13th day: Zion and Bryce canyon

That was the first day of bigger loop we made around Las Vegas at that time. We hired an SUV for it as we had it in mind to go off road as well, where it is going to be possible. We got a V8 Grand Cherokee and left LV early in the morning, with the destination Zion NP.

Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft at Horse Ranch Mountain.

The Historic period begins in the late 18th century with the exploration of southern Utah by Padres Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez. The padres passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center on October 13, 1776, becoming the first people of European descent known to visit the area. In 1825, trapper and trader Jedediah Smith explored some of the downstream areas while under contract with the American Fur Company.

Today thousands of tourists visit the park every day. You can not enter anymore by car, there are busses driving around in the park. We ve been there just after some heavy rain and had to walk therefore in water, which was not easy, because of the rocks on the bottom. It hapened in the past several times that tourists were cut away the exits because of sudden rains.

We continued thereafter direction Bryce Canyon, which we reached just before sunset. It was a really nice drive just escaping several rainstorms.

We spent the night at Ruby s Inn a family run hotel/motel gift store complex at the entrance of the Bryce Canyon. The family moved here in the 1920s, when there was nothing yet only some farmers spread around. They ve got the land almost free and lived for some years as simple dairy farmers. One their neighbors Bryce brought into their attention that there is a useless but quite nice hole on their land. Indeed it was nice and the family liked it so much that they started to invite friends and relative to visit it. The next year they made a camp with 2 tents along the rim. That I show it is started. Today it is one of the most famous and visited NP s of the US with millions of visitors 3 Best Western Hotels several motels and gift stores on the still family run property.


More pics
https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/USA2005#