Mar 31 – Watchman Trail

This feels like the real start of our trip after the mad dash across the continent.

We walked the 1 km from the campground over to the visitors center and bought our national parks annual pass. From there we decided to take it somewhat easy on the first day and do the 5 km Watchman Trail. It has a 500 foot vertical gain to a point overlooking the park entrance.

Our destination is the point almost dead center in the picture below.

Jennie checking out the plants

And the rocks.

Getting Jennie ready for the even steeper and narrower trails to come.

Up ahead we had to zig zag because it was so steep.

The view from the point back down towards the visitor’s center.

Up the valley towards the main canyon.

Jennie wouldn’t come out to the point. This is me looking back towards her at our lunch spot. You can just barely see her red  shirt.

Looking towards the town of Springdale and our RV park.

That’s us.

Today is the last day that you can take personal cars into the main canyon. Starting tomorrow every one must take a free shuttle bus. Here they are waiting.

Heading back

There are lots of sharp pointing things if you are not careful.

 

After dinner we drove into the actual Zion Canyon while we are allowed to.

Well, I know I am prone to say this a lot but this is the most amazing place I have seen in my life. The shear multi-thousand foot vertical cliffs make you feel very small. There are going to a lot of pictures in the days to come but they do not even come close to conveying the feeling of being here. The wide angle lens compresses everything too much.

This is called Angel’s Landing.

You hike out to it along the narrow 6 foot wide ridge in the picture below with 1500 foot drops on either side. 5 people have fallen in recent years. I am not sure I have the nerve for that one.

Everyone was watching two guys climb this wall. The walls are this tall all around you here.

This pillar sits in the middle.

Everything is just too big to fit in a picture.

Enough for one day.