Zion National Park

From Brice Canyon, we traveled to a boondocking area on BLM-managed land located between Mt. Carmel Junction and Zion National Park. Our campsite was located at the end of forest road 71 in a large clear area. Although the campsite was next to and above state Rt. 9, road noise was tolerable. We stayed for about a week before moving on. Coordinates were approximately 37.260297 -112.77024.












I did not get pictures of the campsite. The shot below is looking east across the valley and shows the western edge of Staircase-Escalante

.


Zion National Park has the distinction of being the first national park in Utah. The main attraction, Zion Canyon, is assessable only by shuttle during the summer tourist season.  That said, the shuttle is free to ride and you may disembark at any of the six or seven stops. A shuttle stops about every fifteen minutes, making sightseeing or hiking very convenient. Since we aren't really hikers anymore, I didn't get any really good pictures in Zion Canyon. The ones I got are shown below.

This is the Court of the Patriarchs. On the left is Abraham Peak and is 6890 feet in elevation. In the middle at 6825 feet is Isaac Peak, and to the right is Jacob Peak at 6831 feet.

Along the path to the Court of the Patriarchs observation point.

A few more photos were taken on the drive back to camp.

This placard describes the construction of the 1.1-mile tunnel through the mountain.

In the bottom right 1/3 of this photo, you can see one of the ventilation windows into the tunnel

.
Looking back to the west.

This shot was taken from the same point as the previous two. There are three climbers traversing the crack shown in the center of this photo.

This is a blow-up. At the top, in the center of the frame is a white spot. The man is wearing a white tee shirt. The other two are in the bottom 1/3 of the frame, in the center, roping their way up the crack. Hard to see.

This shot is out of sequence as it was taken on the way into the park. Oh well, at least I got it into the post.

That's all for Zion. We left the area on a southerly heading toward Arizona. Next time, a return visit, after 32 years.

As always we are C & L On The Road, see you next time.