Saturday May 9th 2009...Zion Campground

We have been having an issue with something at the campground--it seemed right out of a horror movie. We were having an INVASION OF THE CATERPILLARS!! Yuck, Yuck and Yuck. They were everywhere and I mean everywhere--car, tent, ground...yes even in my hair. I would be standing there and all of a sudden I would feel one hit my head. Gross...we would be in the tent and just hear what sounded like rain--and it was the caterpillars. Here is the awful tree...

If you look really close...you can see at least 7-8 on the tire...

Does this make my butt look big?

Let me tell you...these little things made clean up horrible. After staying at Zion for 4 nights, the ones we didn't brush off right away made new cocoon's and we had to physically take them off. They were just gross and I hope that we got all of them!

Today's plan was to head and do Observation Point trail which is 8 miles with an elevation gain of over 2000 feet! I thought yesterday was high! We started at the Weeping Rock trailhead and started the hike. On the way back down, we also went to Hidden Canyon.
Here are some pretty flowers along the trail


This was a really cool section of the trail...



This trail had sections of dropoffs...

The view from the top...

These are some really neat sections on the trail...Jason on a bridge...

You can see Jason in both of these pictures--he is in the upper corner in the right one...just gives an idea of where we were hiking...

Strangers on the trail...

Sandstone swirls...


When we were heading back to the trailhead, we did the detour to Hidden Canyon.

Isn't there a song titled Stairway to something?

These are taken back in Hidden Canyon...we had to scale a log to get up one section!

This is an example of the walls back in Hidden Canyon...sheer walls...straight up! It looks like this is a horizon picture but it's not--the sky is at the top!

We decided to go back in Hidden Canyon to the arch...


We decided to eat lunch at the trailhead and then head to weeping rock. Basically, water is absorbed into the sandstone and when it reaches a layer of rock that isn't porous, the water runs horizontally and 'weeps' out of the rock. It was kind of cool...

If you look closely, you can see the water drops...


This is us at the top of Observation Point. You can see Angel's Landing in the background.

After we were done hiking, we stoped by the museum to see the historical movie on Zion. We hiked back to camp on the Pa'rus Trail...We pretty much did every trail in the park. We hiked 12 miles total today for a trip total of 70 miles.