Zion National Park

This morning we said good-bye to Page as we crossed the Glen Canyon bridge. We set out West along the UT/AZ border and a couple of hours later arrived at Zion National Park. Zion is one of the real gems of the multitude of national parks in the area. It forms a water catchment for the surrounding area and consequently plant life thrives.

The road accessible part of Zion is quite small yet it's very popular with tourists. Some years ago the National Parks people decided to close the roads to private vehicles and started a free bus service to cut down the traffic in the park. It works really well, because the buses stop at every point of interest or hiking trail head in the southern section of the park. All you do is park your car in the car park and hop on the buses for the day. Apparently the animals have since returned to the park and the CO2 levels have dropped as well. The Americans aren't renowned for their environmental conservation, but in this case it's a master stroke. In my case, I was already starting to get sick of driving so taking the day off and sitting on a bus here and there was a welcome change.

The Court of the Patriarchs

Our first lookout point was the Court of the Patriarchs. You'll notice from the photo above in particular that the top of the peaks are white and the lower rock layers are a deep red. It's pretty typical pattern for southern Utah and is as a result of the differing history of the area. Originally most of North America was a shallow ocean then as the tectonic plates moved around and collided with each other. It ended up being a huge plateau well over a 1000m above sea level.

The small river that cut this beautiful valley has created some incredible scenery. Above is the relatively (when compared with the Colorado River) small stream that has cut the Zion Valley. As a comparison, the Grand Canyon is roughly 1 mile (1.6kms) deep. The peaks above this little stream tower over a kilometre above us! It's quite the place.

Saddle Back

The red rock in the middle foreground is called Saddle Back. It's popular with hikers that like a bit of adventure. Directly behind it is the Great White Throne.

Emerald Pools

Our first short hike for the day was to the Emerald Pools. There are three pools in all. Lower, Middle and Upper Emerald pools. They're very imaginative with their names in America. The Middle Pools (below) run off a 10m cliff forming the waterfall above dropping into the Lower pool.

 

The pools themselves aren't that interesting, but the settings are pretty nice, particularly the Upper Pool (above) that has an incredible cliff face that towers above it (below).

The Weeping Rock

The Weeping Rock is another of the garden water features of the park. The water filters through the rock layers and falls off this ledge 100s of years later.

The River Walk

We messed up at Zion. Despite some good advice, I had thought that Emerald Pools was a "Must Do" but in fact it was the River Walk. By the time we got to it, the temperature was nudging 40C, we were all a bit dehydrated and some a bit sun burnt. Time was also our enemy as we had to see the northern section of the park on the way to Cedar City. We did go part the way along the path to the point where the path stops and the stream becomes the path. Considering how hot the ambient temperature was, the water was incredibly cold.

Virgin, UT

This oddity is something of a tourist attraction just outside the entrance of the main part of Zion Nation Park. It's odd to the point of being creepy.

Toquerville, UT

Yet another SW Utah anomaly. This is the rare North American Shoe Tree. This particular specimen is just near the town of Toquerville Utah. You've got to wonder who starts these things.

Kolob Canyon

The north western part of Zion has a road that the public can drive all the way along, but rarely do. We reached Kolob Canyon late in the day and found it to be just as good as the main (southern) part of the park with less people.

Above and below makes up part of the view from the far end of the Kolob Canyon Road. We stayed for quiet some time to take in the view. It topped off a fantastic, if hot, day. I'd love to come back some day in the cooler months, do a few hikes and explore some more. What a great place!

The Grand Canyon - North Rim

This morning we all woke up bright and early to spend the day at the Grand Canyon. We had been to the South Rim back in January, this time we explored the North Rim.
The North rim is much harder for the regular tourist to get to and is closed during the winter (for about 6 months). Consequently it only receives 10% of the visitors compared with the South Rim. Suits me! Today we found out that the North Rim is by far the more spectacular of the two aspects. We had flown over it in a helicopter back in January, but today we had a closer look from the ground.

Bright Angel Point.

We started at Bright Angel Point near the visitor centre. You will notice that the nearby ridges are very close giving a much better feel for how deep the canyon really is.

For some reason Kerri (in particular) and Julie felt the need to find dangerous overhangs and climb out to have their photos taken. This was the first one in the Grand Canyon. Kerri had started the trend upstream at the Glen Canyon Dam viewpoint.

It is worth noting that the North Rim (2300m) is further above sea level than the South Rim (2100m). Despite that fact, there seems to be taller and more dense forests on the North Rim. There are exceptions and the trees closest to the edge of the canyon are beaten up the most (above).

Vista Encantada

This lookout point is called Vista Encantada. Back in January from the helicopter, we saw the Battle Ship covered in snow. In mid summer it is a very different look with the white ship sitting on the red rocks contrasted against green trees and blue skies.

At Vista Encantada, this guy was painting the spectacular view and doing a pretty good job too. He had quite an audience.

There's a road that runs along the North Rim for about 20 kms and along the way there are a number of view points to stop at (Vista Encantada is the first). A season or two ago, a wildfire ripped through a large part of the national park. The forest is just starting the long process of recovery. It made for a cool photo with the black, green, orange & blue.

Walhalla Overlook

This was another opportunity for Kerri to scare her mum. It was another of many beautiful view points along the way to Cape Royal. You can see the Colorado river in the background some 1.8 vertical kms below.

Cape Royal

Cape Royal was totally worth the drive. We spent quite a long time just sitting and admiring the view. This photo is only about a quarter of the panorama.

Angel's Window

 Yet another strange formation in the Grand Canyon National Park. Angel's window almost looks man made.

Point Imperial

Heading off in a different direction from the Cape Royal road, we came to Point Imperial. From there you can see across the plain toward Page and the upstream part of the Colorado River. Just in front of the lookout point is Mt Hayden (centre). Unfortunately the light was poor at that point because a serious electrical storm had just passed over. It had been a pattern for the previous few days. From lunchtime the clouds would build up amd then late in the afternoon a wild electrical storm would hit and dump a nice quenching dose of rain on the parched red countryside. It was just like summer afternoons growing up in Brisbane.
The Grand Canyon is one of those places that you really have to go and see before you "Check Out" of this world, but given a choice, go to the North Rim.

Vermilion Cliffs

On the way back to Page we descended the escarpment to the plain below. The photo above shows the view from about a quarter of the way down. Across the plain was part of the Vermilion Cliffs. It's one of the escarpments of the Grand Staircase that covers most of Southern Utah. The Vermilion Cliffs is the second bottom step and the Grand Canyon, the bottom. Tomorrow we are going to another step, Zion National Park.

Marble Canyon

Up at 2300m the thin air was relatively cool. By the time we had descended back down to the plain below, the ambient temperature (as shown by the gauge in the car) was close to 40C.
We had to cross back over the Colorado River at some point. The area is called Marble Canyon (below). At the narrow point there are two bridges. They are the old and new Navajo Bridges. The old one is to the left and had to be replaced because of the increase in traffic over the river. Part of the increase was heavier trucks. It's not exactly steeped in history, but cool looking bridges all the same.

It was a long day and by the time we finally caught sight of Page again, there wasn't much daylight left.

Monument Valley

Arches National Park

Park Avenue

This morning the stifling heat had thankfully subsided. Our Arches park pass was still valid so we went back to the southern section to walk along Park Avenue.

The Park Avenue walk follows a ravine for about a kilometre. I can see why they call it park avenue because it is though you are walking down a street with sky scrapers on both sides.

At the end of the avenue (and across the real road) is the Courthouse towers (middle of the photo above).

The last spires on the avenue are the Three Gossips facing off against Sheep Rock. The morning light was much more friendly for photography than yesterday.

On the opposite side of the avenue from the Gossips is this massive sheer wall. I just can't reconcile how nature manages to produce these structures.

The structure in the foreground is called the Organ Pipes.The Courthouse Towers behind.

Once again, the Courthouse Towers. We had to get going because we had lots of driving to do today.

From Moab, we made out way south and into the south east corner of Utah with the main focus of the day being Monument Valley. Along the way there was a lot of scenery similar to the photo above of the Valley of the Gods.

The only significant civilization between Moab & Monument Valley was Mexican Hat and that only has a handful of buildings. The town gets its name from the balanced slab in the photo above.

Monument Valley

After much driving & seeing distant shapes on the horizon, we came up over a rise & there it was. Monument Valley. Most people wouldn't know of Monument Valley if asked, but every one would recognize the landscape. It featured in just about every western film shot in the 50s to 70s. It's pretty impressive when it appears out of nowhere like that. After the great view of Monument Valley we continued along the road to the entrance to the Navajo Indian Reserve.

This patch of Southern Utah & Arizona is pretty much owned by one Indian Tribe (or Native American or First Nations People) or other. Most of the land is useless desert or arid farmland so the "Locals" aren't interested in it because it's too much work.Wherever they think they can gouge the unsuspecting tourist for a few bucks, it's suddenly 'Sacred Tribal Land'. (Just like back in Oz with the mine sites in WA.) Monument Valley is no exception. The cheeky sots charge $15 US to drive onto the site to take a closer look at the natural rock structures. The roads that they claim to charge us to maintain are in dreadful condition. Lucky we had a near new 4Runner that handled the conditions just fine & even let me have a bit of fun.Above are the left & right mittens. The movies I mentioned before were shot in & around these spires in particular.

Other features include the Three Sisters;

The Totem Poles;

Merrick Butt;

And John Ford's Point is a great place to take in the whole area.

Artist's corner is another very good outlook point in Monument Valley. You can see most of the main features from one point.

There was one odd structure in the middle of nowhere. I can't quite work it out but I wasn't too sure what a fire hydrant was doing 10km from anything in the middle of the desert. Them Yankees are crazy!

Arizona

After the Monument Valley visit, we drove (well I drove & the girls slept) for a couple of hours across fairly featureless country to Page just over the border in Arizona. It was just me & the GPS telling me "How much longer on the screen" & the occasional voice saying "Turn right in 500m". About 100km short of Page, we stopped at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. There was a nice view of a butt, but not much else. There were a couple of roadside sellers trying to flog us junk trinkets.

It took me a good five minutes to work out what was rustling around in one of the shrubs. It took another twenty to get a photo of it. Chipmunks never sit still for long.

The plan was to go to a crack in the sandstone called Antelope Canyon. I had done some research and it looked like a brilliant place to visit. Nice idea, but again the Navajo wanted a crap load of money to go in and it needed clear skies and the right time of day to get the nice lighting for photos. By the time we arrived, the clouds sky was threatening an Electrical Storm and it was well past the time for taking nice photos. So we decided against it and headed for Page.

Page, Arizona

Page is a town that sprung up from a construction camp for the Glen Canyon Dam. The Glen Canyon Dam blocks the Colorado river to form Lake Powell (below), a huge water body that spreads from the dam wall near the AZ/UT border, far into southern Utah.

Having already seen the renowned Hoover Dam and being a bit underwhelmed (I think because the wall's obscured by power lines & transformers), the Glen Canyon Dam is way more interesting and impressive.

In the photo above, you'll see the Glen Canyon Bridge that runs neatly across in front of the dam.

The Glen Canyon Bridge is a key Colorado river crossing because the next one north is a few hundred kms drive back near Monument Valley somewhere. To the south you have to drive for an hour and a half to cross the same river on the way to the Grand Canyon. The next one after that is the Hoover Dam half a day's drive away.

Horseshoe Bend

About 5kms SW of Page there's a huge loop in the Colorado River called Horseshoe Bend. It was hot and the walk to it was sandy, but it was totally worth it. The pictures tell the story. This same photo is on a wall of just about every hotel, shop and restaurant in Page {Edit: and now in our Dining room}.

The photo above was pretty tricky to take (below). It is nearly a mile from the edge of the cliff I'm lying on, straight down to the Colorado River. As always with landscape photography, the lens is never quite wide enough.

We are staying in Page for two nights. It isn't a bad town and there were plenty of options for food at night. There didn't appear to be much in the way of nightlife, but after a couple of full on days of travel, none of us were in the mood for late nights anyway.