See Zion in the Rain!

It has never made sense to me that winter is the ‘down’ season in Zion Park. I think it’s by far the best time to visit. To be quite frank, it’s hot down here in the summer. Maybe not ‘Death Valley’ hot, but hot enough. And, just by way of comparison, winter is the high season in Death Valley. So why can’t people see that advantage here?

Virtually everything in the park is open. For example, the grand lodge in the very heart of the canyon is open year round now and rooms are much easier to get in the winter. Most of the businesses in the gateway community of Springdale are open all year round now too.

There are more advantages.

• There are far fewer people. In fact, on the day that I took these pictures, I was completely alone in the parking lots almost all of the time.

• You can drive up the canyon. A few years ago, the Park Service finally admitted that it was just impossible to allow everyone to drive their own car up the canyon. In the summer, you are required to take a (free!) bus up the canyon. That has it’s own advantages, but there’s a certain freedom in driving your own car too.

• And it often rains more in the winter. This weekend, it rained again. When it rains in the canyon, it creates one of the most beautiful spectacles that you might ever see: the waterfalls of Zion.

Pray to be in Zion Canyon when it rains.

(Click on the waterfalls to view a larger version.)

This first shot at the Temple of Sinawava is at the very top of the canyon, just before the Zion Narrows begin. The wind was blowing the waterfall sideways. There were smaller waterfalls all around, too.

With fewer people chasing them away, deer and wild turkey are plentiful in the quiet glades along the river. Decades of being protected in the Park have brought them out into the open and increased their numbers.

Weeping Rock is where the popular East Rim trail starts. There would have been no hiking it today. The stream feeding this waterfall follows the same trail.

Emerald Pool is directly across from Zion Lodge so it’s very popular in the summer. But it doesn’t look like this unless it rains.