ZION NATIONAL PARK April 2009 Day 3 & 4

There is a scenic drive in Zion that only tour buses are allowed to travel with the exception of the staff at the Zion Lodge which is on the Scenic Drive. Therefore there is only 3 ways you can travel the 12.5 mile round trip, tour bus, bike or walking. The first half of the trip is mostly uphill as you climb about 600 feet so we decided that we would take our bikes but we cheated. We rode the tour bus up to the top and rode our bikes down. Much easier. We did stop at most of the stops on the way down to either take pictures, have lunch or walk some of the trails that originate at the different stops.

One of the walks was to "Weeping Rock" as it was only 1 mile return trip, however the way in was all uphill. It certainly got our hearts pumping. Weeping Rock is actually a cliff face where the water runs out of different parts of the cliff and gravity does the rest. It is like being under a light rain. What actually occurs is that most of Zion is sandstone which is porous and gathers the rain water like a big sponge. The water then makes it way through the sandstone until it hits slate rock and runs along the slate until it breaks free and a small or large waterfall is formed. The water has been tested that comes out of the sandstone and is proven that it can take 1200 - 4000 years to make it through.

Our next stop was to do a little rock climbing, our first attempt and I thought we did pretty good. We were given a few instructions and then away we went. It was a lot more difficult than I thought but it was quite exilarating, knee knocking and breath taking. We had some people take some pictures of us when we were on the mountain.

Kathy about half way up.

Rod about two thirds of the way up.

Most of the peaks are named here at Zion and most of them have Biblical names as many were named by a visiting priest in the early 1940's. Two of the ones I took pictures of are " The Great White Throne" and " The Organ "

The peak in the middle is called " The Great White Throne "

The peak on the left is "The Organ" and you can see "The Great White Throne" to its right.

We also stopped at Zion Lodge and had some ice cream. A just reward for a energentic and taxing day. We continued home after that without any stops and went for dinner at the burger shack and then called it an early night.

This morning Kathy headed out for a hike up to Angels Landing which is a 5 mile return trip and most of it uphill. The last part is across the top of a limestone peak that is about 3 feet wide and 1200 feet down. No thanks. I stayed home and played poker.

She did well getting most of the way there but strong winds detered her from making it to the very top.

Our plans tomorrow are a couple of more hikes, not sure which ones at this time.

Here a few more of the pictures I took yesterday.