Zion National Park

May 14-18 I stayed in the Watchman Campground of Zion National Park.  My spot wasn’t much more than a parking space and a shelter shared by 6 other groups in similar parking spaces.  At first it looked to be an awful experience but the park was so beautiful I hardly noticed the campground.  One of the big pluses of Zion is the bus service. I could leave my camper in place and take the bus or walk everywhere.  This and my bus experience at Yosemite have made me a big fan of buses in the National Parks.

My friend, Catherine, joined me for the week of hiking and exploring. Our first trip was the bus ride up to the Riverside Walk.   The trail follows the Virgin River upstream to the Narrows trail head.

Along the way I photographed this ground squirrel taking in the view.  Often I found squirrels and chipmunks sitting and looking at the view.

Here and a few other places we could see hanging wildflowers. These are Colorado Columbine.

There were so many beautiful sights it is hard to show them all.

We also took the Weeping Rock trail which is the parks shortest and easiest ramble. Along the way I took this photo of Shooting Star.

The Freemont Cottonwoods were thick in this park and the area was covered with so much of the cotton it looked like snow on the ground.

Catherine had rented a car so that evening we drove east and through the Mt. Carmel Tunnel just in time to see these Bighorn Mountain Sheep cross the road as we came out of the tunnel. I think there were about 5 all together.  This one was dead ahead of us on the road so we had the best view.

After they crossed we pulled over and watched them climb up the side of the mountain.

It wasn’t dark yet so we decided to take the Canyon Overlook trail.  From the start of the walk we could see the tunnel below.

The trail was moderately steep and narrow in some places.

We never made it to the overlook because it was getting dark and frankly I was pretty worn out by this time but we did see this view. There is always next time and this is one of the parks I would love to visit again.