Zion for a day, mission accomplished

North America » United States » Utah » Zion National Park
August 29th 2017

Published: August 30th 2017

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East side of Zion

To beat the heat, Barb and I went into the park fairly early this morning, so that we could walk a couple trails. We walked to the Emerald Pools and the Weeping Rock, which were both shady and cool, and the Kayenta Trail, which was sunny and hot. I guess the name should have been a clue.
When visiting Zion, I think its best to plan for early morning and evening activities. It sure gets hot. I also think it would be a shame to just see the canyon and miss the scenery coming in from the east entrance. Every turn of the road and every turn of the head reveals another work of art. None of the pictures that I've taken really captures how stunning the scenery is. However, I wouldn't want to drive a motorhome in from the east entrance. There is a mile long tunnel with an arched roof and the edges are too low for most motorhomes, so you have to arrange at the park entrance to drive down the middle and they stop traffic from the oncoming direction when you get there. Then there are descending switchbacks with steep drop offs down to the bottom of

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Zion lodge

the canyon.
This afternoon it got up to 102 degrees in Zion but by then we were in the air conditioned natural history museum. After that we took a side trip to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, which my guide book said was a can't miss. Well, it wasn't all that special really. And I wouldn't call the sand pink, maybe coral. We continued on to the town of Kanab, Utah. Over a hundred westerns and even some episodes of Lassie were filmed in Kanab. It was a nice little western town and we stuck around for supper.
So now we've been to all five Utah national parks. We took a vote and Zion won for the most scenic. It seemed like as we traveled west from one to the next the parks got more beautiful. Zion was definitely the most crowded; I would say it rivaled Yosemite in that regard.
Tomorrow we will turn north and start the next part of our trip as we head toward Montana for a visit with our nephew David and his wife Caroline.

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