a silver mount [ ]

 

Zion has to be my favorite place we've seen so far. Jumping off the freeway and heading towards the park from theEast  was rather uneventful - more of the flat desert of Utah, rocks tinged with red. But once inside the park - beautiful. Following Zion-Mount Carmel Road, the sun shined as we drove past unusual rock outcroppings, bighorn sheep, past blooming cacti and through tunnels. We dived deep into the canyon by way of dozens of switchbacks, passing buses and RVs that barely made the sharp turns.

 

 

The road leads down to the visitors center, where you must take a free shuttle to access Zion Canyon Road. We traveled up, past the Court of the Patriarchs, Zion Lodge, the Grotto, Weeping Rock, and Big Bend all the way to the Temple of Sinawava. From here we hiked along the Virgin River as the canyon walls narrowed around us. I'd love to come back in later summer or fall when the water level is lower to continue following the trail into the Narrows - a 9mile hike on the riverbed, where the canyons squish closer and closer together.

redrock

We left our camping spot along the Colorado River outside of Moab in the dead of night. Or rather, in the howling-blowing-tent-shaking night. Around four am we finally clammered out of the tent because the whipping wind refused to cease and our poor tent just could not take it. We got out and every corner of the tent had been uprooted from it's stakes and the rainfly was barely hanging on. Chilly and exhausted we moved on, across the desert in the middle of the night - very reminiscent of Texas this past January. 

We have the NatGeo's guide to the Nat'l Parks and we've been using that to guide our journey. Utah, suprisingly, has many nat'l parks and we knew we didn't have time to see all of them, so we made some quick decisions and decided on just three. Having just left our first choice - Arches - we were now heading to Bryce Canyon.

We drove through the night and the monochrome desert through the early morning. The sun rose at our backs and behind drab hills and mountains, so there was little to see. Once we headed into Dixie National Forest on the outskirts of B.C. things changed. We climbed uphill and suddenly bright red sand bellowed into spires and plateaus. And there were trees! Lovely green coniferous trees. Seeing this was a moment of realization for me. I felt happy and at home amongst the pines, but also very homesick for the first time.

But our stay here was lovely and bright, if not terribly chilly. At Bryce Canyon there was snowing covering paths and spires, and it only got deeper uphill. But the air here is said to be the cleanest in the country and you could see for miles.

We went to a night-sky program last night on Adam's insisting, and I'm glad. Attendees were all given a chance to look through big ol' telescopes at Mars, Saturn, and a globular cluster (M16? 34? 72?) Upon viewing Saturn we could see the rings around the far-away planet, making it look like a very small cut-out on the black sky. Very cool.

Arches

A few snapshots of Arches Nat'l Park

Colorado

Snow-Capped Peaks and Rock Columbines