ShellyJust when I think it can’t keep getting better, it does. Today we moved from Hurricane, Utah to 30 minutes up the road in Zion National Park. I tried to get a spot in watchman Campground inside Zion a while back but it sometimes fills up six months ahead of time. So when I saw a couple days ago that one spot opened up for tonight only, I snagged it. PRO TIP: if you think you’re coming out this way, get online and reserve a few days at Zion as soon as you can. Then build the rest of your itinerary around that. Bryce Canyon is only about an hour and a half away. So you could use Zion as your base camp to do both Bryce and even the north rim of The Grand Canyon if you wanted to. It’s a national park, so the campground is pretty cheap. And once again, we got to use our annual America the Beautiful pass for entry into Zion.
We got to our site in Zion around noon, got set up, had lunch, and went off exploring. There’s a 2 or 3 mile trail along the Virgin River that is dog friendly. But the cooler areas deeper in the park are a no go for Patty. So Sam and the boys took off to look for a mile long trail, Lower Pine Creek Trail, that ends with a swimming hole and a waterfall. Unfortunately, the parking was full there. So they had to make their own trail further up the road. The walked almost 3 miles but never found any water. It sure looks pretty though.
Patty and I strolled around the campground and did part of the trail along the river. We found a nice shady spot to stick our feet in. The river isn’t ice cold, but it was probably good to chill my ankle for a little while. It’s still swollen but feels alright. So that’s good news.
We then spent the rest of the afternoon just being lazy around the campground during the hottest part of the day. Too bad we didn’t bring our inner tubes. Tubing the Virgin River is definitely the campground activity of choice. PRO TIP: bring your own cheapo Walmart tube to use here. The rules say “no” but everyone does it. The guys wandered around the river for a while. Just like the swimming hole in Guatemala, the fish loved eating the dead skin off of Sam’s feet.
Patty saw a dear right behind our camp site.
Oh, and another PRO TIP: bring your bikes here. I’ve seen the most families on bikes here than anywhere else. Lots of biking in the campground and the town of Springdale is directly across the river and out the gate from the campground. So you could wander into town easily.
Speaking of Springdale, we haven’t explored it other than driving through, but it looks quite nice. So even if you can’t get a spot in Watchman, any of the hotels or campgrounds in town would work. Even the La Quinta looks good. Some of them even back up to the river we are on. I could see fire pits going over there on the river as we walked back from stargazing. (There is a burn and campfire ban. So no campfires for us Utah.)
Zion is rated as one of the top star gazing sites. So we waited for the sun to go down and hit a trail with our headlamps to get away from the campground lights. Wow! There were a lot of stats up there. We used an app called Star View to identify constellations and even saw some satellites zipping by. Too bad my camera stinks for nighttime shots. But I did get a few almost might shots.
What We're Eating:
Breakfast: Bagel, granola, watermelon and donuts
Lunch: Sandwiches
Dinner: spaghetti with chicken and sausage
Temperatures:
Not too bad. I think it was mid 80s during the day and mid 50s at night
