Rock of Ages

Today's blog is Wednesday, June 7th and we awaken in the clean fresh air of Zion Canyon. We are up early to do a hike before noon when the weather becomes too oppressive for any activity.

The west end of the park is closed to private vehicles and there is a free shuttle that takes you around. We park at the visitor center and hop on to the Zion Lodge stop where we embark on the Lower Emerald Falls Trail. It is an easy paved walkway that takes you up to a curved rock area with several drippy waterfalls. It is cool to look up and see the individual drops coming down. Saw some neat lizards and heard some good croaking from frogs or toads.

We continued on to the Middle Falls area and it was quite a climb and progressively rocky. But as little kids passed us in flip flops, we knew we could make this ascent. The middle area had no falls, but a little stream cut through the rocks and Jeff met a guy singing British drinking songs and they bonded. Jeff decided to stay here while I trudged on to the Upper Falls.

This was a real rocky, steep hike and I was glad to arrive and find a beautiful pool and some friendly people to share the experience. We walked down on different path and it was hard on the knees. We finally got back to the bridge that took us to the lodge and we felt like we had really accomplished some worthy exercise.

It turned out to be a rainy afternoon and we needed to rest. Later we cooked dinner and got ready to make an early departure. The night turned out to be beautiful with an almost full moon rising over the canyon walls. I took Ziggy out at 4am and the night sky was like a canopy of stars. So beautiful and so may stars brightly shining in the sky.