Rozelles in Zion (Not Israel) 2013

This place - this was my kind of hiking. I could have spent a week hiking this park. Beautiful.

We never did get a "Welcome to Zion National Park" sign shot here. The big one was far away and we only passed it once when we first entered the park, and the other was small and located right near our hotel.

We stayed at a hotel right outside the park entrance. That's "The Watchman" in the background. We would just roll out of bed and walk down a path right into the National Park. I highly recommend this.

Again, I will try to limit the pure scenery pictures. One thing these 2 National Parks do that may seem annoying but is actually smart is not allow cars on the main roads and make you take shuttles to trailheads and lookouts. But the traffic would be awful without the shuttles. And it allows you to relax and take pictures from the shuttles.

When we first arrived, we didn't have all that much daylight left and elected to hike a moderate trail called the Emerald Pools that led you past a few water features.

This is technically desert. Moisture is coming out of the sandstone and dripping down hundreds of feet to form pools. That you are strongly urged not to go in because this is a desert and water is precious. We really weren't tempted because it was not hot.

Lots of red dirt. Your suitcase will stow lots of little grains of red sand for you to enjoy back home and your shoes may have a permanent red film.

The lighting was kind of tricky - we were getting close to sunset. Of course, very very lovely in person or with a person who knows what they are doing behind a camera.

The upper pool, end of this trail. Hard to tell in the picture what a cool place this was.

A benefit of spring desert hiking (besides great temperatures) is the wildflowers.

The next day, we decided to get up early and do a hard hike. Because we had a little one and because Jeff is actually really afraid of heights, we did not climb the highest point. We did do a super fun but a little dangerous hike: Hidden Canyon.

There's the shuttle road and view across and we start to hike up the switchback. It seems so innocent.

Moll and I always do this: I just don't always post when we do. She doesn't always like how we look. I don't know if she likes how we look here nor not, but she didn't specifically say she didn't....

So you do some hiking up and up and come to this great little rest spot and then,

the trail REALLY starts climbing, but THEN

the trail gets really narrow and there are steep drop offs. We met one lady coming around this corner. (Otherwise we'd been alone). She scolded us and said there was a reason she did not have her kids with. It was too dangerous and she suggested we turn around.

This is actually a shot on the way back, after I was sure it was safe to pull out a camera and take a picture. The mountain path was so narrow here, you had to hold onto chains. This was actually a wide section. For the record, I think the lady was being a little melodramatic. For the record, there was one point that Jeff broke out into a cold sweat behind Anna and caused me to head straight to the shoe store back in Syracuse and buy her a great pair of well-fitted sneakers with grippy soles.

We have now upped the ante so that unless we are hanging onto the sides of mountains by chains, Anna considers the hike boring and unworthy.

Cool grotto after you stop hanging off the side of the mountain.

The reward is when you are off the end of the maintained trail into the hidden canyon.

The scratched-in ad-lib is entirely correct and therefore, this was very, very fun!

The only other people we saw on our hike in besides the bearer of ominous warnings was a super nice couple from Washington who praised the girls on their bravery and toughness and offered to take our family picture. Jeff will not allow us to ask anyone to take our family picture so this is the only way our family picture gets taken.

This couple was so nice that they decided the first picture was not scenic enough and the man scrambled up some rock to get this shot. They also pretty much convinced us that our next trip should be to Washington.

Second-best thing to hanging off mountains holding onto chains, for Anna, is rock-scrambling. She announced that this was her favorite hike ever. I think she could've handled the big dog, but Jeff might have had a heart attack watching her do it. She is fearless.

Being in that canyon was great. The floor was beach sand and some of the sides were straight up. We were all alone in there.

The nice couple told us that the arch was pretty much the end. We felt as if we'd accomplished something.

We had a nice lunch, all alone in that canyon. This is the girls eating in the arch. After that, the people started coming and coming.

We elected to do an easy Riverwalk hike. What we were really doing was scouting if we wanted to do the Narrows. The water was FREEZING.

The Narrows is a section through the canyon where you are wading in the river with high canyon walls around you. You need to rent special gear. The gear is very expensive to rent. We still were willing. The gear was all rented out for the next day.

Jeff and I have never been so unresearched going into a trip. We have both been swamped and not thinking about anything but work and kids' activities and selling a house. If we had, we would have planned to do a Narrows hike.

I wonder if I will always regret not doing that Narrows hike. There was so much more I wanted to do there...

What I absolutely do not regret is that Molly and I got up early the morning we left for Vegas to do one last hike.

We walked to the trailhead right from our hotel - we didn't even need to take the shuttle for this one.

Yes, that's coffee in my hand. I like my early morning hikes caffeinated.

We didn't quite make sunrise, which would have required us starting in the dark. Still, it was great light.

This trail was not one of the more popular ones in the park, so we thought our chances of being alone were high. We didn't see anyone at all until we were almost back, and then only one guy and one family.

One of the benefits of this trail was the wildflowers. These red ones were not like this on the others.

That's the Watchman, the one behind our hotel.

This is the gross-but-I-get-it Altar of Sacrifice.

This one has a shot of the Temple of Sinawava, highest elevation in the park (towards the right).

Moll across the switchback. This one was not as harrowing, but still, you don't want to fall.

At the end of the trail. Bye Zion! Off to Vegas. (Again, the irony is not lost on me).