Friday 5 June

The next morning after sorting out all my clothes and repacking everything in a more sensible manner I started the drive to Zion National Park. Arriving about lunch time I found my campsite, pitched my tent and then got on the park's shuttle bus to head to the trailhead for a walk.

Sand Bench Loop

This is a trail that is shared with mules. Thankfully at this time of the day no mules were present but I still found the going tough as it was msotly soft sand, a surface I find it hard to walk on. Although I enjoyed the walk I dind't think it was especially special and was a little disappointed by the scenery. That said some of the plants I saw were pretty cool which made up for the scenary a bit.

Saturday 6 June

The next day I again got on the shuttle intending to spend the entire day within the park. My first stop was to do the hike up to Angel's Landing.

Angel's Landing

Angel's Landing is a view point over the canyon that forms the main part of Zion National Park. The walk up to Angel's Landing is quite steep and the last section involves what would probably be considered scrambling if it wasn't for all the hand rails. It's not advised for people who are scared of heights but to me it was quite tame. The views at Angel's Landing gave a good feel of the park but, although nice, they did suggest that the park may not be as scenic as I'd hoped.

Emerald Pools

This trail led up past three pools and sounded quite interesting. Unfortunately the pools were rather small and not that interesting. It didn't help that the top pool was absolutely heaving with people including children swimming, an activity that was meant to be banned. It also rained for a bit so all in all it was a bit of a disappointment.

Riverside Walk

The canyon starts to narrow at the last shuttle bus stop and you can carry on up the canyon about another half mile on a path besides the river. It is possible to go further than this but it requires wasing in waist deep water and I didn't really have the right equipment or enough time. One of the best bits was seeing a deer and also a rather tame squirrel that seemed to beg - obviously it was regularly fed by visitors despite the signs that said not and the rather hefty fines imposed as it was illegal to feed the wildlife.

Big Bend

On the way back on the shuttle I got off at one of the stops which wasn't a trailhead and instead just a view point. I took a couple of photos and then jumped on the next shuttle bus which had, unexpectedly, turned up only a couple of minutes after I'd got there.

Watchman Trail

Having had my main meal at lunchtime I didn't have to bother sorting out food in the evening so instead did th Watchman Trail which started from the visitors center and so very close to my campsite. This was one of the more enjoyable walks I did at Zion and I was glad I had time to fit it in before it got dark - it was well on the way by the time I got back down.

Sunday 7 July

I woke up still not sure what I was going to do with the day except that I planned to go for a walk in one of the less touristy parts of the park but first I was going to go for a short walk to an overlook.

Canyon Overlook

This was outside the main canyon and to get to it you had to drive through a mile long rather old tunnel which they needed to make one way for RVs and the like as these could only fit through it by driving down the middle. The views of the tunnel were about as impressive as the views of the scenery. The best bit of this walk was seeing what I think was a humming bird although unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good picture of it before it flew off.

Grafton, Utah

I then drove to where I was planning on starting a long walk, however when I got there I realised that I wans't feeling 100% so decided against such a long walk (with hindsight definitely a good decision as I didn't feel great on the shorter walk I did later). Instead I went and visited Grafton, which was a ghost town near the park. Seeing the different buidling was rather cool although I'm not sure how I feel about the restoration efforts as it removes some of the ghost town effect. Most of the graves in the cemetry had flowers on them although I don't know if they're put there by relatives or the restoration society. I also thought the contrast between the differing quality of the graves was quite noticable.

Huber Wash

I did go on a less-touristy walk that day, although it was shorter than planned. The walk was meant to lead down a wash to some petrified trees at a dry waterfall. I found the waterfall but never found the trees. That said the waterfall was well worth seing as it contrasted quite drastically to the surrounding desert. Stupidly I'd left the camera in the car so had to tak photos with my phone.

Great Arch

After my walk I went and stopped at an overlook of an arch I'd seen earlier when the sun had been such that taking photos was awkward. It was much better now and I'm glad I did go back to get some photos of the arch as it was rather huge.

Monday 8 June

This day was spent going from Zion to Bryce national parks via the much less visited Kolob Canyons section of Zion and Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Middle Fork

This was a very cool walk and I really liked this bit of Zion unlike the rest of the pak which I was a little disappointed by. The walk followed a stream past a couple of old dwellings to a double 'arch'. On the way there were also cool plants and butterflies and I even got a photo I rather like of an insect. At the end of the walk the double arch was rather spectacular although it was so big capturing all of it in one photo was impossible. An old man I met on the walk said the Left Fork walk was even better but unfortunately I didn't have time for it.

Kolob Canyon Viewpoint

I finshed my visit to this part of the park by driving to a view point at the end of the road. Although I would've like to explored further I needed to get going so I just took some photos and hit the road.

Cedar Breaks National Monument

On the way to Cedar Breaks I passed through some cool white cliffs unlike anything I'd seen before. I didn't take any photos as there wasn't any readily avaliable parking and I thought I was bound to run into them again, somehting which unfortunately didn't occur. I got to Cedar Breaks and still (just) had time to do a short walk - which was made considerably harder by being above 10,000ft. On the walk I spotted and took photos of an unidentified animal. I got back to the car park quite late and while there bumped into a really nice park ranger who was a little worried that my car was still on the car park about an hour after everyone else had left. We then had a nice conservation which included discussing the state of the trail - which apparently most people were still finding difficult due to the remaing snow and associated mad - and he also identified the animal as a marmoot. I really liked it here and was disappointed I couldn't spend longer but I also really wanted to get to Bryce Canyon (and I'm glad I did...).