Zion National Park: Watchman trail

Zion National Park is in the southwestern corner of Utah, and I had wanted to get back there ever since driving through the area on my big cross-country trip of 2009.  We drove there on March 16 for 4 days of hiking.  It was a long drive from L.A., although we went on a Sunday and left early, and that helped avoid some traffic on the escape.  We also ran into a section of closed highway though close to St.George, that led to a one-hour detour, which wasn't as bad as it might have been as the alternate route was very scenic.

Here are some photos of the first trail we hiked on March 17.  The photos can mostly speak for themselves - Zion is another one of those breathtakingly scenic places where the camera could go walk around on it's own and never take a bad picture.  It didn't hurt that we had perfect weather the whole time, either.

The end of the Watchman trail has a lookout where you have a good view of Springdale, Zion's gateway town:

On the way to our next stop we pulled over to look at the "Court of the Patriarchs", several mountains named after biblical folks.  That's the Virgin river (do you sense a theme here?) in the foreground, it travels down the valley of the main part of the park.

Next, we will head further up the road and go see the Emerald Pools ...