Friday, September 12, 2014
Thursday evening, we met Paul and Lynn our neighbours from Vermont. They treated us to Ben & Jerry's ice cream "Chunky Monkey"! Paul is retired from pastoral counselling, though he and Lynn are still involved with outreach work. Great conversations!
Friday, we explored the south-eastern side of Zion National Park.
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| http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-watchman-trail.htm |
Common (but not to us) Collared Lizard
Look closely!
My favourite hike in Zion. Here we walked under a cliff where water streamed from above. There was a choice of soft or harder mist.
Do you see the fence at the right hand corner of this photo? There is a drop-off after the rock!
"When Zion became a national park a vital and a beautiful natural resource was preserved forever. However, for the Southern Paiutes, the creation of the park actually disrupted their cultural patterns and prevented them from following traditional practices, such as gathering wild plants. Today, Paiutes can once again gather plants in the park, and tribal elders and National Park Service representatives are working together to develop mutually beneficial policies."
"Imagine 5, 000 cars, motor homes and tour buses a day entering a narrow canyon with 450 parking spaces. That was Zion Canyon before the shuttle system."
For this south-eastern tour of Zion National Park, we parked our truck near the entrance gate, then hiked into the park and stopped at the Visitor's Centre. Watchman Trail was walking distance from the Visitor's Centre. Then we took the shuttle to explore the other trails. I loved the experience of the shuttle, and from an environmental perspective, it makes a lot of sense-- it lessens air and noise pollution and protects vegetation.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Today we drove to the north side of Zion National Park. This section is an eight mile drive from the Visitor's Centre to the road's end. Still populated with tourists, but much less than the south-eastern side of Zion.
*Larson Cabin, 1930* It was a 1/2 hour walk from the trailhead.
Our next hike was "Timber Creek Overlook Trail". The trailhead is at the end of the park's road. This trail gave us a view of Kolob Canyon, shown in the photos below.
During our morning drive to Zion, I noticed a road sign for a museum. On our return drive, we followed the museum road signs and discovered Silver Reef, a mining town that flourished between 1876 and 1890. It is now a ghost town with crumbling rocks walls and foundations. Of the original structures, only the 1878 Wells, Fargo and Co.'s Express building remains intact. It now houses the museum. Silver Reef is the only place in North America where silver has been found in mineable quantities in sandstone. In the few years that the town flourished, over 7 million ounces of silver were taken out of 33 mines.
Then, we visited the Leeds Historic CCC Camp, another unplanned adventure. I spotted some interpretative signs!
"Built in 1933, the Leeds Civilian Conservation Corps Camp is significant as perhaps the best remaining example of a CCC camp in Utah."
During our travels, we have seen many examples of work from the CCC men, including the Watchman Trail they built in Zion and road repair in Escalante.
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