We decided to leave for Zion a day early, so we ended up staying in Hurricane, Ut on Saturday night before our first day in the park. Great choice as we found a very good restaurant called Stagecoach in La Verkin just a stone’s throw from the Hurricane Fault. With enough beer even at my age I could have…. on the fault trace. Great craft beer selection and very good food at a very good price. Anytime craft beer is $6.00 a pint you have found home. I had Chicken Fried Steak recommended by our server who said it was very good, and she was right. A slab of mushroom gravied mashed potatoes with a large piece of perfectly cooked mushroom gravied meat that was well seasoned showed up. Sometimes, restaurants over season the meat with pepper but they did it right. Joni went for a Salmon Oscar. Oscar was a crab cake on top with a sinfully rich sauce (almost a Thanksgiving class feast of butter) that was also very good.
On to the park. With an early departure from Hurricane, and a stop at Lin’s grocery for water, sandwiches and snacks we climbed the Hurricane fault and headed up onto the Colorado Plateau. The geology of all of southern Utah and Northern Arizona is nothing less than spectacular due to the magic of uplift and erosion, and this drive on Utah Highway 9 just reinforced that observation. I suppose the geologic star of the show (not to ignore all of the other contributing formations and structures) as you get closer to the park is the Navajo Formation which is a 190 +/- million-year-old (Jurassic Period) sandstone that towers up to 2,000 feet above the Virgin River Canyon(s). It was deposited as wind borne sands (eolian deposit) in an extreme desert environment that covered the entire Colorado Plateau and beyond. The formation is characterized by its signature and prominent cross bedding due to winds during deposition of the dunes. I was always somewhat impressed that cross bedding in an eolian environment only happens on the lee side of the dunes. After visiting Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado 45+ years ago it finally all made sense. Dune fields are very mobile with crests moving repositioning themselves covering and uncovering the lee sides of the dunes. As the dunes migrate the inclined layers of sand on the lee side get buried, covered with new sand, compacted and .. bang after a few million or tens of million years and you end up with a consolidated rock formation.
The palteau.
As we entered Springdale, we scoped out our accommodations and then entered the park. We made the requisite stop at the visitor center and dropped a few bucks on a book or two and the Deenan National Park mug. When they allow cars into the park in the off-season, the Rangers monitor key intersections and knowing the number of available parking spaces uphill of the intersection, they cut off access when all available parking spaces could be filled. Then as cars come back through the intersection, they allow new entries. Very civilized and very good at limiting how many of your fellow man you get to enjoy rubbing elbows with on the trails, at the parking stops and in the parking lots. When the shuttles are running, they can and do stuff about 2 to 3 times the parking volume of people into the areas.
We decided for the first day to explore the Mt. Carmel highway and tunnel and vicinity. The highway is Utah State Highway 9 which if you follow it out east and make all the right turns will take you on to Bryce Canyon NP. Besides the views, the tunnel itself is quite the attraction. The tunnel, opened on July 4, 1930, is a 1.1 mile long, curving 2-lane highway that is 800 feet higher in elevation on the east end that cuts through the Navajo Sandstone. There are “windows” and “openings” in the canyon side of the tunnel creating spectacular views. Back in the day when the visitor count was more manageable, and people were more reasonable, there were two pullouts in the tunnel where you could swing the ’59 Ford sedan into the pullout and drink in the views. The pullouts are still there but blocked off.
After traversing the tunnel, we continued to the recommended turnaround before the east entrance to the park which is apparently usually crowded and slow. An aside… have you ever noticed at the entrance to national parks there are an inordinate number of people who want the ranger in the booth to give them a 20-minute verbal tour of the park so that they don’t have to look at a map or figure out anything for themselves? OK enough of that.
We decided to do the Canyon Overlook hike on the east side of the tunnel so headed back to the tunnel hoping that parking lot karma would strike, and we would get a spot. We lucked out!! The hike is a 1-mile +/- round trip that climbs up onto a shelf above the road and heads generally west-northwest with a couple of sporty areas on the trail until you are greeted with a spectacular view of Zion Canyon. I have to say that during this entire trip we met some truly friendly people who seemed to me to not be typical summertime tourists. They all were truly inspired by the park and had a great appreciation for the fact that at one point in time people with foresight thought to protect this area for future generations. We met a couple from Ohio who were touring the Utah parks. Talked with them for about a half an hour. He was a veteran who had served in Afghanistan. Turned out that the lady had an identical jeep as ours. We took heroic pictures of each other to commemorate the event. The hike was amazing, and the views along the trail and the intimate proximity of the trail with the cliffs was very invigorating. The picture immediately below is actually from the National Park Service, but it is a great shot of the overlook.
A selection of our trail pictures follows here.
After the hike, we had lunch sitting on a rock next to the Jeep on the side of the road. Then to top the day off, we stopped back at the visitor center to go to the geology lecture. A very personable, knowledgeable and very young-looking ranger gave a well-organized talk that truly caught the attention of the 10 or so people listening in. We had chatted before the talk, and she found out that we were geologists. A great group, of varied backgrounds asked really insightful questions and she really got into the swing of the talk. We met a couple more or less our age (a bit older) in the group from upstate New York and a 40-ish young guy from Phoenix who we struck up an after talk conversation with. Interestingly, we ran into the same folks the next day while doing the River Trail at the north end of the scenic drive road and chatted it up for another 30 minutes or so. More on that in next installment.
Finished the day back at our hotel which was great (especially at the discount price). A very nice dinner in the hotel restaurant. Most of the entrees were reasonably priced except the prime rib which was going for the princely sum of $110. Must have only had one serving in the fridge.