I have always wanted to visit Zion National Park and in January finally did. We were on our way from Orem Utah to Las Vegas for the night. We drove right by the Kolob Canyons portion of Zion so stopped to take photos before driving on south and then west a bit to the main portion of the park. In the winter you can drive cars on the scenic drive through Zion Canyon but most of the year only shuttle buses are allowed. The light was getting low in the late afternoon so the bright colors were fading into the shadows but it was still spectacular.
Rains falling on the high Colorado plateau flowing ever downward through the soft geological layers have created the beautiful canyons in the “grand staircase” that includes Bryce Canyon (which is further north and east, we still have to go there) Zion Canyons and lower still the Grand Canyon where the waters all flow into the great Colorado River.
People have been coming here for thousands of years and have left traces. The Southern Paiute people lived here after the Ancestral Puebloans. A storage jar of corn was found in the park dating back 1,000 years. The new settlers who came were the early Mormon pioneers in the 1860s.
In addition to Bryce Canyon National Park we’d also like to go back and see Arches National Park in Utah sometime on another trip.
The first photo is from Kolob Canyons and the next ones are from the scenic drive in Zion. We made it to Las Vegas well after dark that day.
Lou
This is an area famous to climbers! The picture of you and Dad is really fun.
ReplyDelete