Start: Antelope Island State Park, UT
Destination: Zion National Park, UT
Odometer: 104,996 (start)  105,719 (end)   723 miles
Date:  Thursday, September 8th,  2011 - Saturday, September 10th, 2011

Today was going to be the start of our three day stay in Zion National Park, in Hurricane, Utah.  The road to Zion started at 5:15am and had one minor and two major stop offs before hand.

The first stop off was to a local supermarket.  The previous night’s dinner had emptied our food supply and while we thought we would have to stop at a supermarket close to Zion or during normal business hours, a few minutes out from the park we came across a Smith’s 24 hour supermarket that was anything but empty.

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Dad introduced himself/ourselves upon our entry to the store by telling the clerk that he never thought he’d be one of those crazy people actually shopping at this hour.  The clerk assured him that he wasn’t that crazy.  The staff there was very friendly and helpful and we would recommend patronizing their business.  We bought some ice, some hummus, apples and oranges, tuna fish, veggie burgers, and some other sundries.  We re-packed the items into ziploc bags, filled the cooler and trunk, and headed off to our major stop before Zion:  Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, the first open-pit mine, and still one of the largest in the world.

We arrived at the mine around 7:30am, but visitors aren’t allowed until 8.  I used the time to post a message about our technical difficulties via my Dad’s iPhone and check email.

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Shortly after 8, we paid our $5/car admission fee (which goes to charity) and journeyed up a two-mile road to the visitor center.  We saw a short film, toured the exhibits, looked into the deep, wide, now .75 miles deep, 2 miles wide mine as the trucks and workers did their jobs.  It is a site to behold.  The Objectivist in me was awed and inspired.  It was interesting seeing the processes for handling the material and making a profitable mine out of what is around 1% copper ore in the rocks.  They produce around 20% of the country’s copper needs.

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After our morning of tourism work at the mine, we stopped for lunch at the nice new public library near the foot of the mine.  We used the library’s bathroom (which had very powerful electric hand dryers) and commented on the new housing being built on the mountains across from the mine and how they seemed rather susceptible to water and erosion issues, yet were probably twice as expensive.

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Satisfied with our peanut butter sandwiches, we headed up to Zion.  The drive was pleasant and scenic, featuring the Utah mountain ranges again.  Before reaching Zion National Park, we took our second intended stop at Kolob Canyon National Park, which was a 5-mile scenic ride up winding red roads to view five massive red rock formations that formed a canyon.  The red color theme, that comprised the road and the rock, created a landscape unlike any other I had seen.  Around every turn, we were awed by the view and excited to see more.

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After our Kolob Canyon appetizer, we headed for our entree at Zion.  Once entering Zion National Park, it’s 20 miles to the campground/visitor center.  On the way to the campground, we saw wide vistas of mountains, yellows, reds, and browns.  Zion canyon itself is a narrow canyon with sheer vertical walls rising between 1400 and 3500 feet above the floor (which is already 4000+ feet above sea level).  It was really something to wonder at.  This immense canyon was formed by the unassuming Virgin river, which appears much like our local creek back home.

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We arrived at our campsite and were glad that we had made reservations, since the campground was sold-out, were glad we were next to the bathroom, since having to walk a distance in the morning is rather annoying, and were glad we chose that campground, since we had incredible views of the surrounding mountains.

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We wasted little time after setup to get on the Park shuttle bus to go on a 13 mile ride along the length of the canyon.  From the Angels Landing, to the Court of the Patriarchs, to Cathedral Mountain, to the Temple of Sacrifice and more, one could not blame the Mormon settlers for the spiritual and regal emotions that were evoked by the massive walls of the canyons.

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The tour had given us a good sense of what we wanted to see in the subsequent days ahead, but for now, we just wanted to get the lay of the land and get back to our site.  However, two events of note occurred along the way.  First, as we walked to our campsite from the visitor center, we noticed a park ranger and another woman trying to push a giant RV out of a parking spot while the boyfriend/husband steered.  Sensing a hand was needed, we walked right over and started to push.  Turns out the RV needed to be pushed out, then forward, and back again in order to align it properly so it could take the jump and start (we don’t understand why this had to be the case either).  I was impressed we were able to move it, but sure enough, a few minutes later, the RV was properly aligned and everyone was appreciative of our help.

We were still hungry, so we continued back to the site and I made dinner.  Here our second fortunate occurrence came when I heard a rustling behind me in the bushes.  I thought it was someone walking through our site, but it turned out to be a some-thing, namely a mule deer grazing around the campground.

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The next morning we slept in a bit, in that we didn’t leave the campground until around 7am, at which point we headed over to Bryce Canyon about two hours away.  This is an amazing drive.  First, there is the 13-mile scenic highway out of Zion, that takes one through a 1.1 mile tunnel through solid sandstone, yellow and brown rock formations made from layered rock, the Checkerboard Mesa, stone arches, and many other great landscapes.

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We arrived at 10:15am at Bryce Canyon, and naturally had peanut butter sandwiches for brunch. Shortly before 11, we started on the 18 mile scenic drive that had many notable stop offs.  We really can’t detail them all here.  There were so many pictures and so many great views.  The red sandstone Hoodoos looked like settlements/cities.  The best spot though was Inspiration Point, which consisted of  three sections, two of which  were very steep, long climbs along a path, but very well worth it.  We looked down several thousand feet to the ground below.  We had wanted to do the Navajo trail recommend by my Aunt, but it was late, lightning was occurring, and storm clouds were on the horizon.   She also recommend the Route 12 scenic drive, so we opted for that one instead.

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The drive took us to Escalante, UT and gave us more great views of colorful sandstone formations and what seemed to be parts of the canyon floor we saw from the top of Bryce Canyon.  We were glad we took the drive, and wanted to go farther, but time and weather were against it.  We were a minimum of three hours away from Zion and it was raining.

Part of the fun on the way back was speculating on what the weather would be at Zion based on the clouds in the distance.  The sky was full of grey rain clouds, except for a small spot of bright blue sky.  We hoped that spot was over Zion.

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Before we arrived back at camp, we again had to stop at the store for bread.  We found a “local”/tourist grocery store and I ran in to make the purchase while Dad made some calls.  When I returned to the car, Dad nearly passed out after hearing the cost for the loaf (over $4) and inquired what kind it was, which forced me too look closer.  I’m glad he asked, because it led me to see what I had missed in the store:  mold.  Upset about being sold moldy bread, but feeling rushed for time, I simply ran back to the store, showed the bread to the manager, and exchanged it for a fresh loaf.  Bread in hand, we hurried back to camp.

On the way back to Zion, we again drove on the scenic highway, this time seeing some goats walking along the angled rocks with ease.  This was nice, but it also backed up traffic.  We were also further delayed the tunnel as what was normally a two-way tunnel was being treated as a one-way for some reason and we had to wait for the oncoming traffic to clear out. We made it back to camp shortly before sundown and I made a hasty Shabbat dinner.

As I was making dinner however, we were pleasantly interrupted by a park ranger who had stopped in front of our site.  She walked over to us and at first,  I was nervous, but then we recognized her as the officer whom we had helped push the RV out of the parking space .  We left that incident not thinking much of it, but the officer did, and had found us to present us with two official Junior Park Ranger badges.  It was a nice interaction to end the day.  We had a nice meal, went to the ranger talk to learn about nocturnal animals (we know more now about owls than we ever thought we would), and went to bed.

The next morning we again slept in until 7, and went for two hikes around 8.  One hike went along the river side of the Virgin river (where I managed to pet a rock squirrel), and the other took us to an emerald lake, i.e. one filled with algae.  We also visited the Human History Museum to watch a movie about the history of the area and park.

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The rest of the day was spent around camp relaxing, resting, and reading.  The weather that day had been good, but near nightfall, as we were thinking about dinner, we heard thunder and dark clouds were above us.  We prepared the tent (Dad put a large tarp over everything inside), and took refuge in the car.  There was a large tree near our tent and Dad had visions of it falling on us during a storm.  It was eventually dark, and the rains had not yet come.  We saw our park ranger friend again (we unfortunately didn’t get her name), who advised that the storm was likely going to be south of the campground, but that could quickly change.  It was cold, dark, and possibly going to rain, so Dad advised we head into town for dinner.  We found a hip pizza place in town and enjoyed a vegetarian pizza together.

Zion had been all we had heard, and more.  It really is what it claims to be:  a canyon.  Steep, vertical walls stretching 1500-3500 feet above the ground, a narrow space between the walls and a river running along the floor.  It was also reasonably sized, at 13 miles long, such that we could experience its entire length.  This would contrast sharply with our next destination:  The Grand Canyon.

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