Zion National Park

If Google Maps were to take a satellite picture of Zion today, I’d be able to identify my mother. She is the only person in the whole park for whom a hat is insufficient coverage. No, she must also carry an umbrella while clambering up slopes and what not.

We took the Riverside Walk, 2 miles return. But I went a little further out into water, toward the Narrows. This is the most narrow part of the canyon of Zion. I didn’t go that far, as I wasn’t equipped properly. And the water swift and cold.

The Narrows is the part of Zion where the canyon walls are the closest to each other. I hardly went near the really narrow part, which is quite dramatic. The more adventurous where chest deep in water. And since they are ang mos, I’d probably be swimming by then.

As you know, Zion was previously under the sea. Through tectonic action, the whole block was lifted. The same tectonic movement that created the Rockies. Then the Virgin River carved the canyon from the top to the bottom that we go into today.

Because it is the bottom of the canyon, many parts are shaded. Still it is hot, and it is the dessert. But it is amazing how much plant life still survives.

And the animals come closer than you would imagine. But you cannot feed the animals. They bite.

Sandstone towered over us. And like a coffee percolator, rain that falls on the top of the canyon, is slowly filtered down through sand between 1200 and 3400 years. So the spring water is very clean and quite tasty.

There are two types of sandstone – Navajo and something else. Navajo is the softer sandstone. So when water hits the other harder rock, the water travels parallel, rather than down and we get stuff like the Weeping Wall, where water appears in the middle of rock.

These marks show where water emerges from the rock.

Where the sandstone is red, there is iron. The redder the rock, the more iron it contains.

Can you read this sign? If it’s a loop isn’t it the same length either way you go? Well, I don’t know where the loop was. I came back the same way I went in.  And then we decided to do only the middle pool. But to get to the middle, you have to go past the Lower. And then it was 0.4miles only left to the Upper Pool. But no one mentioned the steep incline!

This is a hole in the canyon wall caused by water. When I first looked in, it was black and dark. I got my mother to shine a torch in the other end for this photo. She dropped her umbrella accidentally while helping me.