Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Kolob Canyons in Zion National Park -- Outstanding!

We spent the night in Cedar City, Utah with the intention to see the wonders of Zion National Park and surrounding areas. One of the lesser traveled areas of Zion Park (the main body of the park attracts over 3 million folks a year!) is the Kolob Canyon area which is located in the northern zone of the park.

As soon as we entered the park, Rick saw this little rascal crossing the road. Wow -- a huge tarantula spider! We learned that these are rather common in the park, but it sure was impressive to us to see this fellow up close!

This area of Zion National Park is amazing with one spectacular view after another. The road to the summit in this section is only six miles long, but we spent over two hours enjoying the incredible sights.

The rock formations were remarkable and the lighting on each formation was very interesting today since there were alternating clouds and sun.

Here are the intrepid explorers -- Cody and Orinda at one of the many turn offs. As you can see, there were relatively few folks sharing the visitas with us. We learned from one couple that they could not even find a place to park int he main area of Zion. Glad we explored this area.

The top of these rock formations support trees and grass -- at 8,000' in elevation. Looks like fields in the sky.

You can see the road to the left of this shot and it is typical of the scenery we saw around every turn. The colors, mostly a deep red, were unique and very beautiful.

This shot shows the many different layers of rock in many different formations. It was hard to focus on only one area with the many different views available.

Finally, Rick found another tarantula next to the car. We wondered if they liked to hunt on the road, but whatever the reason, they were impressive!

1 comment:

Chuck and Anneke's RV travels said...

Great views. Makes us rethink bypassing the area in July/Aug due to the heat.

Thanks for the tour.