March 19: Kolob Canyon river trail

Whoops, when I said last time that the rest of Kolob Canyon was coming up next, I didn't mean for it to take four whole months.  But here it is!  I was actually getting the very last of my photos in order from the Zion trip last March (and those will be coming up next, and not four months from now) and realized I hadn't posted these yet either.

So!  When we were at Kolob Canyon on March 19, we did a portion of another trail that followed a river for part of the way, we ran out of time to finish the trail but got a few nice photos anyway.  It was a nice trail, treed, following the drainage from the canyon.

These next two are kind of cool, they show an old, large, decaying tree underneath some huge rocks, so they must have come off the mountain just in the last hundred years or so:

Just some really cool rock patterns:

Signs of other humans having come before us on this trail:

The next bunch of photos are from the drive back to the hotel.  The "golden hour" of late-day light happened during the drive, we were pulling over like crazy to take photos, so if you are wondering if those amazing oranges and reds in the later photos are fake, they are not, it really was spectacular.

So ... one more hike coming up SOON, and then my photos from the Zion trip are done!

Zion: Western side, Part 1

We drove over to the western side of Zion National Park after doing the Outlook trail.  The first few photos I took (as a passenger) on the drive over there:

Funny roadside attraction:

We had to get back on Interstate 15 to get to the western entrance ... the speed limit on that section is 80 miles per hour!  Considering people often drive over the speed limit, I found that to be pretty darned fast.

The next set of photos are taken along the scenic drive in the Kolob canyon zone of the park:

At the end of the road, there is a trail with a short hike to a lookout.  I found this part of the trail to have an interesting construction method- I guess it allows runoff so that the trail doesn't get washed out, but it would be pretty deadly to blind people or anything on wheels!

Views were beautiful along the trail and at the lookout at the end:

Just a tree along the ridge the trail follows:

Coming up next, another trail in the Kolob Canyon zone ...

Zion: Overlook trail

This trail is at the eastern end of the Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel, we hiked it March 19.  The scenery pretty much speaks for itself:

Here's the overlook ... you can see the switchback road we came up to go through the tunnel:

You can see the eastern approach to the tunnel from the end of the trail:

Here's yet another photo of us driving through the tunnel on our way back down into the Zion valley, after the hike:

... and a few more photos as we drive down into the valley and out of the park.  We're headed to the western portion of the park to do a scenic drive and a couple more short hikes, coming up next ...