October 19, 2013

Road Trip in U.S, Zion National Park

Leaving Antelope it took us 3 - 4hrs to reach Zion National Park. Somewhere in the middle between them the shapes and colors of the rocks and mountains started to change. Before the red color was only visible down the canyons, but now it was everywhere. Fantastic! 
Another thing that changed was the hight of the mountains, the crooked pines and bushes. It was like landing on another planet. Breathtaking!
Before coming to the park we already had an plan of what was to be done, and we only had three days to manage it in.
After entering the park we settled down at the camp site and just explored the closest surrounding. Took a walk into the village for a float, did some laundry and went into some outdoor shops. Following morning was a bit more intense, the plan was to hike the 'Angels landing'. Early in the morning we took the shuttle bus to the starting point and from there we had a hike of only 6km to do, but it was on a narrow ledge and with 1400 m drop on each side. Not something for the weak hearted :)) There is a chain which you hold on to, but people have made mistakes and fallen :/ You still have to let the chain go when by passing others. Once on the top the view is amazing, and I know I use it a lot but Breathtaking! We just sat there for a while and enjoyed the views with company of the chipmunks :) A Lot of them.
The walk down is actually tougher for the knees, but you do feel a bit more comftable with the hight (not sure it was a good thing as you also loose some of the attention with it) 

The evening it self was spent documenting the sunset and when the sun was gone, the landscape using the moon light. With long time exposure you get bright landscape but stars in the sky. The adventure for following day was a hike called The Narrows, walking in the river bed of the river Virgin and follow it upstream by wading. In some places rather deep water. This is No. 5 on the National Geographic list of hikes in the U.S. The river is surrounded by 700m high sandstone cliffs, which makes you feel small on the bottom. Feels even a bit scary as you never know if there will be something falling down. The light down here can be fantastic, especially in the morning or evenings when the sun shines on the red sandstone peaks above and reflected down into the bottom of canyon. I had hoped that the autumn colors had come this far north, but apparently we were two months to early. I have seen pictures on Google what it can look like down there when its autumn. The combination of the red color of the mountains and the trees, and the gray/blue waters is fantastic, but what to do next time ;) The whole hike of the Narrows is 26km, but it then requires permit for the upper part. Like so many other canyons, this has flash flood. In this case it is slightly more monitored and the rangers put up information about the weather and possible flash floods just before entering.Our hike took about 10km return and took 8h, so you can imagine how 'easy' the hike is.
Next, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.

Angels Landing on the left picture taken from Zion Valley

The Ridge on Angels Landing

The view from top of the Angels Landing

Chipmunk/Jordekorre

The view from top of the Angels Landing

The Narrows

The Narrows

The Narrows

The Narrows

Zion Valley in sunset

Zion Valley in sunset

6 comments:

  1. Vilken galen natur...Fantastisk upplevelse!
    As usual, underbara bilder!

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  2. Hade hade jag aldrig vågat. Tyckte det var läskigt att gå på muren i York :) tur det finns foton istället!

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  3. Breathtaking pictures ;0) I'm not sure I could have done the first walk not that good with that kind of heights.

    /Erik

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  4. Jag läste först din fina text och tänkte att så välbeskriven naturupplevelse. Här behövs inga bilder, de finns ju redan i huvudet. Men så kom ju bilderna ändå. Dang! Klockren uppercut! Dessa måste du vara mycket stolt över, eller hur? Storslaget landskap perfekt exponerat. Mycket fint!
    / Deerhunter

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  5. Tack för era kommentarer ;)
    Klas: Jepp vissa av bilderna vart jag mycket nöjd över och kommer nog att hängas upp på väggen.

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  6. Men så otroligt fantastiskt fina bilder!! Jag blir stum av förundran över hur fina platser det finns!!

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