Day 3 - Staycation Saga - Zion National Park

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Day 3 – Wednesday May 27, 2009 - Both ends of Zions National Park

Today was another great day! Ammon and I set out for the North Entrance of Zion National Park, known as Kolob Canyon, at about 9am after doing some cold cereal for breakfast as Grandma was with Grandpa at the hospital for his knee surgery. At the visitor’s center in Kolob canyon, we showed our Annual Park Pass to the ranger and got to go right in. We figured we should get a park pass because we would be traveling through MANY national parks in the next few weeks and it would save us a lot of money. At the end of the 5 mile drive into Kolob Canyon was a small hike out onto the vista point. Along our hike we me a friendly lizard that we call Lucky, because the rest of our day from that point on was Really Good! We got some great panoramic shots of the cliffs on the other side of the canyon. Ammon was like a little boy, totally in awe at the scene before him. (This starts out north of us, then pans around east, south, west, and northwest.)

Facing North

Facing East

Facing South

In this next picture, if you look way off into the horizon, just under the left end of the clouds you can barely see is a very faint rise (Say a mountain maybe 50 miles away) that I think is the mountain through which the Grand Canyon runs. (later we come across a 3D map [sorry forgot to take a picture] that confirms this theory) So, from the west end of Zion National Park, on a very clear day, we can see the mountain where the Kaibab (think I spelled that wrong) National Forest is. We could also see this same mountain from Bryce Canyon as well.

Here is a zoomed in shot. I have pretty good zoom on my camera and you can still barely see the mountain that the Grand Canyon carves literally in half. It is the faint large roundish one that goes through the center of the picture. I guess that it had rained the previous couple of days so the air was really clean, otherwise we probably would not have been able to see this mountain. Makes you wonder what the world looked like when Lewis and Clark were out wandering around. I bet they had some nice views without air pollution.

Looking West

Getting ready to head back to the car.

On our hike back down to our car, I went hunting. Yep, you heard me right! Watch the videos to hear Ammon’s commentary of the hunt and what prey was actually caught! (Sorry that there are many short segments, but that is just they way it worked out)

A hunting story for Jacob, Parley, and Oliver. . .

The camera man at this point had to run and hide as she points at him because he knew he was discovered and feared for his life!!

Lets just say that the couple that crossed her on the trail met an untimely and unnatural death. It wasn't pretty and she can really be messy sometimes.

Here is where the oldies song gives background music . . . "let me tell you about the birds, and the bees, the flowers and the trees, . . ."

. . . After a long pause and the camera man got himself cleaned up from the frightful scare and quick flight into the brush to get away from the hungry Shari, the story continues . . .

Shari is a big fan of lady bugs, but I do not think they live in that area. However there are some pretty purple, red, and yellow flowers along the trail. Hey, they always tell us we should stop and smell the roses, right?!

So Shari met up with the Evil Zygorg and there was a wicked awesome battle that ensued. Little did we know, but Shari has had some training in the way of the Jedi and she used her light-saber in some hand to hand combat in order to destroy the evil mountain ruler, freeing the captives, giving peace to the oppressed, relieving the prisoners of their cells and chains . . . Blah, Blah, Blah, . . . Way to go Shari!

See, doing good things like defeating the Evil Zygorg has its benefits.

After lunch we decided to head over to the southern end of Zion’s, which is the popular end, and see what can see. On our way out Shari pulls out the M&M’s and I said, “we just had lunch” and she in kind of a desperate and longing, yet somewhat possessed voice said, “Chocolate, I need Chocolate”. It was a little scary but it made me laugh because she is sooo cute when she is craving something. This is a couple of shots of the south end of Zion as we drove from the west side of the park to the east side of the park.

After already driving through Zions on the highway the day before, we knew we wanted to go on the shuttle tour. We drove in as far as we could, the park was pretty full for a Tuesday! We got on the shuttle and rode it to the end of the line where we went for a nice one mile stroll through the canyon towards the Narrows. This is one of the animals we saw along the trail. Didn't really seem afraid of people so it stood and did its thing while hundreds of people kept walking along the trail that follows the river.

Here is another animal that we saw while walking.

Can you find the guy with the bushy tail?

He is the same color as the rocks!

This spot is really cool because about halfway down the cliff the water leaks out and is constatnly streaming down the sides of the cliff keeping it wet, mossy, and green. If I remember right it takes about 100 years for the water to work its way from on top when it rains, down through the rock, to then stream out like you see in the picture below.

We didn’t feel like getting wet, so we didn’t go any further than the end of the paved trail. We did stop for a bit to let Ammon play in the water. He excuse is he had a sunburn and wanted to pull the heat out of his arms. However, I know better than that! Ammon just loves playing in the dirt, sand, rocks, stream,…whatever you got! What do you expect, I am a boy! (by the way Jacob and Parley, we too saw alligator boogers in the river on our hike up the canyon. Guess them alligators get up into the western Utah Rocky Mountains too.

Next we stopped by the gift shop and did a little bit of memory shopping. (we will take a picture of all our stuff and post it once our trip is completed.)

We then stopped at the Court of the Patriarchs’ where we took a bunch of pictures of rocks given the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There is also a rock formation called Moroni! In the picture below from left to right the three big rocks are Abraham, Isacc, and Moroni. Behind Moroni you can also see a white peak at the very right edge of the picture and that is Jacob. From here it doesn't look that big, but when the shuttle goes around the point and back behind Jacob, you see that it is actualy bigger than the peak called Moroni.

This is a wild turkey that we saw hanging out at the base of the court of the Patriarchs.

After we bought some more souvenirs, we had dinner at a yummy pizza place in Springdale. We walked along the only street in Sprindale, caught the shuttle back to the other side of town, and did some more window shopping. We got back to Grandpa and Grandma Burtenshaw’s at about 10 pm and now it’s 11:30 and I’m ready for bed! Grandma was still up because each night she has to watch her basketball game to see who is winning.