19 April – Page – Zion Canyon - Page

Up a bit earlier this morning… hey.. 8am in the morning whilst on holidays is early J.   We had decided to head to Zion Canyon National Park tody from Page.  Being a 2.5 hr drive each way we thought we’d need to be up early to enjoy the park.  So, after getting ready, our first stop was…..Starbucks….for a coffee traveller.

The drive to Zion took us over the Glen Cameron dam and then into Utah. We passed through some lovely country side, cows grazing in grassy fields with daisies etc. This did give way to some spectacular red and white canyon outcrops.  

 We noted that there was a long section of the highway that had deer fencing on both sides with underpasses for the deer…we didn’t see any deer thoughL.

We eventually got to Zion and had to go through a mile long tunnel where anything RV sized had to go through the tunnel in the middle due to size restrictions.  Zion is quite simply stunning.  It is a bit like an oasis in a canyon, in the middle of the desert.  The canyon walls are very tall and coloured with many hues of red, white and light green.  The canyon is not large in width, but the sheer height is something else.  The canyon was originally inhabited by the indigenous who used it for farming etc. However later Mormon settlers came along to do the same.  Their success was a lot less and most ended up leaving the land very early due to drought, flood and other severe weather.

After a quick, yet satisfyingJ, lunch we went out to attack the Emerald Pools walk. The walk was only of a moderate difficulty (excellent J) and we reached the Emerald Pools without too much excursion (maybe could have done with a little more given the pancakes we had last night and previous Vegas buffets J). It was a really lovely, secluded section of the canyon that had a very small waterfalls (more like a seepage) into 3 pools at different levels.  

On the walk we also came across a ground squirrel.  Quite a cheeky little chap, for as soon as we stopped to get some photos he came up pretty close standing on his back legs looking expectantly at what we might have to offer. Seeing that we had nothing, he was gone.  We got some photos of him at least.

After finishing the walk, we caught the free park-shuttle back to the van and then headed back to Page.  We noticed that along one street of Page (Lake Powel Blvd) there were 10x churches, all of different denominations.  We figured that there must be only about 3 or 4 patrons to each on a Sunday, seeing as the majority of the town would be out boating or fishing.

We finished the day with a top little meal of salmon, followed by a shared Easter egg… or two….well…. there goes the exercise for the day LOL.