Awoke to hard packed ice on the ground that made walking in the carpark very treacherous. We also make a rookie mistake of leaving both our sunglasses in the car overnight. You are probably thinking, well what is wrong with that. Both our sunglasses are plastic rims and as the temperatures dropped quite low last night, this morning they were very cold and brittle. We needed to warm them in the car for a while before being able to wear them.
So this shows you the distance from Bryce Canyon to Zion National Park. A total of 140 kilometers. Our drive was in full sunlight with blue sky though definitely a bit on the chilly side.
After going through some of our very historic photos dating back eons, we discovered that we had been to Zion back in 1991. As we drove through, neither of us could remember any of the landmarks, and there a couple of substantial ones that should have stuck in the old brain matter.
There were two minor length tunnels before we hit the big one.
The Zion tunnel was begun in 1927 and completed in July 1930. Today the tunnel is basically the same as it was upon its completion. However, because of the softness of the sandstone through which it passes, much reinforcing has been done and concrete ribs now give added support to the tunnel’s entire length.
The tunnel is 5607 feet or 1.1 mile in length and has several window-holes cut in the tunnel. There is no artificial lighting in the tunnel, and we discovered that you needed to make sure you removed your sunglasses before entering.
You will have noted on the video that there was a window not long after we entered into the tunnel. This photo shows where the window is from the first switch back as you exit the tunnel.
It was a lot of fun driving the road and so much so that after doing a couple of walks we drove back up through the tunnel, turned around and came back down. We were stunned as to how many people were around and parking was a big problem. In summer, you can only access a lot of the park by shuttle busses. We passed the shuttle bus winter parking lot, and we reckon there were nearly fifty busses there. On one of the very popular walks, you even have to go into an online lottery the night before you wish to do it.
One of the gentler walks up the north end of the canyon. Once again, our photos are not serving justice to the place. They are very strict on dogs here and there was only one paved trail we could take Toque on but by the time we went to do it, the bad weather had moved in.
As you can see, it is a hikers dream but it comes with dangerous flash flooding in very narrow canyons. Many a hiker has lost their lives.
This is another of the shorter walks which Fras did, and he was saying that in parts that the railing had fallen away. What struck him was families with small children doing what he considered was a dangerous walk.
Many interesting striations in the rocks and you cannot see it but a lot of band colouring. It reminded both of us of the Pilbara in Western Australia which is where we first met one another.
We had made very good timing today, so we set off for the big push up north. So far, we have covered a total distance of 1450 km and have 1900 km to go. We made it as far as this town called Beaver on the I15 and had made a fatal mistake of booking it before we left Zion Canyon. The town is the absolute pits and the price for the below average hotel room is outrageous.
Oh well, we made up for it by making ourselves a nice evening meal. Tomorrow we will choose where we stay, more wisely.
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