Vivian's RV Vignettes

Great Basin National Park was the last on my list to be visited from my Utah base camp, but I still wasn’t quite finished there. Having cut short my previous visit to Zion, I wanted to go back and do it properly.

My plan had been to visit in the late afternoon when people were hopefully starting to leave, making it less crowded, but a look at the weather report told me that I would enjoy a second visit much more in the early morning before the temperature crept up to the upper 90s F (upper 30s C) at Zion’s lower altitude (around 3,000 feet). In retrospect, I don’t think that “people leaving” concept would have worked out, anyway. The parking was already full by the time I arrived around 9:30, and I doubt the situation improved any time before sunset. Going to the park on the morning of Labor Day Monday was probably not the best strategy for avoiding crowds… but it ended up being the time that fit best in my schedule.

This time I did finally manage to secure a parking spot by parking at a pull-out a quarter mile up the highway from the start of the closed-to-public-traffic Scenic Drive. I walked back down the highway and caught a shuttle, first back to the Visitor’s Center, and then back along the whole length of the Scenic Drive to the area known as the Temple of Sinawava.

My destination was the mile of paved hiking trail that extends north from the end of the road along the canyon floor between the east wall and the Virgin River. Beyond the end of that, you can go on for a couple miles more by wading in the river itself part of the time and following a dirt trail beside it part of the time. Apparently, this takes you to an impressive passage known as Wall Street where the canyon walls are only 20 feet apart. However, I was not equipped for wading and I hate hiking in soggy sneakers, so I just planned to walk the paved part.

It’s not a hiking trail where you want to be caught in a storm.

But the weather for the morning was clear blue sky. And nearly all of the trail was in the shadow of the eastern canyon wall, making it pleasantly shady.

The river chattered along beside it. Apart from the sheer red rock walls, it didn’t feel like a place in the desert, and in fact some of the flora along the canyon floor is actually adapted for swamp life.

The GuideAlong narration said that rain that falls on the cliff tops can take a thousand years to percolate down through the walls and flow out through the porous rock layer at the bottom. But when it does, it creates “hanging gardens” on the cliff face.

It’s hard to capture the whole experience of the canyon in a picture, because pictures don’t take in the full sweep of the view. I gave it a try with a video.

When I got to the end of the trail, there were plenty of people going further on by wading up the river.

Meanwhile, the fat gray squirrels were having a field day picking up scraps that they dropped. I found the squirrels really interesting; most other places out west, I’ve seen chipmunks but no squirrels. These guys looked more like the gray squirrels we have in Texas, but with “frosted” fur. And they weren’t the least bit shy around humans.

I really was there at just the right time of day, before the sun came over the cliff top and baked the canyon floor. I’m so glad I opted for an early morning visit.

After hanging out a little while at the end of the trail, I made my way back to the shuttle stop and boarded a shuttle to leave. But I stopped halfway down the canyon road at the Zion Lodge to have lunch. It was an ordinary hamburger with an extraordinary view. (Only somehow my photo was blurry.)

By the time I boarded another shuttle to leave, the temperature was climbing into the upper 90s F, the buses were getting crowded to standing-room-only, and I wasn’t at all tempted to stay longer. But I’m so glad I went back for one more visit to Zion. It was the perfect capstone to my Utah travels.