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Posts Tagged ‘Emerald Pools’

An Easy Trail With a View

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on June 22, 2012| 10 Comments »

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

The start of the trail from the Grotto shuttle bus stop. Come hike me the trail called to me. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Walk the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail With Me

Rocks form a mysterious tunnel shortly before the trail descends to the Emerald Pools. — Photo by Pat Bean

A two-mile trail between the Grotto and Zion Lodge, the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail in Zion National Park is ideal for wandering/wondering old broads like me. It has only a mild, 150-foot-elevation gain but there is something to see around every bend in the road.

The May day I walked it, I had a playful squirrel, hoping for a handout which it didn’t get, follow me for a while, saw a magnificent blue-bellied lizard, and had excellent views of the Virgin River Valley 150 feet below me.

Of course there were flowers: Indian paintbrush, columbine, shooting stars, wall flowers and daisies, just to name a few.

These were expected. What wasn’t was the short tunnel formed by rocks that one had to pass through and the opportunity to walk behind a waterfall.

The waterfall was only a trickle this day, but it was still cool to walk behind it. — Photo by Pat Bean

I wish you had been with me.

Bean’s Pat: Darla Writes http://tinyurl.com/7bl7zo6 The best writing advice ever. I promise. Tell me if you agree.  This wandering/wondering old broad’s blog pick of the day.

 

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Zion and NaNoWriMo Update

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 17, 2011| 5 Comments »

 My Favorite Places: Zion National Park

 

Emerald Pools waterfall in Zion National Park in Utah -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

There are so many different kinds of writing and so many ways to work that the only rule is this: do what works. Almost everything has been tried and found to succeed for somebody. The methods, even the ideas of successful writers contradict each other in a most heartening way, and the only element I find common to all successful writers is persistence-an overwhelming determination to succeed.” – Sophy Murnham.

NaNoWriMo Update … 28,717 words

NaNo goal of 2,000 words met, physical therapy appointment kept, drive from my daughter’s homein Dallas to my son’s place  in Harker Heights accomplished, segments of my novel written out in my head as I drove,  hugs and kisses from my autistic granddaughter, yummy liver with onions and bacon, rice and gravy and green pea dinner with family, ice cream sandwich for dessert, Survivor show watched with my son, and now I’m writing and posting my blog post.

I’m pooped but happy.

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Zion’s Emerald Pools Ensnare My Soul, But Not My Feet

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2011| 3 Comments »

“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” Freya Stark

The trail to the waterfalls begins by walking across a bridge spanning the Virgin River. -- Photo by Pat Bean

*Travels With Maggie

Today was my last day in Zion before moving on.

I spent part of it by riding the shuttle bus and simply enjoying the sights up Zion Canyon and then hiking the trail to lower and middle Emerald Pools, a 2-mile round trip with only a 150 foot gain in elevation.

The upper pool would have added an extra mile to my hike plus a couple more hundred feet in elevation gain. My body, still stiff from its lazy Texas winter, balked at the extra strain and I let it have its way.

I hadn’t walked the Emerald Pools trail in at least 10 years, and today it seemed like I had more company hiking with me than every before. It’s a colorful mountain-side, easy walk that runs past tiny running streams, dainty displays of wildflowers and musical waterfalls.

The path begins gently, and offers awesome views in every direction. -- Photo by Pat Bean

While I longed to have the path’s peaceful serenity to myself, I also rejoiced that so many others were getting a taste of Mother Nature’s wonders, too.

As I came back down the trail, I was saddened thinking about leaving this beautiful place in the morning. It’s been the same sadness I’ve felt on leaving all the awesome places I’ve been blessed and privileged to visit during the seven years my dog, Maggie, and I have been full-time RV-ers.

I grew up as a big-city girl who never got farther than 50 miles away from home until I was 14, when I took a trip from Dallas to California’s Sequoia National Park as babysitter for my aunt and uncle’s 2-year-old daughter.

That 1950’s summer vacation, with my uncle speeding across Route 66 way above the speed limit, changed me forever. It was my first glimpse of mountains and my first true brush with Mother Nature. I slept in a tent with cousins my age and learned the next morning that a bear had roamed through the campground.

I wasn’t the least bit frightened, just upset that I hadn’t seen it.

I have better sense these days than to want a bear strolling past where I’m

The end reward is the sight and sound of water falling down from the mountain. -- Photo by Pat Bean

sleeping, but I still have the desire to see one – and ever other wild creature, and every mountain, and every lake, and every redwood, and well, I guess you could say I simply want it all.

And while I would drive away from Zion in the morning sad at leaving this special place behind, I would also be eager for what the day’s journey would bring. While I know I can’t have it all, I’m going to insert as much of this country’s beauty into my soul as time will allow me.

One day I will have to allow roots to grow from my feet, but it won’t be this day, and hopefully not the next day, or the next, or the next …

*Day 17 of my journey … May 5, 2011

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Waterfalls: Add these 10 to your Bucket List

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2011| 84 Comments »

A lofty observation tower provides a spectacular view of Niagara Falls. -- Photo by Pat Bean

What’s your favorite waterfall?

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“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.” — John Muir

Travels With Maggie

 There’s a large Barnes and Noble located on Interstate 15 between Ogden and Salt Lake City. I drove by it frequently when I lived in Utah. Well, not exactly by it. Whatever vehicle I was driving, as if programmed, always took the turn leading into the bookstore’s parking lot.

Gypsy Lee, my RV, does the same thing these days for waterfalls. In fact, it will even detour many miles for a view of falling water.

OK! I admit it. I’m the vehicle programmer. The four-wheels moving my dog, Maggie, and I along only go where I tell them to go. But rarely do they pass up an opportunity to let me walk the aisles of a bookstore – Back of Beyond Books in Moab, Utah, is one of my favorites – or gaze at the tinkling splash of falling water, be it the thunderous Niagara Falls or the less noisy Firehole Falls in Yellowstone National Park.

Multnomah Falls just off Interstate 84 outside of Portland, Oregon, is one of my very favorite waterfalls. -- Photo by Kevin Kay.

While books open up the world of reality and imagination to our minds, waterfalls unfold one’s soul to magic. While logic tells us it’s simply water falling from someplace above, it appears to be so much more. I see waterfalls as Mother Nature showing off, the equivalent of a rainbow in the sky.

More importantly, a waterfall’s symphony of water pinging off rocks and into a pool below never fails to calm my spirit. You should envy me if a waterfall’s wonder doesn’t touch you in a similar way, too.

Now here’s 10 of my favorite waterfalls to add to your bucket list.

Shoshone Falls, Twin Falls, Idaho.

Multnomah Falls, Highway 84, 30 minutes from Portland, Oregon.

Yellowstone Falls, Firehole Falls and Lewis Falls, Yellowstone Falls National Park, Wyoming

Niagara Falls, New York/Canada

Gorman Falls, Colorado Bend State Park, Texas

Upper Emerald Pools’ waterfalls, Zion National Park, Utah

St. Mary’s Falls, Glacier National Park, Montana

Natural Falls, Natural Falls State Park, Oklahoma

Bridal Veil Falls, Provo Canyon, Utah

Bridal Veil Falls, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

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