Zion National Park - Part 1

In 2020, we were planning on what would be a great spring break vacation to visit some national parks in Utah and Arizona (Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon and the non-national park Antelope Canyon).  Then COVID happened, and we reluctantly cancelled our plane tickets, hotel and AirBnB reservations, etc.  Shortly after Lydia's birthday and the end of school this year, we took off to see the same sights we had planned on the year before.

The trip started with some anxiety as Southwest cancelled our flight the day before we were scheduled to fly.  As the other passengers hurried to rebook their flights for later that day and filled up the schedule, we decided we could be ready to go that night and booked for the last flight of the night and hurriedly found a hotel in Vegas for the night.  Of course, our flight that we changed to was delayed multiple times before we boarded, and then after we boarded, we were stuck sitting at the gate, buckled, waiting for nearly 2 hours for the copilot who was on a different flight to land.  The end result is we made it to our Vegas hotel around 3AM Vegas time and crashed for a few hours.  It was not a pleasant start to the trip at all, but fortunately it did get better from there.

We got our rental car and drove to our hotel right outside the main entrance to Zion National Park in Utah.  That hotel was in a beautiful location and we loved swimming in their pool to escape the heat (the area was in the middle of a heat wave with temperatures 20 degrees above average).  The hotel pool also had a splash pad, waterfall, and hot tub, and we loved hanging out there every afternoon.

The next day, we woke up early to beat the heat and beat the crowds to get into the park for our first day of hiking and exploring - or at least we thought it was early.  Zion doesn't allow private vehicles to drive into most of the park, so everyone has to deal with the park shuttle to get to most trailheads and waiting in line for the shuttle to take them there. The first shuttle leaves at 6am and unfortunately, even though we got to the visitor center at around 6:15am, the main parking lot to catch the shuttle to go further into the park was already full.   I dropped Tanja and the kids off and ultimately wound up parking at a distant overflow lot a mile away.  The line to board the shuttle would have taken several hours by that point(!), so we wound up hiking on trails near the visitor center instead.

The first trail we were on was the Pa'rus trail since that was the one I had to walk on as I made my way back after parking the car and Tanja and the kids met me on the trail.  While there, we found a deer that wandered past us to get a drink from the Virgin River running through the park.  The deer was perfectly content to be close to us, both as it walked past and later as the kids got close for pictures.

 

Next, we hiked on the Watchman trail, a moderate 3.3 mile up and down hike which had beautiful views.  This was a beautiful hike that took us up a steep trail then along a ridge with several spots to stop and look out across the valley.

The kids found some large boulders to climb.

Always hard to get everyone to cooperate on family or other group photos as Derek decided to hide his face.

The kids were good hikers on this trail in spite of the hot temperatures.

Cacti were interesting, since we don't see them at home.

I really like this picture - don't be surprised if it shows up on Christmas cards this year.

I love the desert colors with a sprinkling of whatever trees can establish themselves here.

And the old trees made for an interesting backdrop.

On the way back to the car, we saw a snake (no photo), which was a highlight for the kids.  We went back to the hotel to swim, eat some lunch and then returned to the park to take a scenic drive through a cool tunnel and pulled out at some overlooks along the way.

We made it to the Canyon Overlook trail and were fortunate to get a parking spot in the small lot (10 spaces) where we started a 1.5 hour hike to look over the canyon.  The hike probably shouldn't take that long, but we have youngish kids and it was over 120 degrees in the afternoon, while hiking this trail.

This bridge in the background to get to a large shallow cave was sturdy, but could be nerve wracking for those afraid of heights.

We left footprints in the sand inside the cave and I noticed that Derek's shoes made by a company called Merrell left footprints that upside down kind of looked like it said "Webber" which was fun.

We found several lizards running around in Zion.  We did see a few iguana-like larger lizards other days too.

The end of the trail had some good spots for pictures and for the kids to climb on the rocks.

 It made for a busy day and we were all tired at the end of it.