4th of July - Zion National Park

It maybe a bit late but how's everyone's 4th of July long weekend? Mine was not prefect but still very good. I went to Zion National Park with my friends and their cute little baby boy. This is my second time to Zion but my last time was like 9 or 10 years ago. OMG!!! We stopped at Fillmore, the first capital of Utah, for lunch. A small local diner called, Cluff's Carhop Cafe. It was OK nothing spectacular. By the way, there weren't many choices at this town.

We did an easy hike trail at the lower emerald pools trail after we arrived in the afternoon and barbeque at the parking lot of our motel on the first day. haha, we bought some vegetable kabobs without looking at the price and it cost us almost $10 for 3 kabobs. We were so focus on getting good quality of meat in a reasonable price but forgot to check the price on the vegetable. But honestly, the vegetable was sooooo good!!!

The Lower Emerald Pools

I didn't plan on an intense trip this time as we were traveling with a baby, which was our major entertainment during the trip. I know the Narrow and Angel Landing are the selling point of this park. With a baby in our group, I know we are not going to hike the Narrow. Well, I did part of that hike last time without any preparation such as hiking stick or protected shoes. I will definitely do it next time as now I know where I can rent all the necessary equipments. But we did do the Riverside walk and played with the water a bit. We also did the Scenic Byway Highway 9 and went through the tunnel.

View from the tunnel

One of the viewpoints at the Scenic Byway Highway 9

The end of the Riverside Walk, the beginning of the Narrow

Natural Bridge

So, about Angel Landing. Um... I am afraid of high but I am very curious as well. I know the last part of that trail has cliffs on both sides and it is 1200 feet tall! Scary for me but I made up my mind to go at least up to the "chain part" which is also the cliffs part. The sign at the beginning of the trail states since 2004, there has been 6 people dead at this trail. The "6" is a new six. Not good, not good. My friend's husband was joking that it will soon be 7 or 8 as they were not hiking the Angle Landing but me and my sister. Ar...

At the beginning, seems like everyone was hiking down. I could tell why. There was a big dark cloud above us and we could hear thunder. So, we decided keep hiking under the first drop of rain. The trail wasn't that bad and quite easy to hike but with continuous elevation. We had to stop and rest quite often to keep our breaths. Thing was fine and we enjoyed the view every much on the way until we hit the second Zip-Zap trail, which I've believe the end of the West Rim Trail. It started raining pretty bad. We had to turn back even though we knew after the zip-zap it is the "chain part". I was so frustrated. It made me even more frustrated when the sun came after we were half way down!! I also saw people started hiking up. We were out of time as we need to meet up our friend in 2 hours and cell phones do not work in National Parks. Well, I think that's a sign of me coming back! Since we had some extra time, we decided to hike the Grotto trail to go to the Zion Lodge to meet our friend. After a minute we hiked, we saw a deer blocking the trail. We waited for 15 minutes so as some hikers at the other end to see if the deer would go away. Unfortunately, it didn't. The hikers at the other end walked pass the deer quietly and told us it was a boring trail. The most exciting thing they saw was the deer! Ha.

The dark cloud above us

View from the Angel Landing Trail

The Angel Landing Trail

View from the last Zip-Zap of the Angel Landing Trail

The deer that blocking our way

On our last day, we stopped by the other entrance, the Kolob Caynon. We drove through the short scenic drive and hiked the short Timber Creek trail to get to the view point. It was beautiful. Due to limit time and under equipped, we weren't able to hike the La Verkin Creek Trail to see the world second longest natural arch, the Kolob Arch. It would be a day hike. Maybe some other time. There still so much to see there. If I have a chance, I will definitely come back.

Happy blogging - Vee