And So It Continues…to Zion National Park

Today’s destination was Zion National Park in Utah! In the previous post I talked about another beautiful national park in Utah called the Arches.  We ended up spending more time than we had planned in Moab so we got to Zion late. It was totally worth it in the end, to get to see the most out of the arches. We wanted to explore as much as possible of Utah before we had to leave for our end of Utah destination. Moab was the beginning of Utah and Zion was the back half. Which made it an easier and shorter drive for us. By this time we would take as many short days as we could. We had driven so much over this trip that we got sick of just being in the car. Any excuse to get out was a good one. 

On the way to Zion we stopped at an Applebee’s for dinner because it’s cheap, easy, and delicious. We were also starving by that point. Driving through Utah was beautiful. It was really interesting to see, especially going from Colorado through all of Utah, how everything changed. The roads, the foliage, the small towns changed into cities. We had officially left the vast lands of corn, corn, and more corn. That night we arrived into our Best Western for the night, went to bed, and set our alarms for early the next day. It was important to us to spend as much time at Zion national Park before heading to our next destination. We woke up, had another free hotel breakfast, got our sports clothes on and left.

Getting to the park was pretty easy, but parking was a little tricky. First we tried to park inside the park, no luck. Then we tried parking around the outskirts, still no luck. We ended up parking at the visitors center. I read that you needed to get to the park early because by 10 parking would be full. They weren’t lying. We officially parked by 9:30 and there were barely spots left. You want to park as close to the main lodge as possible because that’s where all the shuttles go through. Lucky for us the shuttle begins at the visitors center, so we hopped right on. If you wanted to stay on the shuttle it would take you throughout the entire park. You would be able to see several different hikes and it would take around 40 minutes. We decided to hop off at the main lodge to check out our options for the day. The furthest hike from the lodge is called with the Narrows. The Narrows is not one that we did, this time, but eventually we would love to.

The first half is a trail along the riverside and the second half is in the river! It’s about an 8 mile hike round trip, but it’s supposed to be completely worth it. There’s another one that we had heard about called the subway. It had these beautiful emerald pools inside a cave, just seeing the pictures was incredible.

Unfortunately it’s not one that we did this time either. In order to do the subway you need to have an experienced hiker take you through. There are two ways to get there, you could either go from the bottom up, which means a long hike with some steep him and caverness areas that are difficult to go in if you aren’t an avid hiker. The other option is to go up to down. For this you need a specific permit because you will be canyoneering down the side of the canyon to get to this specific pool. Since we don’t have intense experience hiking we chose a more simpler, just as beautiful, one.

The Emerald pool trail. It begun at the lodge and took you to different pool heights throughout a canyon. Although it was really easy for us to get to the park from our hotel, I would definitely recommend trying to stay at the Zion lodge in the park because the bus picks you up right from there. You can just hop on and travel through the entire park to see the different hikes. And you’re already there so you don’t have to pay to park. The Emerald pools was a medium level hike, but because we had done the hike to the arch the previous day we knew we could do it.  There were three types of Emerald pools you have the lower Emerald pool, the middle Emerald pool, and the upper pools. “Emerald Pools is a Zion classic: an oasis in the middle of the desert. The hike is a collection of short trails that meander past a small, lushly-vegetated stream that rolls down from the cliffs and forms several interesting ‘pools.'”

It was really beautiful. I don’t know any other words to use to describe that area. The lower Emerald pools have a waterfall that flows over in front of you as you stand beneath it. Of course you have to stop and take a picture. I looked at one of the pictures I took and couldn’t believe it wasn’t filtered, nope just a colorful national park.

The lower pool was marked as easy, and it was. Pretty much just a flat sidewalk. The only semi hard part is trying not to slip when you get closer to the waterfall. It’s not like you would slip off the slide of a cliff, just probably onto your bottom. If you continue, like we did, you eventually end up at the middle pool and then eventually the upper Emerald pool. You would see signs that said “middle pool 1/2 mile, upper pool 3 miles”. It got a little tougher as we got towards the top. We got so close to the back of the canyon wall that I turn to Christina and said “we can’t go much further. The canyon literally stops, so we have to be close”, which we were. when you arrive you have to climb down these boulders but eventually you arrive at the upper pool! There were many people there. Some just sitting and catching their breath, others had set up camp for the day and were having a picnic. After walking around and splashing by the pool we decided to head back.

The one thing we weren’t really prepared to do was climb down. Climbing down with a little more strenuous because of all the rocks. But we finally made it back down through the middle pool, back down through the lower pool, and back to the lodge.

Between the lodge and emerald pool hike there’s a really nice bridge over this river I’m guessing it’s the part of the Virgin River that in the top of the park at the Narrows have to go through. Another beautiful piece of the park. The water was a pretty blue with trees, and canyons around it. There were people all around taking pictures so of course we had to partake in it too.

We were getting a little hungry by this time but decided to try another hike first. We picked one out and hopped on the shuttle to the next stop. One of the highest peaks in the park is actually part of the hike called Angels Landing. It’s the most strenuous hike in the park. There have been several fatalities from this hike, not because it’s hard to climb but because of how steep it can get. According to the National Park Service, “The route to Angels Landing involves travel along a steep, narrow ridge with support chains anchored intermittently along the route. Footing can be slippery even when the rock is dry. Unevenly surfaced steps are cut into the rock with major cliff dropoffs adjacent. Keep off when it is wet, icy or thunderstorms are in the area. Plan to be off before dark. Younger children should skip this trail; older children must be closely supervised.” It gets to the point where you have to hold on to chains to climb the rest of the way. I am afraid of heights, so clearly angels landing was not my destiny. But I still wanted to see what it was all about so we started the beginning of that hike. It got pretty steep pretty quick so after 30 minutes, we turned around. As we headed back to the bus stop there were people swimming in the stream, they had the right idea. To end our time in Zion we went back to the lodge and got some souvenirs.

Utah is incredible. Definitely one of the most beautiful states I’ve seen in America. Moab is a magnificent red dessert, cool and adventurous. Zion is gorgeous. It’s colorful, it’s green, it is full of blue tones. Utah is filled with everything you would want to see in a national park. We took the bus back down to the visitor center down our car and began the shortest drive of our trip to Vegas!