Weekend In Zion

First weekend of October we went down to Zion National Park. I’d never been to Zion (being 3 doesn’t count), so I was excited to try something new. Last minute we invited my parents which ended up being a wise thing to do.

We stayed at Sand Hollow (Sandpit) Campground. There isn’t a tree for miles but it has flushing toilets and hot showers. Actually it was a very nice campground, I just wouldn’t go if it was any hotter and it was actually in the 90s when we went. Also it was a good thing my parents were there because while we were away at Zion, our tent blew over with the cooler inside. We have a Springbar tent and in order for it to stand you have to stake it in. The campsite is all sand and when the sand was wet there was just no way of getting the tent back up so the second night we stayed in their tent trailer. Also if you ATV or boat you can ride your ATVs from the campground and the reservoir is right there.

Thanks to Tiffany’s blog she went to this cool splash pad in St. George a couple months ago. I knew Logan would love that so we went there first thing. It seriously is the cutest park; this splash pad is surrounded by historic buildings. Wish my city had something cool like this but that’s a whole other issue. If you need directions, click here.

The next morning it was off to Zion. On the drive out there we saw that the Red Bull Rampage was going on. Search on YouTube for videos because those guys are seriously crazy. Tad totally wants to go to this some day.

I was a little apprehensive about the shuttles but I shouldn’t have been. There is always one ready to go and actually if there was a petition I could sign to support this in Yellowstone I would. It was so nice not to be stuck in traffic in the park and also while we were up hiking not to see/hear a stream of cars the entire you are looking out over the valley.

First stop was Weeping Rock. It’s an easy walk up to the “mountain that’s raining” as Logan calls it.

Second stop was the Riverside Walk. This is a longer hike but we hit it so we were in the shade most of the time and its flat so Logan did most of the hike. We ate lunch here and I wish I’d packed water shoes but I assumed with the shuttles we wouldn’t have time to walk a little bit of the Narrows and I’d all ready be carrying too much stuff. Both ended up being totally untrue. We’ll remember this next time.

Last stop in the park was to hike to Lower Emerald Pools. We had a little melt down with Logan over ice cream in a cup rather than a cone but it was a score for me since I ended up getting to eat it all myself. Someone was very tired so he was asleep within minutes of starting our hike. We thought we’d just hike the Lower Pools but it was so pretty we continued on. Middle and Upper Pools were glorified puddles because of being so late in the season plus the hike was a little more intense. The weather was perfect for us while we were in the park other than some huge wind gusts at the very end of this hike. Little did we know wind and rain were tossing our tent around back at our campsite.

On the way back from Zion we stopped in Grafton, a small ghost town. It was locked up and getting dark so we didn’t get to look around. Logan’s eyes couldn’t have been any bigger though because he was sure we were going to find ghost. No ghost but we saw a tarantula. Yuck!

Before we drove home we stopped at the reservoir to play in the water. It was so clear and warm. I wasn’t feeling well so we didn’t stay long and started the trip home. It rained the whole way home. It was a very fun trip and Tad says he thinks it needs to replace our annual trip to Yellowstone because he liked it so much. Hopefully next year we can find some friends to go with us so Tad can hike Angel’s Landing.