Zion

An inspirational place complete with biblical names, the Zion National Park is  a geologist's delight. The river has cut through the sandstone layers leaving almost vertical sides up to 800 m deep. I can't even begin to describe the complexity of the formations but the park as it stands today is fabulous. In a few more million years the Virgin River may have eroded the mountains away to 'ordinary' but in the meantime we can enjoy it all as it is.

To get to the town of Springdale (where the information centre is) the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway traverses a section of the park. We drove through in late afternoon and the scenery was stunning and we also had to drive through a mile-long tunnel that was completed in the 1930. We go through it again tomorrow when we leave this area to head up to Bryce Canyon.

They are very organised here, through necessity. The river valley is quite narrow and car traffic was becoming a problem so they 'shut the gate' and installed a very efficient shuttle bus service instead. It's a very popular park so the buses are busy. We hopped on and hopped off all the way up and back. We saw mountains called Mount Carmel, Angels Landing, Temple of Sinawava, Abraham Peak, Isaac Peak and Jacob Peak. We saw a quiescent river that a few times a year becomes a raging torrent carrying tons of sediment. We saw numbers off very fit-looking people setting off to climb the horrendously difficult cliff face to Angels Landing (Google images to see, and include 'Walters Wiggles'). It was all fascinating.

Emerald Pool

Virgin River valley

Court of the Patriarchs

The view from our motel.