Today was a late start and early finish.
We didn't leave the hotel until 9:15. I'm an early riser, so after a breakfast of pancakes, OJ, and milk, I headed out to walk around town. A half-hour later, I found myself at the pedestrian/bike entrance to the Zion National Park. Springdale butts right up against the park, so it was an easy, yet cool and breezy, walk down the street.
This is when I formulated my preliminary plan for the day: when we are done with the group activities in the park, I'll grab lunch. After that, I'll take the park shuttle to the Springdale transfer station, and walk from there.
Such a plan fits right into my wish to hangout in town as much as possible. The parks are great, but I think I needed a little dose of civilization today.
Before I can put my plan into play, though, there's the matter of the group activities. First up, the drive back to the park, which was much easier than yesterday. There was no traffic, construction, or other delays. This was good, we had some time to play with, but we still needed to get there in reasonable time. Our tram tour through the park started at 11:30 on the dot. Delays were neither needed or allowed.
Once we made it to the Zion Lodge, our home base for the morning, Melanie released us to our own whims. Most of us went and hiked the lower Emerald Pools trail, leading to a waterfall (the first and only for this trip). After coming back there was still time to kill, so I investigated the shuttle back to the Springdale stop.
Before I go further, let me take a moment to define some terms. "Our bus" refers to the bus we are using on the trip. "Shuttle" refers to the separate Zion and Springdale shuttle lines, and "tram" refers to the tour of the park narrated by a park employee. Believe me, it can be confusing. We need to be precise here.
OK, it is now time to take the tram tour. Our driver/guide is Tina. From the lodge, we tour some of the sights of southeast Zion National Park. As always, there are many good sights to see, but to really hike these trails, one needs a good plan. Zion is the second most visited national park, even more than the Grand Canyon.
One interesting fact is the idea of the Grand Staircase. This is an actual geologic term that refers to the trio of Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon. In terms of the elevation of the highest peaks, things step down with Bryce at the top, Zion the middle, and Grand Canyon the bottom step.
Following the end of the tram tour, it is lunch time, and my plan goes into effect. Brad and Carolyn from Cape Cod join in. Lunch was cut short due to a swarm of 8-9 bees swarming my root beer. Finally giving up, we work our way to the shuttle.
Zion shuttle takes visitors around the park. Getting on the Springdale line, we drive out to the South visitor center. From there, we begin the walk to town. Stopping along the way to get ice cream, we finally arrive at the hotel just after the bus (our bus is making two trips to pick people up: 2:00 and 5:00). "Dang," I say. "If we didn't stop for ice cream we would have beaten the bus home."
My hike mates graciously invited me to join them for dinner at a local restaurant. I thanked them but declined because I had a lot of food left from our Walmart trip the other day, and I needed to get rid of it. So, dinner tonight was the rest of my salad and grapes.
Tomorrow it the last full day of our tour, with most of the time being taken by the drive from here to Las Vegas. I'm not sure how long this will take or how many stops we'll take, but the tour is rapidly coming to a close.
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