Zion Nat'l Park, Day 2: Mt.Carmel tunnel and Kolob Reservoir Drive

Tuesday was a hang-out day with a couple of long cat walks through the hills at Quail Creek State Park, but Wednesday (March 8^th) we resumed our exploration of the area.  It was just one of those days… the best laid plans, and all that jazz… 

We had intended on doing a strenuous 7-1/2 mile hike up to Cable Mountain, which overlooks Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park. But… after a 2-1/2 hr commute through Zion Park (including road construction delays) we got within 1-1/2 miles of the trailhead before we finally aborted the hike. The road to the trailhead was snowy with thick mud that just kept getting thicker. We were at ~ 6,300 ft. elevation, and John was afraid we would get stuck that far in (and would have to be hauled out from that far in) so we backed out a ways and turned around. 

Entrance to the tunnel, west side.

We spent some time going through the Mt. Carmel tunnel in Zion park, which is a 5,600 ft (~1 mile) long tunnel that was blasted through the mountain between 1927 and 1930 at a cost of $1.9 million, in order to provide access to the Zion National Park from the east.  It was very cool to see it and drive through it. 

Exit from the tunnel,east side.

View from the tunnel!

One of the windows that provides light in the tunnel

There are “windows” in the tunnel which provided the workers with somewhere to dump rubble, and John thinks also to just figure out where the heck they were in the course of the blasting operation.  He noticed that the tunnel changed direction slightly at the site of most windows.

We then did a short (1 hr) hike up to the Canyon Overlook that looks down upon the mouth of the Zion Canyon and parts of the Pine Valley Canyon.  The views were amazing – both of the canyons below and looking back at the tunnel behind us.  It was nice to be able to get out and do a hike after all. We noticed that the scenery in this section of the Park (east side) was very different than the SW side of the Park, with more trees and greenery.

Canyon lookout

Looking back at the road that enters the tunnel on the East side

We drove straight through the Zion Park after our hike, and exited on the west side, headed for the Kolob Reservoir Scenic Byway (one of the drives in our Utah book).  Our Plan B to finish off our day. 

There were some great examples of "Rockfall Scars" - something that we've seen throughout the Park... it's when there are large "divets" left in the cliffs and walls after major rockfalls have occurred.

Rockfall Scar

Hoo doos!

Cactus growing in front of rocks

The first several miles reminded us of the Drumheller area of Alberta – well, at least on one side of the road!  The other side looked more like the East side of Zion Park, with soaring towers but with trees.  John commented that it was so unusual to be on a road with two vastly different canyons on each side of it! What we really like about this area is that the various canyons look differently from each other, which makes for interesting sight-seeing.  It’s not like we’re seeing the same thing day after day.

For the second time today, we had to abort our plans!  This time, it was at about 6,950 ft., where we were in such deep snow on the road that John was worried we would get stuck (and we were in 4WD already!)  So… once again, we backed down a ways, and John made what he called a perfect 27-point turn on the narrow road to get turned around.  We made it about ¾ of the way through the “scenic drive” and then got to enjoy it again going the other direction!

I call this "the army"...  looks like soldiers to me

I love these "castles"

Gorgeous vista

By that time, we were out of modifications for our day, so we just headed back to the trailer, got the cats out for a nice long walk with the sun low, and cooked up a nice pork roast in the oven to warm the trailer.  Oh yah, and had a bottle of nice red wine! Sometimes, you just have to "go with the flow"...