Zion National Park

Our final stop and national park in Utah was Zion National Park, another sandstone wonder in the southwest of the state. We'd been to Zion before, briefly, and remember walking the trail up to where The Narrows hike, up the canyon, begins. (Rebecca and Rachel will remember Prime Minister Take-a-Leakie there). Little did I know how much The Narrows impressed Vicki then, but I was to learn  on this visit very shortly. Our first couple days in Zion we did the visitor center and gift shoppe, the museum and film, and a few short hikes, up to the Emerald Pools and back up The Narrows Trail to where the maintained trail ends...

Zion's basically a canyon or two or three above which rise the
remains of the usual sandstone mountains; none of the
mountains are big--few rise more than 1,500 feet above the
canyon floor, I would guess--but they are nonetheless unusually
picturesque, comparable in that regard to the Dolomites or the
Lofotens

Ditto

From the campground; Virgin River in foreground

More canyon, more mountains

More ditto

From the museum courtyard; most of the mountains were named
by Mormon pioneers and thus mostly have names from the Iron
Age Abrahamic religions; alas, I did not bother to learn any of
their names

One of the more interesting and beautiful arches...look down
the left-side ridge to where the angle lessens

Thus; don't see that kind of thing in the Tetons or Alps; or the
Himalayas

Another view, from near the campground

It's the evening alpenglow where things get really spectacular

Not enhanced at all; that's really what you see all over the
canyon; and I have never seen more people with big assault
cameras and tripods, lining up and down the highways and
pull-outs to get these shots; it's obviously a photographer's
wonderland

More peaks; the pinnacles here are mostly sandstone hoodoos

Vicki, about to walk through the water-fall from the Middle
Emerald Pool

Middle Emerald Pool

Sideways panoramic attempt
at capturing the Upper
Emerald Pool to the cliffs
way high above

Extremely ominous foreshadowing: the view up The Narrows
from where the established (paved) trail ends...Ringwaifs: this
was for me the Dimrill Dale...