Zion & Bryce Canyon Getaway

Enough with the Quarantine. We decided for the last week of June we would drive to Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Both are located in Southern Utah and only two days of casual driving away from home. We thought that there would not be many people traveling to the parks. Boy were we wrong. Zion was really crowded while Bryce Canyon was not. License plates from just about every State of the Union.

Zion Canyon from the deck of our room.

Zion National Park 

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Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans, one of which was the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi (c. 300 CE). Subsequently, the Virgin Anasazi culture (c. 500) and the Parowan Fremont group developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, President William Howard Taft named the area Mukuntuweap National Monument in order to protect the canyon. In 1918, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service, Horace Albright, drafted a proposal to enlarge the existing monument and change the park’s name to Zion National Monument, Zion being a term used by the Mormons. According to historian Hal Rothman: “The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience.” On November 19, 1919, Congress re-designated the monument as Zion National Park, and the act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson. The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the national park in 1956.

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The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateau lifted the region 10,000 feet starting 13 million years ago.

Checkerboard Mesa is an usual area of the park.

I am sure it took many moons to shape the mesa in such a manner.

It is located at the eastern entrance to the park on Utah Highway #9 which goes through the park. Mount Carmel Tunnel is located on Highway #9 inside the park. The purpose of the building the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel (and the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway) was to create direct access to Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon from Zion National Park.

During the busy season, the park actually controls traffic through the tunnel by allowing one direction of traffic to drive through at a time. This is in order to give larger vehicles/motor homes easier passage through the tunnel by allowing them the opportunity to use both lanes if needed. There are also “windows” carved periodically through the walls of the tunnel that provide brief glimpses of the canyon.

This tunnel which was built early in the 20th century is iconic in Zion National Park. After traversing several switchbacks out of the canyon you reach the tunnel. It is very dark with no interior lighting. Occasionally there are windows that look out into the canyon but there is no stopping to look. Large vehicles need to register for a specific time to go through because the dimensions of the tunnel cannot fit them on one side of the road. They have to ride in the middle and thus, oncoming traffic has to be held. Driving from east to west the view of Zion Canyon as you exit the tunnel is amazing.

Because of traffic we do not have more pictures from out of the openings in the Mount Carmel Tunnel. Search Mount Carmel Tunnel on line if you want like to be better informed

The tunnel was constructed to provide easier access to Grand Canyon National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. Since we were to late to get to the upper canyon at Zion because of the limit per day on traffic, line forms at 4:30 in the morning, we took advantage and went to Bryce Canyon only 74 Miles away. If it was not for the tunnel it would have been 168 miles one way.

Bryce Canyon City is mostly made up of Hotels and Campgrounds. They must be successful since the residents homes look like this.

Bryce Canyon National Park is located in southwestern Utah. It lies within the Colorado Plateau geographic province of North America and straddles the southeastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau west of the Paunsaugunt Fault (Paunsaugunt is Paiute for “home of the beaver”). Park visitors arrive from the plateau part of the park and look over the plateau’s edge toward a valley containing the fault and the Paria River just beyond it (Paria is Paiute for “muddy or elk water”). The edge of the Kaiparowits Plateau bounds the opposite side of the valley.

The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon, but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks.  The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views. Bryce Canyon National Park is much smaller, and sits at a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet.

The Bryce Canyon area was settled by Mormon pioneers in the 1850s and was named after Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded in the area in 1874.The area around Bryce Canyon was originally designated as a National monument by President Warren G Harding in 1923 and was re-designated as a national park by Congress in 1928. The park covers 35,835 acres 55.992 sq. mi. and receives substantially fewer visitors than Zion National Park (nearly 4.3 million in 2016) or Grand Canyon National Park (nearly 6 million in 2016), largely due to Bryce’s more remote location.

Bryce Canyon was not formed from erosion initiated from a central stream, meaning it technically is not a canyon. Instead headward erosion has excavated large amphitheater-shaped features in the Cenozoic-aged rocks of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. This erosion exposed delicate and colorful pinnacles called hoodoos that are up to 200 feet (60 m) high. A series of amphitheaters extends more than 20 miles  north-to-south within the park. The largest is Bryce Amphitheater, which is 12 miles  long, 3 miles  wide and 800 feet deep. A nearby example of amphitheaters with hoodoos in the same formation but at a higher elevation, is in Cedar Breaks National Monunment, which is 25 miles to the west on the Markagunt Plateau.

Rainbow Point, the highest part of the park at 9,105 feet, is at the end of the 18-mile scenic drive. From there, Aquarius Plateau, Bryce Amphitheater, the Henry Mountains, the Vermilion Cliffs and the White Cliffs can be seen. Yellow Creek, where it exits the park in the north-east section, is the lowest part of the park at 6,620 feet.

There is also a lodge at Bryce Canyon. However it was not open since there are so many places for lodging and services at the entrance to the park. It was not economical for the Park Service to lease it to someone.

Next day we got in line at Five AM for the drive to Riverside Trail to start the hike to “The Narrows”.

The “Temple of Sinawava” is located at the end of Zion Canyon Scenic Drive, and it marks the entrance to the Riverside Walk. This area of the park is named after the coyote spirit, worshipped by the Paiute Indians. Within the temple there are two interesting formations found on the south side of the river, known as the Altar and the Pulpit. Shortly after the trailhead there is a towering waterfall fed by Cabin Spring, but it was not flowing because of the season of the year.

You can see “The Narrows” by hiking along the paved, wheelchair accessible Riverside Walk. It is the narrowest section of Zion Canyon. This gorge, with walls a thousand feet tall and the river sometimes just twenty to thirty feet wide, is one of the most popular areas in Zion National Park. A hike through The Narrows requires hiking in the Virgin River. You must get your feet wet since there is no trail.

Doing the hike this way allows you to see some of the most spectacular and narrowest parts of the canyon. You can hike in the river for an hour and have a great experience, or you can hike as far as Big Spring, a strenuous, ten-mile round trip, all-day adventure.

Most people hike The Narrows in the late spring and summer when the water tends to be at its warmest and the water level drops. However, this is also the time of year that storms can cause life-threatening flash floods.

Water level fluctuates greatly from year to year and day to day depending on many factors such as rainfall and snowmelt. When the river is running below 70 cubic feet per second (CFS), walking is moderately difficult, with knee deep crossings on the slippery and uneven river bottom with frequent pools up to waist deep.

The Narrows are susceptible to flash flooding because much of the surrounding area is bare rock that does not absorb water. During storms, runoff is funneled rapidly into the Narrows. During a flash flood the water level rises almost instantly–within seconds or minutes. Flash floods are common in Zion and hikers have been stranded, injured, and even killed by venturing into narrow, flood prone canyons.

Suffice it too say we had a great week in the parks. More people were out and about then we expected. Even though the temperatures were in the high ninety’s and low hundred’s it was cool in the canyons and felt quite comfortable.

Until next time

Helen & Willis