Day 7 (continued) & 8 – A Heathen Reaches Heaven
We left Bryce that afternoon with promises to come back someday. Hopping on US-89 we made our way the 70 miles southwest to Zion’s east entrance. Coming into Zion my emotions were all over the place. I was excited to see another park, but not excited about how most of it was only accessible by shuttle. Also, the only lodging we could find was a tent site about 12 miles west of Zion in an RV park. All signs point to that this place is busybusybusy.
I had bragged for months about how I was going to climb up Angel’s Landing. In fact, that climb was probably the #1 reason Dan and I went on this trip–we saw it written up on some hiking blog over a year before and drooled all over the description ever since. Buuuuut, add in a total freak-out on an unexpected “scenic drive,” a heavy helping of high-wind jitters, and a dash of fish-out-of-flatlands syndrome and you’ve got nerves so bad that you cringe stepping out onto a 2nd story balcony.
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| Number 5! |
Back to business… The Mount Carmel Highway. Once you enter on the east side of the park you take a nice little drive along a nice little river with nice little hills all around. There are pull-outs so you can take your nice little pictures of the nice little river among the nice little stone hills and it’s very quaint. Soon you notice that traffic gets really thick and you’re stopped at the entrance of a tunnel. So you pull out your visitor’s newspaper to find some juicy tidbits.
“It says here that if you have one of those penthouses on wheels you need to pay an extra fee to get escorted through the tunnel, which stops traffic.”
“Well that explains it.”
A few minutes later a Winnebago or something comes out of the tunnel and we’re moving again. Once we’re in the tunnel we understand the escorts–shitistight! There’s not a lot of headroom and the curved sides are nerve wracking and it is dark! Every once in a while there’s a window or gallery carved out of the wall which overlooks NOTHING. You are IN a mountain and there is no ground to be seen other than that other mountain across the valley.
Upon further reading we find out that the tunnel was created in 1927, finished in 1930. It’s 1.1 miles long, and the windows were cut in for ventilation, light, and an easy place to dump rocks (800 feet below) when there’s a cave in. Yep. Cave in. Sweet. When you come out the other end there are nearly 4 miles of switchbacks that take you down to the Virgin River. Apparently 2 people died while making the switchbacks. Do you see a pattern here? I think they call this place Zion because you will eventually die here.
We make our way through the park on our way to our campsite. It’s been a long day and we need food, rest, and ohmygod they have showers at the RV park! We ate down the road at The Virgin Trading Post where we STUFFED ourselves on an amazing homemade fried chicken dinner that was less than $10. This place was insane. It looked like a tourist trap nightmare but when your choices are limited to what’s open or the Lunchables back in the RV park store, you go for tourist trap. Bottom line: we won. Our food was delicious, the decor was amazing, down to the automated player piano and photos on the walls from movies shot in Utah. It also marked the first and only time someone called Dan my husband. “Honey! You forgot to choose which amazing homemade bread you want with your dinnerrrrrr.”
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| Sorry for the blurry photo. This gem is part of the Virgin Trading Post. |
Before I go any further, please note that we made ALL the jokes about virgins and trading posts and sleeping in a town called Virgin, etc etc etc. Bought the tshirts, too.
That night we chill at our campsite and have COCKROACH ADVENTURE TIMESTM. We were sitting outside, enjoying the evening and I heard a scuffle behind me. Saw a frog (the tent sites are right by the river) and thought nothing of it. I heard more scuffling and wondered, “What’s he after?” I looked hard into the dark and saw a big, black bug. Huh, gross. But then it went toward our cooler which was sitting on the ground and I had to act. I went to move the cooler and scatter the bug away when to my horror I saw over a dozen of these guys under our cooler! Now that I had my headlamp on I see that they’re cockroaches and I flip the eff out. I eventually calm down and Dan and I lift the cooler onto the picnic table (he said they were probably under it for the cool air) and I seal it with duct tape hoping that I’m not sealing anything in but wanting to keep everything out. We never saw them again because we kept everything off the ground, but wow! That was a new one! *shiver*
The next morning we make our way back into Zion. After parking the car we hop on a shuttle, but not before the obligatory mooning over some very handsome rangers at the station. We headed to the north end of the park where the narrows start at a place called Temple of Sinawava.
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| Very large rocks. |
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| Saw this little guy chillin’ by the river. It’s like a walking Flaming Hot Cheeto. |
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| You never feel large in Zion, just veryveryvery tiny. |
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| The beginning of The Narrows. This is a very popular hike but it involves special shoes, getting very wet and a lot of things I’m just not that into. Maybe next time? |
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| Beware! Fatty here will take off your finger in the blink of an eye. At least that’s what the pamphlets say. |
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| Big ol’ mule deer traipsing thru his breakfast. |
We hopped back on the shuttle and went back about half-way, to the start of the Emerald Pools trail. Seeing that it was already near 100˚F and the wind was strong, we felt validated in our decision to not hike Angel’s landing. Sidenote: the drivers on the shuttles kept telling us stories about how the road had been remade here and there and over there because of the massive floods they get from time to time that shove all manner of road destroying kill-y things down the river such as boulders the size of houses and the like. Death is around every corner here…
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| Shuttle for scale. |
I’m fairly sure that the peak in the above pic is Angel’s Landing. That hike starts at the same spot as Emerald Pools. I found the following picture on the web which explains exactly what we kept telling ourselves on our moderate, albeit sweltering, hike that day that only took us up 200ft.
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| Thanks for the visual heidikins. |
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| Crossing the Virgin on the start of our hike. |
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| Hard to believe… |
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| The falls are from the Upper Pools and drains into the Lower Emerald Pools. The mist off the falls was so refreshing! |
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| I think I used the “toy” filter on this shot. |
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| Look at this tree! Talk about stubborn. |
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| Upper Emerald Pools. |
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| Upper Emerald Pools. |
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| Flippin’ gorge. |
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| Dan, trying to look smart. |
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| Me, suffering from heat stroke apparently. |
We made it to the lodge and did our best zombie impressions. Nothing saps your energy like hot & dry weather. We were hoping for more of the same experience we had at Bryce when it came to the dining facilities, but it was more or less a food court attached to a gift shop. Boo.
With a lot of the day still open to us we decided to take a drive up to the northern end of Zion called Kolob Canyons, which is only accessible by 2 ways, driving out and around the park OR by hiking the 47 miles across the park from the southern end we just left.
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| Why the eff not? |
We had our fill for the day of what Zion had to offer we made it back to our campsite for some lounging & laundry. Having grown up with humidity as your nemesis, the fact that we could air dry our clothes within a couple hours was pretty amazing. Kudos to you, scarily arid and hot weather!
We went into Springdale that night for dinner, which is the town on the Western doorstep of Zion. Lots of tourists, hotels, etc. We found an amazing little place called the Whiptail Grill which was once a gas service station. Goat cheese stuffed poblano peppers, spaghetti squash tamales, gorgeous views. What else could you want?!
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| Campsite visitor. Probably looking for cockroaches. Blek! I have no idea what kind of bird it is, but I’m leaning toward Vermilion Flycatcher, even though his wings aren’t very dark. |
The next morning we would be taking off for the Grand Canyon.
Modwestern Girl 
