Grand Circle Day Two Zion

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The Grand Circle Day Two
We drove from St George to Zion National Park, which was only about 30 miles. It was Ursula’s first time driving our little tin shack so she had a bit of a practice in the hotel car park. It seems odd that we were so nervous driving in the US, it is very easy. It also seems odd that we didn’t think to read up on road signage, rules or how to drive an automatic, our confidence in being able to drive 1400 miles may have been boosted by a little more planning.
Driving out of the St George we caught our first glimpse of tumbleweed. It was an absolutely perfect specimen, neat, round and dancing down the road in a manner which would warm the heart of any director of Western movies. We both squeaked “Tumbleweed!” as if it was the holy grail, and wondered if we could jump out of the car and take photos. We decided that being on a six lane stretch of road and at a junction, we might get killed or at least arrested. Trying to explain to a mean sheriff why a piece of dead desert weed warranted such a perilous move might take some doing, so we stayed in the car. The tumbleweed danced a little too close to our tin shack and under its wheels. We were devastated, but as they say, live fast, die young!
As we approached Zion we drove through Springdale, a small town full of gift shops and diners, and also full of signs which tell you there is no parking in Zion, and you should park in Springdale. In the summer months this is actually true, but at this time of year we were able to drive up to the visitor centre in the Park. National Parks in the US are very well laid out and organized. The visitor centres (or centers as they are called here) always have rangers who will give you maps of the park, tell you which trails are suited to your fitness level (we tend to plump for the wheelchair suited ones …. being plump ourselves) and what to watch out for.
Once you get to the visitor centre, you do leave your car and take the free shuttles to get about the park. These are a brilliant idea because some of the parks get thousands of visitors each day and the traffic would be horrendous. Zion gets 3,000,000 each year, which I worked out to be roughly 8,000 a day. Ursula would become very familiar with my need to calculate everything – how many miles the car would do to the gallon (I need to know how many times I can drive past a garage saying ‘might need petrol soon’ before I have to actually get petrol), how far to our destination, roughly how long that would take us. To me these are all vital facts that I absolutely need to know, I am just not too sure why I need to know them. Anyway on this day, there were not 8,000 visitors in the park, but it was the busiest park we were to see for a few days. I put this down to it possibly being the last day of Spring Break for some schools, and this would be another strange habit of mine that the long-suffering Ursula would have to get used to, I have to suggest reasons for anything and everything, from the geology of the park to the holidaying habits of our fellow tourists.
Zion was formed by millions of years of rivers eroding the sandstone to form huge cliffs of red and white Navajo stone. The trails go up these cliffs, so they are constantly towering above you. We spent the whole day looking up at the sky, discussing how our cameras could never do justice to the majesty of the rocks, which was true but it didn’t stop me taking a few hundred photos – it’s a new camera, it would have been rude not to!
The weather wasn’t quite as hot as we had expected, but we were still in t-shirts and capri trousers. We did at least wear trainers and not flip-flops. We had decided that the Emerald Pools walk was to be our first trail. It had levels that were suitable to lazies like us, and we could try something a bit more strenuous should the mood take us. The shuttle bus took us past the Three Patriarchs, and a recorded guide gave information on the scenery and the park. We were so in awe of the scenery, we just stared out of the windows trying to take it all in, vowing to stop and take the Patriarchs on the return journey, and then promptly forgot about it. They were stunning, but everything was stunning.
We got to the Emerald Pools are natural rock basins which have been coloured green over time, and are fed by small streams of waterfall at various heights along the rocks. At this time of year the streams were in full flow, and we were scanning the rocks for the spouts of water seemingly from nowhere. The lower, middle and upper pools are not a difficult hike, however there are some rocks to scramble over and at the upper pool a small stream to cross via stepping stones. A few years ago I might have crossed it without a second thought. With my increased weight, knackered knee and new camera I was a little concerned about slipping and sprawling about in the stream. Luckily there was nobody behind us waiting to cross, so we each took our time navigating about four stepping stones in the time it takes the average person to cross the Pyrenees. The Upper Pool is the end of the trail, and we came back down via the Kenyata trail, but not before we had re-crossed the stream, this time with a gaggle of fellow tourists either side of the stream much amused by our middle-aged efforts. A man at the front commented with irony, but in a friendly way on how graceful we were, I couldn’t even laugh in reply, my face was too red to actually look at anyone. How I wished I spent more of my time in the gym actually exercising, and less time watching day time TV whilst standing on a treadmill.
A woman with her kindergarten aged child continuously overtook us on our way back down. The mother was singing educational songs, such as the alphabet song. The daughter wasn’t keen to join in, I didn’t blame her, I wanted to ask the mother if she would have liked her boss walking alongside her singing work-related songs to her whilst she tried to enjoy the day, the sun and the scenery. If I had a child full of energy it would be dragging me up hill, you have to make use of them before they get old enough to blame you for everything and leave home.
We took a break from our snail’s pace hiking to have lunch. Our accents nearly landed us with a hot-dog rather than the chicken sandwich and salad we had ordered, we do feel quite often as if we are talking a completely foreign language to the locals. After lunch I tried to find a loo, but found only signs which said ‘temporary restrooms located north of the patio’. North? Do I look like I have an internal compass? How difficult would an arrow have been to add? I imagined some fundamentalist hiker ranger typing up the signs, advising his colleagues that people who didn’t carry compasses shouldn’t be out hiking in the parks. Eventually we found out, right past where we walked at the end of our mini-hike. Our eyes and minds were clearly scouting for food at that time and we hadn’t noticed the twenty foot sign saying ‘restrooms’.
We decided that our legs were up to another stretch, although the temperature was dropping and we were definitely not dressed for it, so we picked the Temple of Sinawava trail – suited for wheelchairs, and got the shuttle bus there. The trail was indeed suitable for wheelchair use and lazies like us. The temperatures by this time had dropped considerably, so we upped our customary snail’s pace to tortoise route march. We got to the turning point on the trail, quickly admired the view, snapped a few photos, and hiked as fast as we could back to the warmth of the bus to take us back to our car. A man behind us on the bus, whom we had seen a few times on the walks, was wearing only a vest and shorts. He made us feel cold just looking at him. He also walked as if he were on his last legs. He was chatting to people on the bus and seemed to be an experienced hiker, he also seemed quite comfortable in his attire. There were a couple of Japanese tourists he was offering to take on a hike, they were freezing – and one of them was in neatly pressed chinos and a leather jacket, perfect for a day out in the city, possibly not perfect hiking gear, however who were we to judge with our suitcases full of t-shirts.
Driving out of Zion was just as scenic as walking around it. You even get to drive through Mount Carmel tunnel in one of the cliffs. It is 1.1 miles, and has occasional ‘windows’ on the cliff side which give an amazing amount of light – I am not sure I would like to go through it in the dark though. We naturally wanted to stop and take photos from the ‘windows’, however stopping is prohibited and we had already upset the ranger once. When wide loads are coming through you have to wait your turn to drive through, however there are no signs telling you this, just a sign by the ranger’s hut telling you not to proceed. Even though there was a stop sign on the right, the ‘do not proceed’ was by the rangers’ hut on the left, so we drove over to the hut to find out when we could proceed. The ranger nearly jumped on our car in his effort to get us to go back to the other side of the road and wait by the Stop sign. A bit more instruction to stop and stay stopped would have been good, however he liked shouting ‘no’ and pointing, so we clearly made his day. He was very good at pointing, after about 30 seconds of him doing this and us watching in amusement, Ursula calmly said to him “so do you want me to go back and wait there”, and he told us a wide camper van was coming through the tunnel and we wouldn’t want to meet it. How did he know we wouldn’t want to meet it? We had no idea who was driving it, but we may have liked them! We backed up anyway and did as we were told. Whilst we waited we took a few photos of the scenery, and I even took one of our friendly ranger, who was looking a bit sheepish as we were eventually allowed to pass him and continue into the tunnel. He probably has to tell dim tourists this several hundred times a day and it was wearing thin. Poor man.
The drive down was amazing, we stopped at a couple of view points, and found out just how pathetic our tin shack was at hills. It couldn’t even go that fast down them, we can occasionally break the speed limit, but it takes a long time to get there. It would be 13 days more before we remembered to check up on speeding fines - $400 minimum, and they do tag and have speed cameras, so we may indeed have been caught somewhere. Our lack of planning comes to the fore again.
Our stop for the next two nights was to be a Best Western in Mount Carmel Junction which we had chosen because it had a restaurant on the premises. However despite the fact that we were there 30 minutes before last orders (last orders at 8.30, restaurant closes at 9 … the drinking stops early in America) we were not allowed in the restaurant. The waitress ignored us for a few minutes, making great efforts to go back to her hostess station and look really busy. When we asked her if we could sit anywhere, she said no we couldn’t because she was too busy to seat people, they were four tables behind. It was a huge restaurant, and there were only about four tables occupied. Then we asked if we just stood around, and she said no – we had to wait on the bench outside the restaurant. There was a waitress and a waiter, neither were doing anything, and neither were capable of doing anything, and they wouldn’t let us in. A restaurant which prides itself on ‘Ho made pies’ did not want us … maybe we had to look like a ho to get in? We left and went over the road where we were the only customers apart from one other person, ate in silence and shocked the waitress by asking if we could bring our own alcohol in – as they didn’t serve alcohol. There was reading material at the table, typical Utah tales. We began to notice that providing books of crap anecdotes at tables is what passes for alcohol in many restaurants in Utah.
After our mediocre and very quiet dinner we scurried back to our room via the petrol station to get some beer, so we could at least have a drink – not that we are alcoholics, but all that walking works up a thirst. So ended our first day on the Grand Circle.

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Photos

Zion waterfall
Waterfalls appear from odd places in the middle of the rocks.

Zion more views
After this day I learned to photo a sign telling me what I was taking a picture of. Stunning .. but where was it?

Zion - showing off
Random man being brave - showing off to the wife and children, it would have made a brilliant youtube film if he had fallen though!

Ho Made Pies
What do they put in them?