| September 9, 2007 |
| Some massive rocks |
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We started the tour of Zion National Park in its Northwest side, called Kolob Canyon. I wish somebody adviced visiting Kolob Canyon in the afternoon to avoid looking at the sun the whole morning. Even after hiking the Timber Creek Overlook trail, the sun was still in our faces. This part of the park should look much better in the afternoon. Once getting through the South entrance, we used the same plan as in Bryce: we took the shuttle all the way to the end of the road (no private vehicles allowed along Zion Canyon Scenic Drive) and hopped off at each shuttle stop on the way back. At Temple of Sinawana we joined many other tourists on the Riverside Walk up to the point where you need to go through water if you want to get closer to the Narrows. The Weeping Rock trail is steeper, but much shorter and takes the visitor to (surprise!) a weeping rock. The tourist lacking an umbrella (and how many of them carry one?) definitely gets wet when getting close to the rock. However, this feels amazingly good, especially if the sun is too friendly (as it was the case). Taking the Angels Landing trail was very tempting but not feasible, so it got on the "to do" list for the next time. Instead we took the Emerald Pools trail, which kept us both in a breath-taking ambiance and (luckily) away from the sun. The only dissapointments were the actual pools, which could not be qualified as emeraldish by any stretch of imagination. After getting back in our car, we drove East on the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway. Right after the tunnel we stopped to hike the Canyon Overlook Trail. Again, I wish I knew that the viewpoint offers a spectacular view of the canyon earlier in the day. At the time we reached it, the sun was shining right in our faces, making it very difficult to enjoy the panorama. Despite the disappointments, Zion became my favorite canyon, while Lida kept Bryce on top of her list. On the way to our next hotel, while each of us was trying to prop their choice, we both expected that the Grand Canyon tour during the following days would bring some changes on our preference lists. |
| This is part of our trip to several canyons: |