Day 91: Zion National Park, UT

Today was a big pivot. We woke to light rain. This was not a good sign given that our plan was an 8hr hike through a narrow canyon with one way in and only one way out. We decided to wait until 8am to speak to a ranger when we picked up our permit in person before making any decisions. 

We approached the Wilderness Information desk when it opened hoping for an insightful conversation to help us make an informed decision about whether this hike was the best decision for our family. Instead we got a ranger who looked at us like we were idiots even showing up to discuss the permit and then offered curt responses bordering on rude to our questions. He started his response with, “Well, haven’t you seen the weather?” Needless to say, our brief time with him was not pleasant nor insightful. I would suggest it might help if he was reminded that people applied for this lottery months in advance and had been thrilled to win such an incredible opportunity, that we are well aware that the permit is only good for one day and under no circumstances will the parks service permit it to be rescheduled for a safer weather day, and that we have put in significant amounts of time in planning and anticipating this hike. While we all know that you can’t control the weather and, of course, safety must come first, but it is REALLY disappointing when the weather doesn’t cooperate. A little empathy would have gone a long way during our conversation this morning. We left the desk feeling awful with a validated probably once in a lifetime permit in hand that we knew in our hearts couldn’t be used safely.

And so, we cancelled our plans to hike the Subway. We figured that it “probably” wouldn’t flash flood (I mean what are the odds?), even with a Flood Watch and a ranking of “probable” risk of flash floods in some areas according to the National Parks Service brochure. But we weren’t going to put our safety at risk over a hike. Nonetheless, it was extremely disappointing.

Our pivot involved taking the free Zion shuttle to the Grotto stop where we hiked to the three Emerald Pools. This was a much shorter, much easier hike than we had planned. The “emerald” part was an embellishment; the pools were a bit green because of all the algae growing in them. I suppose if they called the hike “three tiny algae-infested water holes” no one would do it. The final Upper Pool was the nicest and the surrounding cliffs were very impressive.

Water sprinkling down from the first waterfall.

Lower Pool.

Smallest waterfall we have ever seen.

Middle Pool. Sigh.

Alistair got visited by a butterfly who thought he was a beautiful flower.

Upper Pool.

This is the most impressive photo we took of the Upper Pool after climbing up a big rock pile to capture the green tint to the water.

We finished hiking around 11am and headed into nearby Springdale to treat Ian to a special birthday lunch. He chose Oscar’s Cafe which specializes in Mexican cuisine. We sampled enchiladas, burritos, and quesadillas as well as blue corn chips with fresh salsa and guacamole. The food was delicious.

In the afternoon we walked back to the campground, stopping at a rock shop where Ali purchased a cool shark’s tooth necklace and I found a neat cube of Utah Honeycomb Quartz that is the same colour as our kitchen back home. We had some quiet time resting in the trailer enjoying the AC, before making dinner. It did end up raining starting at 6:45pm. Chances are good that we would have been done the hike by this time but you never know. We hope no one got caught in a flash flood. We are safe and dry in our trailer. That’s a good place to be under the circumstances.

Once the skies cleared we attended the evening ranger talk on an introduction to dark skies. Alistair volunteered to be the Earth in the demonstration on how the moon rotates around the Earth while they both rotate around the sun. He did a stellar job! It is too cloudy for stargazing tonight but at least we are now prepared for the next clear dark sky night.

Day 90: Page, AZ to Zion National Park, UT

After a huge wind and rainstorm last night, we were thankful that the Upper Antelope slot canyon was open for tours today. We found out that the Lower Antelope Canyon had closed the day following our visit earlier this week due to flooding and still hasn’t reopened. Luck was with us in both booking the dates we did and the order of the tours, for sure.

Upper Antelope Canyon was accessed via a short tour bus ride on a washed out road, rutted and muddy from last night’s rain. We bumped up and down in the back of the bus and the boys loved it. The tour guide showed us all the best photo opportunities and the tour, while certainly busy, was less crowded than the Lower Canyon tour. This part of the canyon was A shaped (narrow at the top and wider at the bottom, note the Lower Canyon was V shaped) making the Upper Canyon darker inside with less daylight filtering in but more comfortable to walk through because of the wider base. We all agreed that the Antelope Canyons are a bit like the Northern lights - they are amazing to see in person but they actually look even more fantastic in the photos than in real life. The Upper Canyon was gorgeous and the photos really make it look incredible. The colours are stunning.

These were all bus loads of people hiking in sequential guided tours through the canyon! It was like a tour assembly line.

Crowds waiting for their tour to start at the entrance.

Looks like a cathedral. So beautiful.

Looks like the shark in Jaws.

Angel wings.

Looks like an eye.

Our guide played us a haunting song on his flute for us after the tour.

After a quick stop at the Walmart in Page (since we’ve heading into some more remote places where groceries may be more limited or expensive), we zigzagged through Arizona and Utah to end up at the South Entrance of Zion National Park. We couldn’t enter through the closer East Entrance because the mirrors on the truck make it too wide to meet the new size restrictions for using the tunnel that went into effect last month. Going around to the South Entrance added 20 minutes to our trip.

It seems we used up all our luck in Arizona because we very sadly missed picking up our permit to hike the Subway tomorrow by mere minutes (we were exactly three minutes late to be exact). Very frustrating. Losing an hour when crossing into Utah, the Walmart trip and gas fill up, the need to take the longer detour to avoid the restricted tunnel, and waiting in the line of cars to enter the park - all combined did not work in our favour today. This means our plan of starting the hike early tomorrow needs to be revised since we now need to pick up our permit when the Wilderness Information office opens again at 8 am. Not ideal, unfortunately.

We checked into our campsite at the Watchman campground in Zion and found ourselves surrounded by little lizards. They are everywhere here! We also saw a mule deer fawn and a hawk.

Our evening was spent attending the Junior Ranger program where we learned about the sounds made by the animals in the park. The frogs and big horned owl make especially unusual sounds. The owl sounds like “Who’s awake? Me too!”

We’re expecting tomorrow’s hike to be really tough so we hoping for deep, restful sleeps tonight. Wish us luck and Ian a Happy 45th Birthday tomorrow!