Huh… it’s Tuesday… we got back yesterday… now where did I leave off…
Woke up just fine in Page. Not much happened there aside for finding a girl who looked exactly like the Disney version of Pocahontas. I really wanted to hug her but thought that might be weird so I didn’t. Bought some gifts at the Quality Inn gift shop and that was about that, and we headed for Zion.
Man was that surprising. I can go on and on about rolling desert plains and such, but I won’t, because it snowed. SNOWED. Here I am a week beforehand, thinking of how exciting it’ll be to vacation in warm weather… and then it snows.
There’s something gorgeous about the desert in the snow, though; only the living things seem to pick it up, so there would be splotches of snow on bushes and cliff faces in the midst of red rock and gravel. At least at first. Eventually we got a good inch or two to lay the closer we got to Zion.
I’ll continue by saying that Zion National Park is indeed quite magical. I felt like I was in a nature-based Disney World upon entry. We came via the East entrance, which takes you through these winding switchback roads along with a man-made tunnel through one of the cliffs, built with peephole windows in the sides so you can glance for about three to five seconds at the red mountains through them. Apparently the tunnel was started in the 1920s at both ends and met in the middle, and was only off by six inches, according to our trail guide… but more on him later.
In retrospect I’m really glad things were a bit frosted when we came. I doubt it would give us such an otherworldly image of the park otherwise. Within a span of a few hours we went from 50 degree, high-wind desert weather into 25 degree snowy red cliffs, capped with puffs of fog that reminded me of this scene in Fellowship of the Ring where Aragorn is just staring up at these HUGE statues of men on either side of the river they rowed down. I was just as wide-eyed, staring up at these red soldiers that cascaded into clouds, wondering where the hell I really was.
Zion National Park, once you get into the heart of it, is an interesting mini-community. The courtyard of the visitor center sprawls across a few buildings from a bookstore to restrooms to a bus station, segmented by these intersecting informational signs about the area, none of which I really looked at. Dennis and I were more interested in 1. the bookstore (more of Dennis’s thing at that point in time once I realized they had no collectible spoons available, but I digress), and 2. picking up our permit for backpacking. It was hard not to sink into my anxiety at the snow and not try to scout the developed campgrounds, especially when lows were to reach around 20 degrees. Reminding myself though that this was our adventure, and that I’d been through worse weather, and that the elevation was lower at Coal Pits Wash, I saddled up mentally as our incredibly-obviously-bored-and-discontent-with-her-job park ranger printed out our permit to hike and camp in the cougar-filled Zion wilderness.
More soon.
JO LIKES TO TRAVEL 
