Zion National Park

We are in Zion on a family vacation for a week, our second annual national park visit (last year was Yellowstone).  We elected to go now, in May, rather than wait until school is out for the kids, because in July the heat is really limiting.  This week's weather has been marvelous; about 80 during the day, cooler in the mornings and evenings, one brief fresh drizzle of rain.  (In Seattle, meanwhile, it's cold and raining every day.  Sorry friends!)

We are staying in Springdale, Utah, a little town at the entrance of the park.  It's very pleasant.  It's actually in Zion Canyon, so it is surrounded by much the same stunning scenery as you get within the park; almost all the businesses are small independent shops, restaurants, and inns; and the transportation to the park is very easy.  I wasn't expecting much from our Best Western, but every room has picture windows with views of the towering red cliffs, and there is a lovely back porch for evenings, as well as a pool and a big lawn for impromptu soccer (very important to Jordan and Aaron).

To get to the park, the easiest and most common thing to do is to take the free, propane-powered shuttle. The "town shuttle" comes by every 5-10 minutes, stops at several locations in town, and drops you off at the visitor center in 10 minutes.  From there, you enter the park on foot, then hop on the "Canyon Shuttle" (also free and frequent) to ride as far as you like up the Zion Canyon.  There are eight different stops to deliver you to various sights and trailheads.  You get off wherever you like, and then when you would like to go somewhere else (either further up the canyon or back home), you get on the next shuttle.  We haven't set foot in the car since we arrived here.  Private vehicles are not allowed past a certain point in the park, and with a system this easy and convenient, there's really no temptation.

The shuttle system has been in place since 2000 and it seems like a wonderful improvement over driving yourself.  Dale was here as a teenager and has vivid memories of stressful searches for nonexistent parking.  Rangers tell us that there used to be 4000 cars in the park every day competing for 450 parking places.  Often people were forced to just drive through rather than hike anywhere, because they just couldn't find anywhere to put the car.  With the new system, not only is it much quieter, easier to enjoy for a longer time, and less polluted, there is more visible wildlife.  

Okay, bit of a joke there.  But in fact wildlife is not a major feature of Zion.  There are mule deer and lizards.  There are peregrine falcons and California condors; these are exciting from an ecological perspective (peregrines were critically endangered but have recovered, condors are still in trouble but are part of a successful recovery program), but we haven't seen any.  Dale, spotter extraordinare, saw a gray fox, but did not manage to photograph it.

Regarding flora, there are many many cottonwoods blowing their fluff all over the place, which the boys find thrilling when it piles up on the ground.  There are also beautiful yellow columbines, pink cactus flowers, and "moon lilies" (first picture below), also known as sacred datura, a poisonous/hallucinogenic plant.  The second flower below is a yucca.

What you really come here for is the geological scenery.  Next post.