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.