Zion National Park, established in 1990 and I am sad to say, like Bryce, a place I had not heard of until about 5 months ago….

The drive from Bryce was a mere 2 hours and unremarkable the only point of interest was the fact that we had to have an escort through one of the tunnels because of the vehicle size. This in fact was just a traffic flow management exercise with a ranger simply saying “drive down the middle”

Zion itself is, as you would expect stunning, high peek mountains, sheer cliffs and wildlife galore! Our camp place was place just at the bottom of a pretty big mountain which gave a rewarding view from the bedroom and for the first time we had electricity to plug into, what a luxury.

On our first day we tramped up a river with what I would estimate would have been a couple thousand other people. it was different and even pleasant at times but goodness it was hot, hitting the 40C mark. All of these national parks are serviced by free shuttle buses. they are good and convenient but they do get busy especially in Zion. We ended what was quite a strenuous river walk with wet gritty feet to be met with a queue of people that in the uk would have taken hours to get rid of but here, it was no problem, there was a continuous stream of buses which meant a wait of less than 15 minutes. Thats how you do it!

Day two in Zion and we had an early morning start to go canyoning. Our guides were two young new yorkers who had moved out the capital of canyoning to enjoy life. It was every thing we wanted it to be, fun, challenging , scary and oh yes fun! There was one point when we were talking about extreme sports and mentioned some guy who had recently died doing a wing suit jump in Yosemite. One of the guides mentioned that he had “passed”. This is one of those strange things you encounter with extreme sport people and especially american ones, “passed”? Not being mean but the guy jumped of a very high cliff and misjudged it a little, in my books that is not what I would called “passed”….. Any how absailing walking negotiating tight squeezes and enjoying stunning scenery was all part of the experience. I think the kids enjoyed it too.

The rest of the last day we spent walking through the little town near the campsite stopping for a drink and the hope of wifi. This was our first experience of really bad service YES it does happen here, i was pretty happy to be treated poorly in a restaurant just to be able to say its not all perfect here! how weird.

Next up Yosemite!

Oh yes, some snakes, lizards, big bugs but no lions.