Mt Carmel UT to Hurricane UT
7-9-14
Day 50
Zion is another beautiful place that it would have been nice
to stay longer. But even blasting
through the park we were amazed at what we saw.
Towering rock formations at every twist and turn. Some of these cliffs were
over 2000 feet tall! About mid-way through
the park we encountered one serious switchback. This is one climbing monster that
we had the pleasure of going down for a change.
There are two tunnels in Zion one is short and the other
over a mile long. After you pay $12 per
bike to enter the park you find out bicycles are not allowed through the longer
tunnel. The park ranger told us we would
have to flag down someone in a pickup truck and have them ferry us through.
The crew hung out for a while then a blue pickup truck with
vacationing people from North Dakota stopped and graciously took us through the
long tunnel. Once on the other side we were exposed to more beauty.
Zion has plenty of wildlife in its 229 sq. mi[K1]
park also. We saw buffalo grazing in a field and long horn sheep climbing up a steep
rock face. They flew up the smooth sandstone cliffs like their hooves had
suction cups on them. One of the babies (ewe) ran across the road to its mother
right in front of Joe to feed.
As we lost elevation today the air temperature started to
rise. The day started in the 80’s at elevation 6100’ and we finished at 3150’
and near 100 degrees. The next couple of
days will be much warmer for us as we go down to desert floor at 2000’.
If all goes as planned we should arrive at Lake Las Vegas and
the end of our journey on Friday afternoon the 11th of July.
59 Easy Downhill Miles
Weather 98 degrees Sun
2850 Feet of Climbing
Thank you for the beautiful pics and the funny videos and! the describing of your awesome tour. Sometimes i had watery eyes …..
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