To and round Zion National Park

I have been coming to terms with the Colorado Plateau or trying to as it is an enormous area in four states with incredible diversity of landscape.

It appears about 60 million years ago the sea which covered the whole area finally retreated after being around fro 80 odd million years leaving behind vast deposits of sediment thousands of feet thick and left as rock. Following this a gigantic fresh water lake formed depositing other minerals which over time 20 million years formed more rock of different types.

All lay happily side by side and on top of each other.

10 million years ago, bingo, the earth moved apart and thrust the plateau upwards and displaced everything vertically by several thousand feet. It all rose in the form of a staircase. The top rocks of the grand canyon are the base rocks of Zion and top of Zion are the base rocks of Bryce.

All a load of gobbledygook but it explains why each park is so very different being formed off totally different rocks

Oh I vaguely understand it all. We drove from the north rim of The Grand Canyon to Zion National Park over the plateau at various altitudes but mostly between 6000 and 7500 feet. Some extremely fertile areas and others high plain desert land.

Suddenly you come upon Zion and everything changes even the colour of the road surface which turns to red asphalt all the way through the park.

Zion is formed more or less entirely of sandstone, huge pre historic sand dunes laid down after the seas disappeared and solidified by time, water and I think calcium carbonate to form the rock sandstone. Huge mountains of sandstone all around all of different shapes and sizes surfaces and colouring though predominantly sand, white or dyed by iron oxide red.

A six mile valley, shuttlebus only followed by a 1 mile walk to the valley end, well almost, you can river walk wade and swim further up than this if you are brave, younger and fit.

A truly magnificent place and I think the superb description of " beyond the horizons of ones imagination " really sums it up.

Water is the main catalyst in these areas and has been for multi millions of years. The rivers, the Colorado being a main one have eroded the canyons slowly but surely until they are thousands of feet deep and as wide as the Grand Canyon or much narrower like Zion. The river at Zion in which we could paddle or swim or walk quietly up stream if we dared flows at about 3000cubic feet per second after rain or in flood this can go up to 35000cubic feet per second. 1/2" of rain in the mountains around or at some distance away not raining in Zion can produce flash flooding with a wall of water 10ft high appearing in seconds in the canyon described above. People have been and are killed here, warnings and alert are given and all sorts of advice is available but everywhere it is stressed your safety is your responsibility.

We stayed at Watchmans campground in the Park on two different pitches and liked the campground. We even managed three quite good walks of the many available in the area, some quite hairy ones totally beyond us!

A great park and a must on anyone list. I think to date no 1 on ours but so different to the Grand Canyon. I'm afraid Yosemite lovely though it is is losing ground.

Two nights and best part of three days, probably not enough if your into big walks, saw us off towards Bryce Canyon where we expected cooler weather as Zion had been hot though cooler for sleeping with altitude around 6000ft