Snow, Zion National Park

denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,220 moderator
edited March 15, 2011 in Journeys
By the end of January I knew I needed a quick escape from our New England winter. I had a long weekend in mind, and I started looked for a good place to visit with my camera. My criteria? It needed to be interesting, it needed to be a place to converse with nature, it needed to be a non-stop flight away.

I hadn't been to Zion National Park for three years, so that quickly jumped to the top of my list. Yes, I know, it's winter. I knew that there could be snow at higher elevations, but I assumed that walking on the valley floor would be quite reasonable. I booked a flight, a place to stay, a rental car for the last weekend in February.

Little did I know that my choice of destinations would drop me into another version of winter!

As the date of my trip got closer, I started watching the weather forecast. Uh oh! Snow was in the forecast, the snow level was dropping, and the predicted high temperatures during the day were well below the norm. I was still hoping for walkable trails but I did add a pair of winter walking boots to my bag.

February 25th started with a late flight because of snow. My flight originated in Manchester, NH, and there was snow on the ground and snow on the planes. De-icing was the first step, then a non-stop hop to Las Vegas. Next stop, landing, luggage, and rental car....

My drive to Sprindale ended at the Zion Canyon B&B where Liz made me feel right at home. It was relatively late in the day but I still headed out for a walk to shake out of travel mode.

Saturday morning I woke to the sound of rain, as expected.

The view from my room:
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After a wonderful breakfast I headed into the park, stopping at the visitor center to check on trail conditions. Both Refrigerator Canyon and Walters Wiggles on the trail to Angel's Landing and the West Rim trail were icy. I'd expected that and decided that staying low was the right choice for me for this trip. Given that the snow was supposed to intensify during the day and overnight I chose to drive to the end of the road in the morning. There was always the chance that it would be closed past Zion Lodge if the snow continued, better to drive it while I could.

The road gathered elevation slowly with the precipitation changing from rain to snow just before the Court of the Patriarchs.

My first stop was at the Court of the Patriarchs where I managed to stay on my feet on the short but slippery walk up to the overlook.
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I drove to the end of the road and walked (sometimes slid!) down the Riverside Walk. When I reached the end I was greeted by an array of tiny snowpeople. This one jumped out and insisted on a photo:
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The streaks in this photo? There's nothing on my lens - that's snow!
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I went to Iceland last fall without an umbrella and I regretted it. As soon as I got home I added a tiny travel umbrella to my "must bring" travel list, and I was so glad I had it on this trip. The snow I was tramping through was falling fast and wet.

Heavy snow changed to lighter snow, and low clouds and mist graced the landscape.
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The snow changed back to rain as I returned to Springdale - but sometime in the night snow dropped on Springdale, apparently a pretty uncommon occurrence. This is what I saw from my window on Sunday morning:
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I again stopped at the visitor center before heading out. The road was closed at Zion Lodge, and the road leading to the east, up and through the tunnel was icy enough that it needed 4-wheel drive.

I walked the (paved) Pa'rus trail, then continued walking up the road to the Court of the Patriarchs before reversing direction. There was some occasional light snow, but conditions were much better than the day before.
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As I reached the Pa'rus trail on my return walk, the sky started to lighten with occasional views of patches of blue and light on the rock.
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Afternoon, road conditions changed and I took a drive up through the tunnel to see the snow on the other side.
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The sky continued to clear. I was treated to light playing on Watchman Mountain as I stood on the deck outside of my room, watching the colors change as the sun dropped lower and lower.
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On Monday I was treated to Zion under blue skies, my last morning in the park before heading back to Las Vegas for the flight home.
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If you're interested, more photos are available in my gallery Zion in white.

If you happen to jump over to my blog entries from this trip you'll see that most of them were written by Rover, my (little) travel companion. Here's a shot of him in Red Rock Canyon from our trip back in December:
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Zion is beautiful in the snow!

--- Denise

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