This is a bit behind, over Labor Day (well okay, a long ways back) we stopped in Zion on the way home from Bryce Canyon National Park and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. We had the fortune of spending 5 days in Bryce and Grand Staircase, but couldn’t resist the urge to stop in perhaps our favorite national park, Zion.
Unfortunately we had to be home to Las Vegas earlier in the day so we couldn’t stay for sunset. So we had a morning and part of an afternoon to play. We got there a bit later than we had hoped because we photographed sunrise in Bryce Canyon and tried to get more pictures of Red Crossbills before we left the area. Oh and we also needed to get a tire for our van. Stopped at several mom and pops places (between Zion and Bryce there isn’t a lot of corporate tire places) and none had the size we needed, which was really surprising because it is a van and not a one of a kind car! I guess not many of those vans are driving down 4×4 roads. Well we got one in Orderville Utah and got great service (wish I could remember the name…) and were back on the road in a flash.
With the short time we had we chose to relax in the area around the mouth of the narrows, and the Riverside Walk. The short time we had there was great. We were able to see the beautiful canyon walls and the kids were able to play in the sand and water all they wanted. Our 6 month old boy actually got his first real experience with good clean sand.
He enjoyed it so much that we couldn’t get his attention for several minutes. Here as well is a link to a video of it if your interested (this was filmed very amateurishly by me with the Canon 5d Mark 2 which I love, almost all my wildest dreams coming true!).
After relaxing for a bit my wife let me run up the Narrows for a few hours. It is amazing how time can fly by when you are hiking up a river and having a great time.
I love pictures like this with water flowing over rocks and lit by reflected light, and in the narrows these abound!
In the same spot I took the above shot I looked up and saw some people repelling Mystery Falls. I knew that people often did it but I had never really seen people on it. I really like the blurred action movement this shot gathers.
Later I captured this shot looking up the Narrows and was just blown away by the movement of people, water and the reflected light, it was an absolutely gorgeous moment and is an amazing image.
Lastly after my watch timer had beeped to turn around because my time was up (my wife is so amazing at letting me take off so often to do hikes and other crazy things, but I try hard be back by a mutually agreed upon time. I figure that she likes to know when the cavalry will be back when dealing with kids in nature!) I saw this scene ahead and it was gorgeous so I hiked up a bit took the shot and headed back as quickly as possible!
Sadly on the way back one of my sandals broke. This made hiking back to the river side walk trail through the river quite difficult, especially since I was trying to really hurry. I guess that next time I will need to just get the canyoneering shoes by 5.10. The sandals really aren’t made for hiking for miles in deep water (which I had subjected them to for years actually, so I guess they did well), they especially don’t support the feet and anckles well on slick rocks in the river.
Unfortunately a really short amount of time in such a beautiful place, but every second was worth it!
