Day 7 Zion National Park

Today was an interesting day. It started at 530 as I crawled out of the nice warm bed i was in and headed out for what would be a harrowing dark hike of Canyon Overlook Trail. I had a headlamp and was following a group of women doing the same thing. About 12 of them so I mean i wasnt alone in the stupidity. The trail has very steep drop offs there were slick rocks and i really had no idea if I was actually following a trail. There were Iron hand rails at places so that helped. I mean it really helped.

In the end though there was this. I mean what an amazing

Glad I had no idea what the trail actually looked like why i was walking in the dark. I would have been super scared shitless. Instead of just scared shitless.

I headed back to Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort for breakfast. It was free/part of my package so no complaints here.

Then I made the decision to head to Kolob Canyon. According to my planning it was 1 1/2 hours away. Not too big a deal. And it is part of the park that many people forget exists. I wanted to give it some love. Susan though decided to give me bad directions. She took us on a 30 minute excursion south and then west through Coral Pink Sand Dunes something or other state park. I was unhappy at this misfire. It would end up changing the day but thats okay.

I got to Kolob and stopped at the poor small visitor center and then headed out onto the scenic drive. My goal was the end where a nice little hike called Timber Creek Overlook awaited.  To be honest Kolob is really pretty and has some amazing views. From the view we could see the Kaibab Plateau of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

I have a picture on my other camera of the plateau I think, I will upload it if i can get it off of there.

In other notes the morning also consited of lots of wild turkeys and a mountain goat who was just wandering down the middle of my lane towards me. Then he went in the other land and Grandma in her giant RV scared it off so it ran like hell. So sad.

Oh yeah Hurricane Valley and the drop into the city of Hurricane is pretty cool. After coming out of the sand dunes which are way up the road cuts back and forth for a mile or two I guess and it drops you right into town like in a residential neighborhood. Is so odd. But cool.

Because my timing was all messed up now I wasnt sure if I could do the Kolob Terrace Road. An awd road up to the top. So I passed and headed back to Zion. Oh damn... well what a madhouse. I can't believe so many people come here. To just THIS part of the park. I would say Zion is one of the top 5 most visited parks. And it is so compact so ... so many people in a little area. But hey there was the deer. The what? The deer at the visitor center. I took pictures for you. 

So after that and the fact that being in Zion was bringing up some emotions. This is one of my favorite places that I had the kids and I really wanted to bring them back here someday. So I came home and cleaned up stuff and did some housekeeping to make sure the rest of the trip would be going well. Then i did the horseback riding. Oh my.. my horse Buddy is slow and loves to eat and was huge. He was half Clydesdale and I absolutely loved my very first time on a horse. It was a great hour ride and I had blast. As always check my Instagram for videos. It was awesome.