UTAH’S NATIONAL PARKS #3: ZION NATIONAL PARK

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What makes Utah so special is the miles and miles of wide open, unspoiled land.  80% of Utah is owned by the state or Bureau of Land Management, so it is mostly undeveloped.

To begin our journey of the Grand Circle of Utah’s National Parks, the first national park we visited was Zion, Utah’s first national park, established in 1919. It is located in Southwestern Utah, and is characterized by deep sandstone canyons, a maze of narrow, and striking rock towers and mesas.

Native Americans were the first to inhabit the area about 8,000 yeas ago.  Mormons started coming in during the late 1850’s, and called the area Zion; however, President Taft named it Mukuntuweap National Monument in order to protect the canyon.  In 1918, Horace Albright, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service changed the park’s name to Zion National Park.  (So much for the Native Americans being there first…)

The Navajo sandstone in the rock formations is gorgeous; beautiful, rich shades of red.  A Wikipedia article about Zion describes the geology as, “… nine formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation.  At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area.  Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateau lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.”  I’ll take the author’s word for it.  All I know is that it was gorgeous, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue, and the Navajo sandstone formations set against the blue sky was spectacularly colorful!  It made for an inspiring day of photography, as we hiked to the Emerald Pools and back.

(For all pictures, click on the image to see full screen view.)

We crossed over this bridge to continue our hike to the Emerald Pools.
As we increased elevation, the vistas of the canyon were beautiful.
Our first sight of the Emerald Pools and waterfalls
After seeing the Emerald Pools, we took the path back down to the river, crossed the bridge, and headed back to the lodge.
The sky clouded over after we finished our lunch and headed out– perfect timing! This was our Road Scholar tour bus for our group of 24 plus a tour leader. There was plenty of room to spread out in the back of this 45-seater.
On our way to our next hotel at Bryce Canyon, we traveled through the Zion tunnel. I was able to grab this shot in the tunnel, shooting out the bus window, and through an opening.
Checkerboard Mesa is at the east entrance of Zion, after leaving the tunnel. This is naturally sculpted rock. The horizontal lines is evidence of ancient sand dunes, and the vertical lines are fractures that have been enlarged over the years by runoff from rain and melting snow.

Coming up next:  Beautiful Bryce Canyon National Park

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