Forecast high here in Springdale, UT today is 101° so we got up and at it this morning and walked down to the national park entrance to catch the shuttle at 7:00 am.
Our first stop was a trail back to a waterfall...that was nearly dry. The view on the trail was OK here and there.
It's difficult to get the exposure anywhere near acceptable with my amatuer photography skills. There's such a huge contrast difference between the sun drenched canyon walls and the shady canyon floor where we were.
We saw several mule deer that walked away when approached but never seemed alarmed. The little critters like squirrels are nearly tame. Birds too.
We saw this guy a little later. All the antlered animals we've seen are in velvet now.
We shuttled to the end of the route to hike the trail to the "narrows". This is a hike along the river bed.
Kathy crouches to get in the WHOLE mountain side.
Anywhere you looked other than up or down the river was a view like this.
Continuing up the river.
Finally arriving at the narrows and the end of the dry trail. Anyone venturing further gets wet.
We headed back and made a couple stops on the way back to the park entrance.
At the top of this ridge is Angels Landing. It's one of the "places to go" here.
It's a 5 mile hike from a level about where I'm taking the picture to the top of the ridge in the picture above. My brother told me it wasn't a strenuous hike. I beg to differ. Anytime I need to use all 800mm of my lens power just to make people look like ants, it's a BIG climb.
There were a couple other scenic stops on the way out.
So we're back at the RV park for another night. Kathy did the laundry last night and this afternoon. It doesn't take long to dry clothes in this sunny 20% humidity.
So Zion was probably my least favorite park of the ones we've been through. It's more of a hiker and climber park which isn't my strong suit. From my vantage point, it offered the least scenery. The drive across the park on Route 9 yesterday was a better show for me.
I think we're done with the Utah rock show now and will head north tomorrow morning in search of a cooler climate.
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