We overslept this morning because I set the alarm clock for pm instead of am. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), we were still in time for another dodgy breakfast.
Our first stop this morning was to call in at the visitor centre to ask one of the park rangers about The Snake. We showed him a photo and he said "well that looks like a rattlesnake to me ma'am". He assured us that although they are poisonous, they don't bite people unless they tread on them, pick them up, or poke them with sticks. But if you are unfortunate/stupid enough to get bitten, you have to go to hospital, where you will be kept in for a number of days, and injected with anti-venom at $3,000 a shot until your blood tests come back clear.
We think our travel insurance would cover the anti-venom, but don't fancy spending the remainder of the holiday in hospital.
We had to go on a new road through the national park today, through a series of switchbacks (nowhere near as severe as proper hairpin bends in my opinion) and then a tunnel through the mountain. I had to turn the car off automatic, as it has a nasty habit of changing gear at the worst point of any bend. We made it to the start of today's trail safely at about 12 noon.
Today's trail was called Canyon Overlook. It was our favourite trail so far as it was easy, but had a nice path on a bit of an edge, and led onto a viewpoint looking out over the main canyon floor.
There were a few people who were scared of heights, and were clinging to the metal handrail for dear life on their way back down after they'd quit. One section included a sort of scaffold bridge which was a little bit rickety, and this seemed to fill a lot of people with terror.
The trail ended with a viewpoint with a 1,000 foot drop, and we found a safe rock to sit on to have lunch.
Several things of interest happened whilst we were eating. Firstly, my legs got sunburnt although I didn't realise until much later. Secondly, there were groups of swallows swooping around like fighter jets. Sometimes they came so close you could hear the wind in their feathers. And thirdly, we were surrounded by chipmunks hoping for a piece of of dinner. Claire seemed to find them a bit intimidating, and although they came within inches of us, none of them tried any food snatching. We didn't feed them because of the fine, but one of them dug a hole and found something to eat.
We stayed at the viewpoint for some time, and by the time we got back down, we were both boiling hot from being in the midday sun for a couple of hours. We had an iced tea in a cafe in the nearby town. We were both a bit shocked to find that iced tea really is just cold black tea. We were expecting some delicate lemon flavoured tea. We drank it but won't be going back for a second cup.
In the late afternoon, we went on our sunset walk. We set out at about 5.30pm and it was still 80 degrees. The walk was to the top of a rocky outcrop with views of The Watchman as the sun goes down. The Watchman is a huge chunk of sandstone about 6,000 feet high, and is the last in the canyon to catch the evening sun's rays.
We passed several groups who had quit due to the heat and ascent. We were adamant that we're weren't quitting as it was only a mile to the top with about 300 feet of ascent. It felt like a lot more though.
We made it to the top eventually, and collapsed in a tiny area of shade for a while to recover. We spent over an hour up there watching the sun go behind the mountains. Claire took millions of photos and her favourite one is below. I read a book and realised I'd got sunburnt legs.
By the time we started going down, it was dusk. We'd brought head torches just in case, but managed to make it down without. As we went down, we passed above a ravine with a stream in it far below. We could hear loads of frogs croaking away down there. The noise they made was unbelievable and they actually sounded more like goats than frogs. But there aren't any goats in Zion so according to the leaflet from the visitor centre, they must have been Canyon Treefrogs.
We were sad to leave the national park for the last time this evening.
Tomorrow we're heading over to Death Valley, the hottest place in America. An excellent destination when you've got sunburn.
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Location:Zion national park
Fantastic photos x
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