Mini Family Vacation -- Zion

Sunday we went on a little mini family vacation. It was free entrance weekend to the national parks so we headed out to Zion. This time Ashlee and Brian went with us. We met Jessica in Springdale and headed for the shuttle. For being free there really wasn't alot of people there. It was really nice. We decided to ride the shuttle all the way to the end and then stop at the Emerald Pools hike on the way back. We got off at the Temple of Sinawava to play in the river for a while. It was alot higher than last year and freezing.
Apparently while we were there someone got a little to far out into the water so some people made a train and got them out. There were three people over by the rock that they helped.

Also there was a cute litte squirrel there to entertain us. Someone had dropped some food and this little squirrel found it. We didn't get close to it because it looked a little sickly but it was still fun to watch. It wasn't afraid of people at all.

After playing in the water we headed back to the shuttle that took us back to the lodge so that we could hike to Emerald Pools. It was a alot hotter than we were use to so most of our water was already gone. They have a little store there so we went in looking for some bottled water. Well they don't sell bottled water. You can purchase their water bottles to fill up. The cheapest bottle was $7. So since we needed some we purchased a couple of them and filled them up. The water in the fountains was not cold so that was kind of gross. Anyway after we got the water situation taken care of we headed out to the lower emerald pools. It is a pretty easy hike. There are a few hills but not to bad. When we got to the lower ones Jessica, Austin and Ashlee didnt want to go to the others but the rest of us did so off we went to the Middle pool and then on to the upper pool. It was quite a hike but the upper pool is really pretty.

This is the scenery around the lower Emerald Pool.


Jessica kept the camera so the pictures of the Upper Pool are not very good but they are all we could get.
There is a water fall that comes through the middle crack in the cliff and falls just behind where the guys are standing. It is really pretty there.

This is what they did while we were hiking.

Once you get past the Middle pool there is another trail back to the logde so Stuart and I decided that we would take that route and the kids went back the way we came. Here we are on our own.

This shows where we really were compared to where the girls and Austin waited for us.

This is us starting our hike all by ourselves. The rest of them were to tired to hike more. I guess you could say this was our anniversary hike since it really was our anniversary. 24 Years. Wahoo!!!