So the next morning we pack up and load our stuff back into the truck and head north out of the park. We decided to head up to Zion and see the sights.
Shortly after entering we saw a gigantic petrified sand dune:
A neat little tunnel in the sandstone:
I like the red pavement. It doesn't detract from the scenery surrounding it.
Further down the road is a very cool, long tunnel. It has windows along the way. Once upon a time you could stop and look out the windows, but not anymore. It is quite difficult to take pictures out he windows while moving through a dark tunnel at speed, but I got a couple: (this is running east to west)
Next one:
Next:
This is looking back toward the tunnel and the hole in the wall is the second window I think:
Great views are everywhere:
So, the majority of the sights to see are in Zion Canyon. Unfortunately, the popularity of the park creates a problem with vehicular traffic, so all personal vehicles are banned from traveling up the canyon. In lieu of personal vehicles, a shuttle is offered. The shuttle runs very frequently so you don't wait long to catch one when you are done at a particular stop. The one drawback of the shuttle is the vehicles used have very visually restrictive interiors. There is so much to see, but the bus itself blocks a bunch of the scenery. You can't roll down the window and stick your head out either. Kind of a drag. There are many stops along the way to get out and explore.
Generic scenery:
Generic scenery:
This one is cool. Water flows through the porous sandstone and when it hits an impermeable layer, it will oftentimes end up flowing out of the side of a vertical wall like this:
You can hike up to it and actually go behind the curtain of water:
It is almost impossible to see in the pic this size, but there is a climber just below the top of the face. The picture does no justice to the height of the cliff:
Blah, blah:
Blah, blah, beautiful scenery, blah, blah:
So we rode the shuttle back to the truck and decided to check out another entrance, Kolob Canyon, of Zion over on the west side of Dixie Mountain. This requires leaving the park and travelling quite a ways over near Cedar City.
They have different speed limits in Utah:
So we did:
It was getting late, so we decided to get a room in Cedar City and head into Kolob the next morning.