ZION NATIONAL PARK

The Invasion of the Moths. When we arrived in Delta, Utah on Saturday, we'd noticed a few moths flying around. On Sunday, June 1, we noticed a lot of moths flying around, which was okay because they were all outside...except they finally found a way into the RV! We never did figure out exactly where they were finding their way inside, but we must have gotten rid of at least a dozen moths, if not more.

The next day, the numbers outside decreased markedly, but days later, we were still finding moths inside...just when we thought we'd seen the last of them, another one would appear. We don't care if we never see another moth as long as we live!

Earl got some golfing in at Sunset View Golf Course and we did laundry and grocery shopping before leaving Delta.

On Tuesday, June 3, we headed south on I-15 and spent the night at Little Cottonwood Campground in the Fish Lake National Forest, east of Beaver on SR-153 ($6 with the Golden Age Card; no hookups, but drinking water available). This is a very nice, small campground -- all the sites are level and paved, and the Beaver River runs through it.

In the evening, we were taking Maxx for a walk, and we stopped to talk to a fellow camper, an older gentlemen who had grown up in Baker, Nevada at the foothills of Great Basin National Park (of course, it wasn't a national park back then). He told us of exploring Lehman Caves when he was a kid -- going down the natural entrance (which is now closed off) with only a lantern (this was way before the government got hold of the land and charged to take a tour of the caves). He was a very interesting man to talk with.

Our rig at Little Cottonwood Campground:











The next day we continued south to Hurricane, Utah, where we checked in at Brentwood RV Resort, another of our RPI parks. After setting up, we drove into St. George where we had a late lunch/early dinner at IHOP and did some grocery shopping at the Albertsons next door.

What a beautiful drive down here! The scenery changes from forested mountains, to the stark red and pink landscape around Zion National Park. Of course, the temperature changed, too -- we went from almost 6,000 feet in elevation to a little over 3,000 feet and from cool temperatures to hot (104 degrees)!

We explored Zion National Park on two separate days. The first day, we drove up the Kolob Terrace Road which overlooks the cliffs of the Left and Right Forks of North Creek. After the heat of Hurricane, it was nice and cool as we climbed up onto the Kolob Terrace to 8,100 feet in elevation into forests of pinyon, juniper, ponderosa pine, fir, and quaking aspen.

The next day we drove to Zion and took the shuttle into the park (the only way you can see the park from April through October). We took the shuttle all the way to the end of the road and hiked the Riverside Walk. This is an easy walk...it's all paved and is fairly level. On the way back, we got off at a couple of stops to take pictures and hike up to Weeping Rock where water drips out of the porous Navajo Sandstone.

There's no way of really describing the park..."awesome", "magnificent," and "beautiful" don't really do justice to the scenery as you stand at the bottom of Zion Canyon and look up at the sheer red walls which tower 2,000 to 3,000 feet above you. Zion began millions of years ago as a vast desert where winds piled sand dune upon sand dune. About one million years ago, the Virgin River started carving its way through these sand dunes -- known as Navajo Sandstone -- creating the magnificent cliffs of the park.

Views from Kolob Terrace Road:
















Views in Zion National Park: