August 13, Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad H! 

Falls at Emerald Pools

Click here for today's pics.

Don't tell anyone, but today was a little bit mundane.  I guess we're spoiled.  No big hike planned - just a lot of little things throughout Zion for our last day.

We started with a five minute hike to a view of The Court of the Patriarchs.  Not much better than the view from the bus.  

Then to Emerald Pools, lower, middle, and upper.  At Lower, you stand in a large alcove behind a waterfall.  It would probably be great in the spring, but today the waterfall was one level above 'trickle,' let's call it 'spray.'  The kids still enjoyed getting a little wet, but it was just OK.  The upper pool is the largest, but you're not allowed to swim in any.  The hike was probably ninety minutes round trip, moving slowly and really crowded.  This hike began at the Zion Lodge - so we checked it out a bit.  Desert Pearl Inn is a much better option.

Then to Weeping Rock, a blind arch where again you stand behind dripping water.  It's neat that the water is something like 1000 years old by the time it permeates the upper rock to get to this point.  That was thirty minutes round trip.

Back to the hotel for lunch and a swim (the pool is really great and the kids have fun playing in it together), returning to the park around 5pm.  We tried Shelf Canyon, as recommended by a couple of books.  But there's no marked or maintained trail, which doesn't sit well with ninnies (Karen note: Hey! Who you calling a ninny?!  In the words of my father: I resemble that remark.)  There were some tricky spots to navigate that wouldn't have been too bad, except for the potential slide into stagnant water.  We turned around at what seemed to be the last obstacle before the 'slot' part.  It was fun, and definitely isolated.  But there was an element of tension associated with not being on a maintained trail.  Plus, if you were a...hinky pinky: southern Utah National Park, mountain cat (wait for it ------  Zion Lion), then that is definitely where you'd live.  That excursion was maybe an hour.

Best hiking part of the day: We finished at Canyon Overlook Trail, at the east end of the mile-long tunnel.  It's a short, easy, really gorgeous hike.  It includes an overhead view of a dark and wavy slot canyon, and ends with a view of Zion Canyon where it overlooks the valley on the west side of the tunnel.  The walk was probably thirty minutes one-way.  We stayed at the end for a while to wait for sunset.  This was a great hike to finish our stay at Zion.

One last Zion note: we ate at a whole bunch of restaurants recommended by the Desert Pearl front desk.  They were all pretty good - Pizza Noodle, Whiptail Grill (best Mex), Spotted Dog, Oscar's, Cafe Soleil, and MeMe's (yummy bfast).  Didn't seem like you could go wrong and we were able to sit outside with NO BUGS in the beautiful evening hours every night.  We all enjoyed the crepes and waffles so much that we plan to hit Meme's for breakfast again tomorrow morning before heading out of town for Bryce.  We'll miss it here! 

Story of the Day

Even today's funny story is lame.  It's been a running joke that Brady leaves his hat behind everywhere he goes (despite the monotone instruction on the tram to "gather all your personal belongings").  His hat has been rescued at least a half-dozen times.  But finally it was his sunglasses that he lost.  They must have become a consolation prize for some lucky visitor to the shuttle stop at the Court of the Patriarchs.  But that's not the story.  The story is that we've done some killer hikes, remote Buckskin Gulch, six-hour Observation Point, almost 7 hours of Narrows, death-defying Angels Landing, blah blah blah.  But today, we're walking out of the super mild Emerald Pools hike (walk?), and this older fellah offers Miles an enthusiastic "good job," capped by a fist bump.  I mean, it was a nice gesture and all, but listen Mister, what about our canyoneering creds?  We weren't even going to admit to having done this one.

Random Notes

* Stay at Desert Pearl and request a poolside room for the fabulous views (of the mountains). We liked first floor easy walk out to pool.

* There are no bugs here.  At least, none that bite.  We've eaten dinner outside every night and have sat on our patio every night with no trouble.  Wonderful.

* By our count, there are more foreigners here than Americans. According to our non-scientific study, guessing based on listening to fifty-five groups of people one day, the ratio is about 3:2. Just something we've noticed. Also, they seem to like Yankees caps.

Zion Sunset from Canyon Overlook