Zion National Park

We made it to Zion!!! It was quite the journey traveling through Utah with all those scattered thunderstorms. We got held up at a rest stop for over two hours when it poured hail and rain in huge waves. And we rode on despite weariness and sore butts. And we made it! Woohoo!! I now know why Mim has wanted so badly to see Zion for most his life. The place is incredible - gigantic mountains of rock, canyons formed thousands of years ago by the Virgin River and the sights were something to see for sure.

We spent our first evening in Zion at a nearby internet cafe, blogging, and staying out of the heat. Weather was around 102 that day. Once the Sun was starting to set we headed to camp and set up. Our campsite was blistering hot during the day with little shade, but the view was amazing.

This picture here is of campste #8 which we stayed at our second night at Zion. The first night, we stayed in #4, which we we instructed to vacate and move to #8 for our second night stay. Of course, whoever had #4 booked that night never showed up. While all our gear was sitting in the hot sun packed up on our bikes, the squirrels chewed up the tank bag (which is our ice box). It was very dissapointing since we couldv'e used the bear box to put our food in, had we not been asked to move camp sites. Oh well! We packed up that morning and went on an all day hike through The Narrows, a winding canyon among the mountains of Zion, the Virgin River flowing through it. When we reached the head of the canyon, we readied our walking sticks!

Mim carved some beautiful handles on our walkin' sticks

Now that we had some awesome sticks we set off on the adventurous hike through the river and up the canyon! We were so excited about this hike, we got up before sunrise. And we were so glad we did, because we beat the rediculously large crows of tourists who rushed in as the day went on. The Narrows also looked even more spectacular in the morning light. We were in pleasant shade for most of the day, since we started early.

We took a detour from the main hike and found our way to this beautiful waterfall where magical acts of nature occur! On our way back down we stopped in the sun, had a snack, and went for a swim in a glorious swimming hole. We saw many more beautiful swimming holes on the way back down, but we huried our pace as much as we could for there were hundreds of people flocking in and crowding the paths. That night we had way too much pizza for dinner because we both felt so vamished after the long hike. So, around 5pm we were ready to go to bed but it was too hot! We walked to the river near our campsite to take shelter from the heat for awhile then tried to go to bed while it was still way hot outside. Mim fell asleep while I layed in hot agony until around 1 in the morning...the next day we were ready to shoot through Nevada!! And we were very determined to make it through in one sweltering hot day...

Goodbye Zion! We had a wonderful time...