Collard's Adventures: Friday May 8th 2009...Zion National Park

Good Morning! Today's plan was to take the Zion Shuttle bus up to the Grotto Trailhead and hike to Angel's Landing. Zion started the shuttle in 2000 to replace private vehicles driving up the canyon to reduce traffic congestion, parking conflicts, pollution, noise, etc.

We started at the Grotto Trailhead...

and realized we would be going up there...

Here is a view of the canyon from the trailhead...

and a view from the trail...

Angel's Landing is described as a strenuous hike with long drop-offs and a narrow trail. It is not for anyone afraid of heights...well, I am afraid of heights but I usually do pretty good on trails so I went for it. Hiking is okay, going to the edge of a cliff and looking over the edge--not so good for me. It is a 5 miles hike round trip and the last 1/2 mile follows the steep, narrow ridge but chains have been added. Oh Boy...how bad is this going to be that they have added chains?

There is a section called Walter's Wiggles...we figured we would know it when we saw it! Some more views from the trail

Here we go!

The picutre on the left is where we are headed--up that ridge!

Holy Cow...this is looking down...

This is the worst part--the rock is only like 3 feet wide here. Yikes!

We made it to the top! These are some views from way up there...we have climbed about 1500 feet.

Jason at the top of the trail

More views from the trail

Here is Jason on the scary section--it actually wasn't that bad and I actually stopped on the narrow section to get these pictures!

This is the view to the left...

and the right...

Where we came from...

and where we are heading...Hello up there!

This is me going thru the Walter's Wiggles section..

After Angel's Landing, we headed to the Emerald Pools...there are 3 pools--the lower, middle and upper. We started at the lower, then went to the middle, then the upper and looped back down to the lodge. It was a relatively easy hike and we had lunch at the upper pools.

Lower Falls and Pools...they get their name Emerald from the pretty green color...we really didn't see this.

The middle pools...

The upper pools...

After this hike we decided to take the shuttle up to the end and get off at the Temple of Sinawava. There is a one mile riverside walk that leads to the Narrows. We really wanted to do the Narrows hike but the water was running too fast and too high and the Narrows were closed. We will definitely be back to do the Narrows.

This is where the Narrows start...from here you just walk in the water...

There is a snail that has adapted over the years and is only seen at Zion. They are in this picture but hard to see.

I don't remember what this is...

After our long day, we headed back to camp. Jason had a rough day and decided to nap.

This was our view from the campsite...

And we had a few deer visiting this evening...

Our neighbors decided to reserve two spots that backed up to each other. They were way over the limit in regards to number of vehicles and number of people. There had to be over 15 people over there. We thought the tent on the left was huge...until the next day they put up the mess hall...I swear I could park the Element inside that tent and have room to sleep!!