We picked a great day to tour the park; the March Break
weekend crowds were gone, so there were no lineups at the entrance gate, and,
although parked cars did line the road in a number of trail heads in the park,
we didn’t feel overwhelmed by the humanity.
What did overwhelm us was the magnificent beauty of this
deep canyon, walled with striated cliffs carved by a river that has flowed here
for millions of years. You could almost hear the French horns and classical
music that play in movie soundtracks whenever scenes of natural grandeur fill
the screen!
A better sound track for us today was the rushing water of
the Virgin River, tumbling over rocks along its sandy riverbed, and the chatter
of bold squirrels that stood their ground as hikers walked past. A clear blue sky and perfect temperature added
to the enjoyment of our visit, even though the display on our new weather
station showed clouds dripping rain this morning. (The booklet did say to wait
up to 48 hours for an accurate reading….).
We visited the Grand Canyon in 2011, and my first look at
the massive array of coloured mesas and gorges literally brought me to tears at
its awesome beauty. Zion was completely
different – we entered along the canyon floor rather than looking down from a
lofty rim, and somehow that made it more intimate. The walls embraced us and drew us in, while
the Grand Canyon stood silent and aloof.
The canyon was home to native peo-ples for thousands of
years. Peo-ple of Euro-pean extrac-tion arrived much later – Mormons looking for a
place to practise their religion without persecution. They are responsible for
the biblical names given to the notable rock formations in the park – Altar of
Sacrifice, Angels’ Landing, the Three Patriarchs, and the park’s name, meaning “place
of sanctuary”.
We took the trail at the end of the seven-mile road into the
park, with a name right out of an adventure movie: the Temple of Sinawava. It
was an easy walk of a mile and a half, following the curves of the Virgin
River. The riverbed and trail cut a wide
path to begin with, and narrowed as we reached the end. More adventurous hikers
could go beyond the level trail to a section without guardrails and where the
canyon walls loomed much closer, but they also had to watch for flash floods
that could happen at any time. We were happy just to turn around and enjoy a
whole new vista of the trail as we walked back in the opposite direction.
It was good that our visit was before April 1, because after
that date visitors can only see the park via shuttle bus. The numbers are just
too great to allow all that traffic in during the high season. More trails,
vistas and roads await us on our next visit.
We couldn’t do it all in one day!
No comments:
Post a Comment