I woke up at 5am this morning to shoot the sunrise on the Towers of the Virgins in Zion National Park. The park was pretty when we drove through it briefly around sunset last night, but it was positively gorgeous this morning. The red light of morning light up the rock formations brilliantly and produced some wonderful contrasts. We’ll see how the photos turn out, but I’m fairly confident they’ll turn out well.

Around 7am, my dad and I packed up our gear and headed back to the hotel to wake up Scott, Sarah and my Mom. Got there around 7:30 and finally made it out of the hotel around 10am. We headed into the park and took the shuttle bus into the scenic drive of teh canyon (from late March through (or until, I can’t remember) November, the only access is via the parks free shuttle service. They run every 6 to 8 minutes during the peak hours of the day, and it does ease congestion quite a bit.

The park is undoubtedly pretty, and the walk along the river towards the narrows is a lot of fun, though it’s rather crowded. (I can’t recall a single time that we didn’t see other people around us.) Unfortunately, we didn’t bring the proper gear with us to hike through the Narrows (the canyon narrows significantly, constricting at its tightest point to 18 feet). Oh well, it’s a trip for another time, and I will be back eventually.

By the time we worked our way back through the park to our car for lunch, with a five hour drive ahead of us, it was time to roll out… with a quick hour or so detour along Carmel Highway to look at the park approaching from the east. It’s an entirely different view and well worth the time to drive it.

An uneventful trip back to Hill AFB, and now… definitely time for sleep.

Travel Distance: 335 miles