The Trip--Day Five

 Almost by accident, Jeremy found out that the headquarters for Matt's Off-Road Recovery was just a block from where we were staying in Hurricane, Utah. Unfortunately it was Sunday and the garage was closed, but Jeremy and the kids had fun looking through the fence to see vehicles they recognized from this youtube channel. Matt and his team rescue vehicles in Zion, Grand Canyon and surrounding areas. It's quite amazing where people get themselves stuck!

Today we went into Zion National Park. That entailed finding a parking spot outside of the park, taking a shuttle to the main entrance of the park, going through the ranger station, and then getting on another shuttle to the point in the park where you want to go. 

Our plan was to the the Riverside Walk which was at the farthest shuttle stop. That worked out well. We got to see a lot from the shuttle and the driver gave us an entertaining history of the park as we rode. 

Riverside Walk was a super easy trail. Wide enough, paved in some places, sandy in others. 

It followed a stream that led us to the Virgin River. 

When you walk out into the river, this is the view. This is also the trailhead for The Narrows, which is a river walk trail upriver through slip canyons. 

Aliza, Isaiah, and I changed shoes and walked around. The water was cold which felt really good! 

This was definitely my favorite part of the day. 

Two days ago we were on top of the canyon. Today we were in the bottom of a canyon. It puts in perspective how small we actually are!

And since I planned this adventure, there was another hike today! We did the Lower Emerald Falls trail. The sun was a bit lower in the sky by mid/late afternoon and the trail was mostly in the shade. 

There was a lot of complaining happening--by one person in particular. 

This was the Lower Emerald Pool. There was some mist and trickle that counted as a waterfall. The person who was complaining did not think this was worth their effort at all. 

With the promise of ice cream at Canyon Creamery, when we got out of the park, the complaining lessened a bit and we all made it out of the park with most of our sanity in tact. 

 

Pineapple Pomegranate Dole Whip was refreshing! However, I will never pay the price for Dole Whip again!!

 We had our dessert before supper. It was another pool evening for Isaiah, ping pong, and a movie.