The Power of Water – Zion National Park, Utah [April 18, 2019]

Zion National Park

The Virgin River carving its way through the canyon

We have seen water destroy when terrible floods wash buildings away and we have seen water build when new sands are deposited on a beach.  At Zion Canyon in Southwest Utah, you could say that water creates.  The Virgin River is carving this magnificent canyon creating massive monoliths of brightly colored stone.

Interesting shelf of harder stone left behind

Zion is a very popular park with about 2.7 million visitors a year.  To ease congestion and improve the park experience, cars are limited throughout the park. Visitors are encouraged, and in some areas of the park required, to ride these nifty double tram/buses as they drive up and down the main road of the park, stopping at viewpoints and trail heads.  Cars are not allowed.  Parking is limited in the park, so visitors leave their cars in the town of Springdale and another free bus can pick you up and take you to the park entrance.  Springdale is a tiny town totally devoted to the housing and feeding of visitors to the park.

We thought the trees surrounding the topknot were cool

We had watched a video on the Zion park website about crowds, arriving early, and taking alternate hikes other than the most popular ones.  All of the campgrounds near the park were full, so we were camping 45 minutes away.  It was Spring Break and many people were coming to visit Zion.  So, we left early, arrived in Springdale early, nabbed a parking spot, hopped on the bus, and arrived in the park in just a few minutes.  We then stood in a short line to get on the tram at the Visitors Center stop.  Later in the early afternoon, when we returned to the Visitors Center, the line was VERY long.

The Narrows - where you have to walk in the water to continue your hike

Looking back through the canyon

The canyon is, well, a canyon and so is long and skinny.  The sides are made up of red, yellow, and buff colored huge monoliths of stone, bright against a perfect blue sky.  We started our day going to the furthest away tram stop, the Temple of Sinawava.  From there we took the Riverside Walk along the Virgin River to the Narrows, where the canyon stone is so hard that the river has only been able to carve it straight down.  The river was flowing pretty fast due to winter snow melt, but in other times when the water flow is slow, people hike in the water up through the narrow canyon. 

Colorful rock strata

The Sentinel with lush green trees that grow beside the river

As the river cuts through softer stone, it picks up abrasive sand particles, that then rub against the hard sandstone in the canyon gradually cutting it wider and deeper.  The walls of the canyon are layered with different kinds of stone, and depending on how soft or hard it is, the abrasive river wears it away faster or slower, creating these interesting formations.  As the river works its way lower and lower through the stone, amazing structures are left standing.

A waterfall coming out of the middle of the cliff

A hanging garden on the side of the cliff gets water from seeps through the stone

The Riverside Walk was very pretty.  There was a waterfall that came out of the middle of the cliff.  Melting snow had soaked its way down through porous rock at the top, and when it met up with harder rock, flowed along the rock to the opening on the side of the cliff.  In some areas, hanging gardens grow where water seeps out of the side of the canyon and provides water to tenacious plants that have gained a foothold there.  All along the paved hiking trail, there are places where you can leave the path, play at the water’s edge, and continue the hike along a path next to the water as the river burbled beside you and the canyon narrowed.  Though the canyon rim is desert, the canyon itself is very lush and green with plants nurtured by water from the river. 

Another water seep, and interesting erosion

The Three Patriarchs are the three structures with white tops.  The brown one in the foreground is Mt. Moroni

We then took the tram back to the Court of the Patriarchs stop where we took a very short steep walk up the side of the hill to an overlook of these interesting formations.  There, totally alone for about a half hour, we had a picnic lunch in the company of Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The formations, each over 6,800 feet high and over 2,900 feet above the canyon floor, were named by a Methodist minister, who must have seen the white stone tops as the flowing white hair of these biblical wise men.  Many of the formations in the park have biblical or church related names, including the name of the park itself, perhaps because the first Euro-Americans who settled here were Mormon pioneers.

The Watchman

Our last stop was at the Human History Museum where we watched the 25-minute movie about the park.  These movies provide a great introduction to the parks, and this one was not exception.  We usually watch the movies first, and it was fun watching it afterwards, learning about what we had just seen.  Zion is a magnificent park, an experience for all of the senses. 

Happy rock and waterfall lovers!

Petroglyphs in the Valley of Fire – Valley of Fire State Park, Overton NV [April 17, 2019]

Stripes of colored rock

Imagine trudging through the vast, dry, unwelcoming Mojave Desert, blinded by the sun and the endless brown dirt and grey-green desert plants.  You cross over hills and mountains (yes, the Mojave Desert has mountains) with oddly shaped Joshua Trees as the only other things punctuating the horizon.  Suddenly you come across an area where the stones are bright red.  Some of them are all red, and some of them are striped with beige stone.  Moreover, there are stone reservoirs where rain water has collected.  Animals live here.  You might think this was a pretty special place.  2,500 years ago, early people did, and left drawings behind on some of the cliffs.

They call this Balancing Rock

Later, Euro-Americans thought the same thing and made it Nevada’s first state park.  We learned about Valley of Fire State Park from a neighbor camper while we were at Big Bend National Park in Texas.  He had camped at Valley of Fire and recommended that we visit it should we ever be in the Las Vegas area.  Our trip from Yosemite to Zion National Parks took us through Las Vegas, so we thought we would stop in.

Wowzer!

Various geologic events over millennia created these eye-popping rocks and formations.  Layers of red and beige rock some in blocks and some swirled in thin layers have been exposed and eroded by wind and time.  The ground underfoot is a fine red sand.

Our rig in the Mojave Desert, as viewed from the Visitors Center

The Desert was in bloom

This is a very popular state park, and we were there during Easter Break so many families were taking a day trip from Las Vegas about 40 miles away.  Moreover, it had rained the day before (we had been driving in it) and others had come out to see the desert in bloom.  Then there were the buses of tourists on day tours from Las Vegas.  There was no place to park our rig of motor home and car in the lot at the Visitors Center, so we stopped at a pullout on the side of the road and hiked in.  Yes, they said, this is their high visitation time before it gets too hot, starting in June.  Convinced that we wanted to see more, we unhooked our car, loaded Tiki in with us (dogs are allowed on the trails) and took off to explore this remarkable place.

Black "desert varnish' on a cliff with petroglyphs

Some of those drawings up close

We hiked the Mouse’s Tank Trail down Petroglyph Canyon.  Many of the red cliffs have a shiny black coating that they call ‘desert varnish’.  Early people scratched pictures into the black, so that the red rock beneath shows through.  Pictures of people, hands, mountain goats, geometric designs.  There are other symbols that could have spiritual references.  They were fascinating and placed along the cliffsides as we walked. Some of them are so high up that we wondered how the artists got to them to create the drawings.

More petroglyphs - we wonder what they represent

The green pool at the bottom of the picture is a 'tank' of water

At the end of the hike is a tank, or natural stone cistern full of rain water.  Legend says that this is one of several tanks known by a renegade Paiute named Little Mouse who hid in these canyons and used the water to survive.

After hiking, we drove along one of the park roads to see more of this remarkable landscape.  With 3 more hours to drive to our destination for the night, we had to cut our visit short, hook the car back up, and return to the dull, brown desert to continue on our way.

A happy threesome