Emerald Pool hike in Zion

Like yesterday morning, we were slow to get organized. Letting the kids sleep, getting them dressed and fed, making our lunch—it was mid-morning before we got away from the motel. We stopped in Springdale to get a coffee and briefly look around.

We got to the Zion entrance station around 11 just as the visitor center parking lot was declared full. Luckily, we had our choice of roadside parking just outside entrance gate. We walked in—it was just a short ways to the visitor center and the mandatory shuttles. After a quick tour of the visitor center we took the shuttle to Zion Lodge and hiked the Emerald Pool trail to the lower pool.

Enduring the spray and drips behind the waterfall, we started up the steeper trail to the middle pool. Audree just charged up and we left the others behind. Unfortunately, we missed a fork in the trail and hiked a little ways on the trail to the Grotto trailhead. Unknown to us, the rest of the group passed us by at this point, so when we reached the middle pool we waited for a long time for them to catch up. Audree happily played around the pool and wasn’t worried that her Mom and Dad weren’t arriving.

We finally decided to backtrack, but we didn’t find them, so we just waited at the shuttle station. It turns out they had gone on up to the upper pool and returned via the upper trail.

After a crowded shuttle ride back (standing room only for me), we headed for dinner at Oscar’s. It seemed crowded on the patio but we got seated inside immediately.

Links
—Emerald Pools 2010 photo gallery