Fun in the Sun Road Trip, Days 31-35, North through Zion

Finally time to head north, we set off from the Tombstone Territories on a route that will take us through Las Vegas and drop us at Zion National Park. The first stop north is a smallish BLM campground north of the cowboy town of Wickenburg to Burro Creek campground. One unexpected benefit of this route was that the road is called the Joshua Tree Forest highway, so in addition to the many variety of cactus we’ve seen on this trip, we got to go through this beautiful Joshua Tree forest. Not what we normally expect of a forest by Washington standards, but a forest of trees nonetheless. Burro Creek was a nice campground down inside a canyon, with an actual creek running at the bottom. Dry campsites with fairly nice restrooms (no showers). I rate it an ‘8”. We regularly cross bridges over creek and riverbeds in Arizona, only to find them all dry this time of year, so finding real water was a treat. 

The second day, we camped shy of Vegas in the Lake Mead NRA “Boulder” campground. Lake Mead is of course created by Hoover Dam and is the largest man made reservoir in the western hemisphere. Boulder campground was also a dry campground (no power, water or sewer hookups) and like most national campgrounds also had no showers (luckily we have one in the trailer). The sites were large enough, but we noticed a lot of traffic in the area and there was construction going on in the campground, so it was noisy. I suspect this place would be crazy in the summer with the boaters.  

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned, we had to stop in Vegas to drop by the company that makes the cultured stone forms we bought. They sent us some replacement forms to replace some that were defective, but the replacement ones didn’t have rock sizes we liked. So, to save shipping we dropped them off, and they are going to mail us new ones.

We zipped through Vegas as soon as we could en route to Zion National Park. We skirted by Zion many years ago, when we took a camping trip with the boys. We saw the surrounding parks (Bryce, etc) on that trip, but not Zion. It is a really gorgeous, majestic park that I high recommend you see if you haven’t already. We spent three nights in Zion and took a driving trip east through the 1-mile tunnel built in 1930, took a bike ride (first family ride we took on this trip), walked a few nature trails, and drove up canyon to the lodge. We also saw a small herd of big horn sheep. There pictures surely don’t do the beauty of the park justice, but here goes anyway …

 

We stayed at Watchman campground which is very near the south entrance of the park.  It is a great campground nestled in Zion canyon, with electricity at the sites, but no water. Again, no showers, but the bathrooms are superb! They also have a large “tents only” section which is nice and allow no generators. The “South” campground nearby is also very nice and many site sit next to a stream, but dry camping. The nearby town of Springdale has groceries, gas, and of course … tee shirts and other gifts.

Day two we took a trip up canyon and saw several groups of rock climbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the road is the “river walk” path, which is a paved 1.5 mi trail that leads into a narrow canyon formed by the river. Where the trail stopped, some keep going by hiking in the stream. I read that the canyon walls get as close at 10 feet across.

Further on, we stopped at the trail of the Monarchs.

Lastly, we took a 1-mile trail to “the lower emerald pool” and falls. People seemed surprised that we haul Kyle up and down those trails in his wheelchair. We make Kyle walk the steep ones.