Zion Canyon 1st day

Our first stop in Zion’s is actually at one of the shuttle lots in Springdale. We took the signs to mean that the main parking lot at the visitors center was full (which may have been mistaken.) So we took the free Springdale shuttle to the visitor center, paid the walk-up fee ($24) and then crossed over to the canyon shuttles. This is the first time we have been back to Zion’s since the implementation of the shuttle system in 2001, and it improves the whole visit tremendously. Previously, during summer months it could be very difficult (or impossible) to find a parking spot as you moved from trailhead to trailhead. Now you just catch a shuttle with a minimum amount of waiting.



We choose the Emerald Pools hike as our first adventure, figuring that if we needed to, we could stop after the lower pool (which is on a paved path) or middle pool, rather than going all the way to the upper pool.






Both ME and SAM hiked well and we made it all the way to the upper pool. Even Belle hike some of the way. I was particularly impressed by ME’s ability to navigate thru the rocks which on her scale were more like boulders. After enjoying a wade in the upper pool we made our way back down to the visitor’s center. But SAM had to stop and play with the lizards.

After the long hike,. team COKE decided to take a break and head back to the hotel, while team JAMS went on the Gateway to the Narrows hike, now renamed the riverwalk. Or I should say at least part of team JAMS went on. ME and AM decided that hanging around the Zion lodge would be more fun, or at least less tiring.


So we hiked to the Gateway of the Narrows and enjoyed a cool bit of river wading, getting soaking wet. The hike turned out to be a bit longer than I remembered and by the end JA's feet were really sore. I thought we would be nearly completely dry by the time we hopped on the shuttle, but it turns out that we weren’t, so some poor soul on the shuttle may have ended up with an unexpected wet bottom.

We stayed at a hotel Hurricane.

Drive to Zion's

In some ways it is impossible not feel that as one drives thru the west that one is passing back in time. Not just to the days of the pioneers and native Americans, but even more anciently to when no one lived in this vast desert space and only the forces of wind and water and relentless sun shaped the landscaped. Although the hand of man is obvious in the road and telephone poles and to some extent irrigated green fields, the stronger, more timeless relentlessness of the desert is the most striking visible feature. And beyond them, the jagged mountain ranges. Not worn down yet like the Appalachians by thousands of years of wind and rain. These ranges are still young when measured by geographical time and yet ancient when measured by the short lives of human endeavor.
We pass the blackened carcasses of pine trees, which for all I can tell, are remnants of the fires that burned thru the area more than ten years ago. U2’s Joshua tree album is playing on the radio, appropriate for the landscape we are passing thru, but also as we pass thru Scipio appropriate as the very soundtrack that accompanied the first of many unlucky car breakdown events near Scipio that began one summer night 19 years ago when VT and I were driving back from the Shakespeare festival. So far so good, but we have to pass back thru here on our way back…

Birthday parties

On Sunday, there were two birthday parties (for different families) that occurred simultaneously.

The first was for our niece, the former Miss Lehi, HL.

The second for our 4 –year old nephew, 1.6 km.

[Insert pictures here]

MTB time trial

The biannual mountain bike time trial was set over a relatively short course this year, owing partially to the fact that the chain broke on the one and only mountain bike we had. When we replaced it (as you might expect from a chain worn enough to break) the chain slipped under pressure because of the extreme wear in the cogs. So climbing in anything but the largest (and thus rarely used) cog was impossible. Each rider was given two chances. In the initial round BAD led with 1:42, followed by SS at 1:46, and KJ in third at 2:03. But in the second round BAD and SS could not better their first round times, while KJ streak to 1:38 to finally claim the family title outright for the first time.