We had set our alarms for around 7am on Day 7, because we did NOT want to miss the sunrise at Bryce Canyon! We were like a 5 minute walk from Sunrise Point, so we figured that was probably a great place to watch the sunrise. The weather was perfect (it was a little chilly, but nothing our jackets couldn't fix!), and the sunrise was AMAZING.
After we watched the sunrise, we packed up all of our stuff into our car, and we started our drive to Zion (and had Cheerios in the car for breakfast). We accidentally went in the back entrance of Zion National Park, which meant that we had a looooooong crazy drive (including a super long tunnel that was over a mile long and only one direction of cars could go through at a time!) until we got to the front of the park where the Visitor Center, campground, etc was located. We went to our campsite and set up our tent, etc, and we made lunch (mac-n-cheese and hot dogs) and we had to eat in our car because there were a ton of wasps!
After we finished our lunch, we walked over to the Visitor Center to get advice on some trails. And because Zion is such a huge and popular park, you have to take the park shuttle to get anywhere! To be honest, when we first got to Zion we weren't loving it... It just felt SO busy and crowded, and the whole idea of needing to take a shuttle everywhere really felt like an amusement park or something instead of a national park. So, we were trying REALLY hard to have an open mind and a positive outlook about Zion, but it definitely wasn't love at first sight. Anyways, back to our day: After talking to the ranger at the Visitor Center, we took the park shuttle over to The Grotto, and then started the Kayenta Trail to the Lower and Upper Emerald Pools. The hike to the Lower Emerald Pools was beautiful and easy, but the hike to the Upper Emerald Pools was pretty darn tough!
The Upper Emerald Pools!
Upper Emerald Pools! You can see how the water is running down the side of that mountain into the pool...
Here's a little waterfall we had to walk under on our hike back.
Lower Emerald Pools
The hike ended back at the Zion Lodge, where we caught another shuttle back to our campground. When we got to our campsite, we hopped into our car to drive into the nearby town to pick up our rental gear to hike The Narrows the next day. The rental facility also had us watch a safety video for hiking The Narrows, and that was very useful and informative! We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in town, and then headed back to our campsite where we enjoyed our campfire for the rest of the evening. We toasted some marshmallows for dessert, and went to bed decently early so we could get a nice early start the next morning. Oh, and I should mention: Day 7 was our first day without rain!! So that was pretty lovely :)
This is a picture I took while we were at a gas station in town. Can you imagine having these views from your local gas station?? Crazy...
This is a view of the moon and a mountain from our campsite! We were sitting by our campfire just enjoying the scenery. It was gorgeous.
Just having fun in front of our campfire!
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