Zion National Park, I kind of think it’s like Disneyland for hikers. Seriously, even for early October, the place was hopping. Especially at the base where the shuttles were.
Our first shuttle was from the lodge where we were going to stay that night to the entrance of the park.
We were all super excited and ready to begin our hike! Half of the people in our group used hiking poles on the first day and the other half didn’t.
I didn’t feel like I needed them, so they stayed in my backpack. Jen was glad she had them though. {She had also used hiking poles before and I had not}.
The hike up the mountain was actually sort of crowded for the first hour or so, which really surprised me. Some of the people on the trail did too.
There were a lot of Instagrammers just there for their photo op. Some even in FLIP FLOPS. We also passed people with no backpacks {or water} who were there with nothing but the clothing they were wearing.
I thought that was just crazy.
The higher we got though, those people were pretty thinned out.
On our first day of hiking we hiked up Walter’s Wiggles to Scout Lookout and had lunch at the top.
It was definitely tiring, but also really fun to push myself and know that all my fast walking around town and walking up the barn steps with water bottles had paid off.
Later that afternoon we also did a short hike to the Emerland Pools. I took a few videos and I’ll try to post those to my youtube channel this morning. The area was gorgeous!!
After we were done hiking for the day we hopped back on the shuttle bus {standing room only!} to check into the Bumbleberry lodge for the night.
A hot shower and a clean bed to sleep in. We were beyond thrilled!
After we got cleaned up we had an hour or so before we were supposed to meet up with our group for dinner. So of course we went looking for pastries.
The first place we went to was closed so we kept walking down the street to see what was around.
The last time I went to Zion National Park I was 19 years old and WOW, the town of Springdale, Utah has changed!!
The only thing I remember on that stretch of highway was the sign for the park so it was kind of strange to see fancy restaurants and lodges and coffee shops built into the rocks.
A lot of it just looked so out of place.
French pastries at the base of Zion, who would have thought?
The views though, those haven’t changed. 🙂
On the first day of our hiking adventure we walked 24,371 steps. Oh my. Yes, we slept very well that night. 🙂
To be continued…
~Mavis
Lynn says
Such a gorgeous part of the country! My husband and I did Zion and Bryce about 6 years ago, spending more time at Bryce, though. Your photos make me realize how much of Zion we missed. I would say it’s time to go back but there are so many National Parks in Utah we have yet to hit. Looking forward to the rest of your posts & photos!