Zion: Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot!

see all photos »

Before I get to Zion, a quick interlude. Although we are confident many of you have stopped checking this blog since we never update it, we would like to briefly toot our horns. This was our Editor's Pick write-up:

http://blog.realtravel.com/2007/07/04/the-american-road/

Pretty park, but hard to enjoy when you are a sweat factory.

Apparently, this site is monitored (possibly maintained? I don't know & Jon is in the game room playing Shinobe) by the San Francisco Gate and every two weeks they do a write-up on their editor's pick. They erred a mite here and there, but we forgive them and are glad to have somebody else make our vacation seem glamorous.

see all photos »

So, Zion. One of the things I've been doing on this trip to keep myself entertained is compulsively checking the weather via Google Text. (I don't have enough battery power right now to explain how to do that; google's web site can if you need.) Anyway, I was under the impression that once we got into Utah, the temperature would drop. At least that's what Google Weather told me.

But it liked like a dirty dog. See the temp on the dash after lunch at Subway about 40 miles from Zion. It was still well over a hundred when we pulled into the park and remained that way until after sunset. Pretty park, but hard to enjoy when you are a sweat factory. After sundown we took the little shuttle ride up and down the park, which was nice. Zion has a brilliant thing where you can't drive your own car to the scenic overlooks, you have to take the shuttle. Because it's a small park, this is a reasonable and very environmentally friendly proposition.

see all photos »

In addition to it being hot, there were scattered thunderstorms and the ranger told us fires had already broken out in the park from lightning. We decided to be bold and camp anyways, and the temperature did eventually drop to a reasonable level.

We got up very early in the morning to hike before it became a disco inferno again and had a brief chat on the shuttle bus with a father and son who had just come from Moab, Utah (where there are other parks, maybe Arches? I don't remember) where it was even hotter. According to Pops, the temp at 4 a.m. in Moab was 98 degrees. Unfortunately he was not talking about a boy band. As usual it was nice to remind ourselves that it could have been worse.

see all photos »

The morning hike was nice, as was a big breakfast afterwards at the Lodge. We went back to camp, packed up Tentus Maximus (as we've taken to calling our beloved lodging) and rolled out. Zion is pretty, but I think if you're going to go, don't go when it's July. Also, before we left, I was in the bathroom and ran into a woman who had hiked 8 miles into the Zion Narrows where she was going to camp for the night, only to find that the forest fires were raging and she was literally smoked out. So she turned around and hiked 8 miles back in the dark.

As I said, it could always be worse. Luckily, many good things awaited us in Bryce, not the least of which was cooler weather...