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When the Mormon settlers reached Zion National Park, they immediately
declared that this was "The Zion" they were looking for.
Brigham Young said it was nice, but it was no "Zion".
So the name of this park should "Not Zion National Park",
but for some reason that didn't stick. Probably due to tourist reasons
and the such they actually called the place Zion. Unfortunately
the tourists flock here and make the park very crowded. Luckily
the National Park service yet again does an excellent job making
the park accessible. And despite the crowds, there are many serene
hikes including the famous "The Narrows", a 16-mile hike
through canyon walls thousand of feet tall and on a couple dozen
feet wide. This hike is highly recommended and requires a good 12-hours
of light and no thunderous downpours (or you could do it sensibly
and camp overnight halfway through). It is the best hike I've ever
done in the lower 48 states. I couldn't believe a place like this
existed in our world!
The day before hiking the Narrows, I did the relatively short Angel's
Landing hike. Angel's Landing is that giant precipitous slab of
rock in the right hand of the picture. This image is a collage of
12-pictures! It spans nearly 180 degrees and close to 90 degrees
up and down.
Now on top of Angel's Landing. Three stacked images make up this
collage which spans from straight down to horozontil and then above.
If I slipped here I would fall 1500 feet. Upon expanding the image,
you will see a white line on the road; it's a double length bus,
just to give you an idea of scale.
Here is a picture of Zion near the park entrance.
Now it's the next day and I am hiking through the narrows. Many
of the following images are vertical collages and display a wide
range of light, so the images didn't always come out right (due
to the limited dynamic range on my camera). This is near the beginning
of the high-cliff walls. The top of the picture is looking almost
looking straight up. For a sense of scale you can barely see trees
at the top of the cliff-face. Trees in these pictures give you a
sense of scale.
For miles, the hike was like this, the Virgin River carving a narrow
corridor at least a thousand feet deep. It looked like something
out of Lord of the Rings.
This was an impressive vantage point. View the full image to
try to comprehend the scale of things.
Same as last picture except its narrower and composed of five stacked
images.
You can see a person in this image. Wicked awesome!
Perhaps you have to see this all in person to truly comprehend the
setting.
This is three stacked vertical images, and the resulting picture
just barely gets the height of the canyon!
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