I stood in awe at the grandeur before me. Nature had taken the flat Utah desert as her canvas. With sand, water, and an abundance of time as the palette, the result was a masterpiece, Zion National Park.
As our car rested in front of a cabin in Springdale, Utah, a free bus shuttled us to the park. I sat smiling enthusiastically as the bus rumbled past brown brick buildings blending between mountains of rock that ruled this domain. Koren, thirteen, wasn’t impressed. She fussed with the cap on my balding head. Channie, a college freshman, adjusted her camera in preparation of getting the best picture.
Walking through the park’s entrance, Channie pointed her camera at the bubbly Virgin River. It flows between massive multicolored vertical cliffs. A river, which could be jumped in two leaps, etched out a deep canyon and valley of life.
A paved path led us to Emerald Pools. Soon the pavement was gone, a steep dirt incline took its place, and we climbed a canyon cliff. Channie grabbed hold of my belt loops in anticipation that I would haul her up the mountain. “Who you kidding?” I asked.
“Come on Daddy, I’m tired.” I looked at the clear blue sky with a wisp of a cloud above the canyon floor. A wall of dark clouds threatened on the horizon.
Koren ran ahead leading us to a series of basins carved into a rock ledge by flowing water. “Hey, look at that waterfall.” She kicked the sand and knelt to touch it. “Daddy, this stuff feels so soft and silky. I could almost walk in it barefoot.”
For a brief time, we were the only hikers. It was a silent refuge from the bustle of the city we left behind. Only the sound of falling water broke the silence of the Emerald Pools.
The next morning, after an evening shower, the air smelled pure. We returned to the park and walked Weeping Rock Trail, an easy under a mile hike where springs drip from overhead. It runs along a short steep paved path through a canyon of hanging gardens of wildflowers decorating the walls. Koren and Channie marveled at the golden and western columbine, scarlet monkey flower, and maidenhair fern. Then they took off around the bend.
My daughters patiently waited for me at the end of the trail leading to weeping rock. “You guys have a lot of energy today,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, just come over here and look at this,” Koren said.
She pointed to a huge sandstone rock dripping with water. Channie felt the wall of stone that supported the crying mountain. “It feels as soft as a baby’s butt.”
“When was the last time you felt a baby’s butt, Dork?” Koren admonished.
Redirecting, I asked, “What are your senses telling you?”
“I can hear the drip, drip, drip of the overhanging rock,” said Channie.
“And I can hear the babbling brook down below,” Koren added.
We breathed in the air, free of city pollutants. I looked upward and saw a jet painting its white tail across the blue sky. Since it was a hot day, we returned to our lodge, dressed for the pool and raced each other until we were winded. The next morning we packed our things and were off to Bryce National Park.
Mt. Carmel Tunnel highlighted the 90-minute trip to Bryce. This engineering marvel of the 1920’s was built through solid rock connecting lower Zion Canyon with the high plateaus of the east. The narrow mile long tunnel was drilled and blasted through the cliffs.
At Bryce Channie noticed the hoodoos. “They look like sand castles we used to make along the beach.” Hoodoos are bright orange pillars of sandstone of fantastic shape, left by erosion.
At Bryce Amphitheater, the largest natural amphitheater in the park, Channie said, “Here we have to look down into the canyon. At Zion we looked up. Hiking around here should be easier.”
Unlike Zion, there is little vegetation at Bryce. We noted faces and animals carved into rock. After descending a winding path Channie looked wide-eyed at the canyon walls. “We have to climb back up that thing? Where’s the elevator?”
Our hearts pumped, the sweat poured, but after 2 1/2 hours we completed our hike. Koren ran around bends performing jumping jacks as she waited for us. “Oh, to be young again,” my elder daughter mused.
Like all vacations, we had a lot more to see, but we had to return home. In the car, we occupied ourselves with word games for amusement. It was fun and we laughed for 500 miles.
Michael L. Thal, an accomplished freelancer, is the author of The Legend of Koolura, Koolura and the Mystery at Camp Saddleback, The Abduction of Joshua Bloom and Goodbye Tchaikovsky. He has written and published over eighty articles for magazines and newspapers including Highlights for Children, The Los Angeles Times, and San Diego Family Magazine.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
Wow, this took me back!