Blogs from Zion National Park, Utah, United States, North America

Another gorgeous start to the day and nice and warm again. We actually managed to watch a stream of the movie Broken Arrow last night on You Tube and it was interesting to see an old western movie again. The ending was a bit of a surprise but I won’t do a spoiler in case anyone wants to watch it but it did have some nice footage of the Sedona area we had traversed a few days ago before the tourists discovered the region. We missed the opportunity to see the Horseshoe Bend whilst we were in Page which is a shame but the reviews said you had to be there in the middle part of the day to get the best views and we had 2 tours back to back yesterday so it just did ... read more

After a great nights sleep and a delicious breakfast we headed out to explore Zion, NP. The town of Springdale, in partnership with the park, have a wonderful free shuttle service with stops throughout the town and to the park. Once in the park there is another shuttle service that stops at all of the various trails and scenic areas. This was begun to cut down on the number of vehicles that had previously crowded the park, and to cut down on the pollution caused by them. We decided on the advice of one of the park rangers to ride to the shuttles' last stop, and work our way back. The scenery here is just beautiful. The various shades of red, white and browns, along with the steep slopes through the canyon were breathtaking. Our first ... read more

After seeing the wonders of the Grand Canyon, we spent time visiting some of the national parks in Utah. The first one was Zion National Park. I like the guidebooks’ descriptions: “Zion National Park packs the wonders of the eroded Southwest into a compact area. Color runs rampant: pale beige, yellows, pinks, oranges, reds, and chocolate are in its sandstone scenery ... energetic streams and other forces of erosion created finely sculptured rocks. Little trickles of water percolating through massive chinks of sandstone left markedly un-desert-like habitats, enabling an incredible variety of plants to find niches” (Moon, USA National Parks - The Complete Guide to all 59 Parks, Becky Lomax, 2018, p. 304). “Get ready for awesome. Zion NP abounds in amazing experience: gazing up at the red-and-white cliffs of Zion Canyon, soaring high over the ... read more

Beautiful, not too crazy packed but definitely lots of people. We did a couple hikes and played in the water. It was a full day and there was still a lot to see. ... read more

Well, Dianne’s long standing wish has finally come into being. For years she has wanted to head down to Utah to visit the various canyons she has heard about from her parents, her brother and his wife, and many others including friends from Europe. She has been reading books and pouring over various articles on the internet. She has an agenda and a porter to do the heavy lifting. We headed out on May 11th. But first, because we would be away on our daughter’s 50th birthday, we stopped overnight in Mission to take the birthday girl out for a pre-birthday dinner. Happy Birthday, Christine. The blog is a bit delayed because we have had a problem getting consistent connections to charge the computers and access to WiFi. Also had trouble reading the screen due to ... read more