Lessons learned from a first trip to Bryce and Zion National Parks

Go!  They’re spectacular. Around 8800 feet, the air gets thinner and the hiking gets harder.  It might have been helpful for a flatlander like me to start at Zion NP (which is lower) before going up to Bryce.  Then again, it might not have.  I’m told you can’t acclimate to such a big altitude change [...]

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Watchman

Utah Day 5:  May 9 No, no – not those Watchmen – this Watchman. On the last morning of our trip, we got up early, took the shuttle into the park, had breakfast at Zion’s lodge, and went hiking on the Watchman Trail.  Described as a moderate hike in our guides, it felt easy to us, proceeding [...]

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Murder on Cathedral Mountain?

I just ran across this unexpected tidbit on the official Zion National Park hiking FAQ page: Q. How many fatalities from “falling” have occurred in Zion National Park? A. Below is a list of fatalities from “falling” in Zion National Park, dating back to the parks establishment. The info below is incomplete. The below list [...]

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Emerald pools, pale pink sand, and white shuttle buses

Day 4 – May 8 – Afternoon and Early Evening After our hike on Canyon Overlook Trail, Maris and I drove through Zion’s south entrance/exit and on to nearby Springdale to check into the Best Western.  The main road that runs north through the center of the park isn’t open to private vehicles, so we left our [...]

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Canyon Overlook Trail

Day 4 – May 8 – Midday On our fourth morning, we packed up, left Bryce Canyon Lodge, and drove a little over an hour to the southeast entrance to Zion National Park.  The change in terrain at the entrance was dramatic, and I’ve  never seen rock textured like that.  It was amazing.  I was glad [...]

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Most visited national parks?

The handouts I picked up in Zion National Park made a big point of the fact that it is one of top ten most visited U.S. national parks. This surprised me, as I don’t remember having heard about it growing up, and knew very little about it until relatively recently.  According to the National Parks [...]

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I love to count . . . 52 creek crossings! Ha, ha, ha!

Utah Day 3 – May 7 – Afternoon When we stopped at the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center at Zion, the ranger assured us that, although we could only manage the easy trails at Bryce, we would be fine on the moderate trails at Zion.  Mercifully, he was right.  At his urging, we took a hike down [...]

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Kolob Canyons: Timber Creek Overlook Trail

Utah Day 3 – May 7 – Midday So there we were, 2.5 hours from Bryce, at the northwest corner of Zion National Park – Kolob Canyons.  The sun was shockingly bright, the temperature was in the 80s, and the air was rich with oxygen.  We shed our fleece and began our hiking with the [...]

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The drive through Dixie

Day 3 – May 7 – Late morning It was literally freezing out when we took our sunrise stroll to Sunset Point (the temperature dropped to 18 degrees overnight), and Maris’ allergies were making her miserable.  So we retreated to the lodge for a warm breakfast and then decided to take the two-hour drive to [...]

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“The sober mind is a powerful thing”: Hoodoos at sunrise

Day 3 – May 7 – 6:25 a.m. People kept talking about the spectacular color changes that hoodoos undergo at sunrise and sunset, so Maris and I decided we should check it out early on Day 3.  Figuring we’d be stumbling through one of the darkest places in the U.S., we went to the general store [...]

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