Zion National Park - Gawking is allowed

Zion National Park is one amazing place. Whereas, at Bryce, you are looking from above down at the colorful rock formations, at Zion you are inside a canyon looking up 2,000 feet to the towering cliffs above.

This was our view out our coach front when we woke each morning.

Many many hikes in the park....the best way to experience the beauty.

2 mile Riverwalk Trail.

If you're a geologist or like rocks, this place is for you.

3D Model at the Visitor's Center showing the canyon.

Like we said earlier....gawking is allowed.

...and beautiful springtime flowers

Now...this is just (just?) the canyon part of Zion....you can drive through a mile-long tunnel to get to the eastern part where the rock formations are fantastic.

This is Checkerboard Mesa.

Close up

Even more of a closeup

..just to show you how large it is...

...and Kim

All around the base of Checkerboard Mesa is the fine sand from it. It's made of sandstone obviously but look how very fine the sand grains are next to a piece of sandstone.

So much of this part of the park has these layers upon layers of twisted sandstone.

After hiking up Watchman's Trail, I made a movie but, in order to get a good conversion, it's about 16MBs. If you want to view it, you can go to YouTube to view it. It's worth it to get a good overall feeling of the park.

http://youtu.be/R8TwOUbIhdA


We were there for 5 days and still were amazed every time we looked upwards. Wonderful visit.

More photos can be found here....

https://plus.google.com/photos/100376105788369441882/albums/5874501906303789761

and, from our last visit...there are about 135 photos here....

https://plus.google.com/photos/100376105788369441882/albums/5660747571069754625

Kim and Steve