified forest.  The ground was strewn with chunks of petrified wood. 

There was even a petrified log embedded in the trail above the deep canyon!

More nice views looking to the south as I returned to the trailhead.

Below is the very top of the West Temple to the east, which is the flat mountain on the left.  It is the highest point in the park at 8,000 feet, and was named by the famous explorer John Wesley Powell.

All in all it was a lovely day and a needed break!