Friday, October 1, 2010

Today was forecasted to be very warm, so we decided to beat the heat and get up early and hit the trails.  We drove to the Visitor Center and got on the shuttle bus by 7:30 A.M. 

The shuttle is the only way you can access much of the park.  The NPS started the shuttles in 1999 because they had 5,000 cars in the park on many days and only 400 parking spaces.  There is a shuttle stopping every 8 minutes at every stop in the park.

We took the shuttle to the end of the canyon,the Temple of Sinawava, and took the Riverside Wall, 2.2 miles round trip.  At the end of the trail you can continue up the canyon into the ‘narrows,’ but you would have to walk up the stream, the Virgin River.  Many people walk the river.  We stopped at the end of the walking tail.  Obviously, beautiful views all the way.

Then we took the shuttle to another stop, Big Bend.  Took a few photos and continued to the “Grotto,” got off and took a .5 mile trail to the Zion Lodge.  We decided to do one more hike and thought we were taking an ‘easy’ trail to a place called Lower Emerald Pool.  We made a wrong turn and got onto the ‘moderate’ trail to Middle Emerald Pools.  The ‘moderate’ tail was very steep and much more difficult.  But, we stuck it out and made it to the top.  We did take the easy trail on the way back down.  On the way, we talked to two ladies from Waverly, IA - small world.  That hike was 1.8 miles.

Our total hike for the day was 4.5 miles.  Pretty good for us - a drop in the bucket for most of you.

Zion became a National Monument in 1909 when William Howard Taft was president.  It became a National Park in 1919, Woodrow Wilson was president.  

When we were on the trail this morning, we talked with an older gentleman whose father was a park ranger in the park during the 1920’s.  He said his mother was the first woman to walk through the tunnel on the east side of the park.  The tunnel is over a mile long and was completed in 1929.  It’s an impressive tunnel. 

Have I mentioned that we are pretty lucky that some of our early presidents, especially Theodore Roosevelt, established so many of our parks, monuments, and preserves.  Jimmy Carter added more acres to the national park system than any other president.  Most of his additions were in Alaska.

Enough useless information, now some photos!

The above three photos are on the first trail, the Riverside Walk to the Narrows.

This was the first Visitor Center, circa 1919.

These photos are from the trail to the Emerald Pools.  The photo on the upper right show what it looks like when you make the wrong turn.  If you double-click you can see that there are people walking across a bridge, way down there.