Zion National Park

The American National Park System has a trifecta of "grand" places in the Southwest. One is the Grand Canyon. Another is Bryce Canyon (pictures coming soon to a blog near you). Arguably the most accessible of these grand places, and certainly equal in beauty to those, is Zion National Park.

Zion differs from the Grand Canyon in that most of the tourist action takes place in the canyon, rather than at the rim(s). My experience in the Grand Canyon showed me that the impact of the canyon's beauty is more readily appreciated from within, and Zion is at a scale and size to deliver this appreciation to many visitors (over 2.5 million/year).

Most of these pictures were taken either the day I arrived, in the late afternoon, or in the morning after.

The main event on the first day at Zion was to climb Angel's Landing. This formation rises 1500 feet from the canyon floor in a bend of the Virgin River (the water source responsible for carving the canyon).

While Bear and I enjoyed the climb up, there are people for whom this climb was not necessarily much fun. Anyone with significant vertigo might well blanch at the thought of climbing along routes where chains have been fixed for assistance.

On the other hand, the views from up top are pretty much unbeatable.

The last hike of the day was a visit into the mouth of the narrower part of Zion Canyon, which is aptly named The Narrows.

While The Narrows themselves may be hiked, it means actually hiking about 15 miles, with a non-trivial portion of it in the river. This was something I didn't feel I was ready for...


Rather than tackle the Narrows, I opted instead to spend a few days in the backcountry exploring Kolob Canyon, in the northern stretches of the park. Pictures in the next installment.