Pilgrimage to Zion

Today we toured Zion National Park with a park ranger.  About 30 tourists were on the shuttle bus.  We heard about the history of the park and of the Mormon settlers who arrived in this beautiful, barren land with the goal of being entirely self-supporting living off the land.

The park has such diversity of ecosystems that it offers stunning beauty and sere, high desert in a relatively short walk. We started our tour under the gaze of the West Temple and the Altar of Sacrifice.  The blood red stains gave the Altar of Sacrifice its name.

The settlers who were successful were able to create irrigation systems in order to produce enough food, but they also introduced non-native species, like peaches.  When Zion became a National Park, the NPS removed all of the non-native trees.

We understand that the terrain is changing, but that usually means that visible change happens over the course of centuries.  The second sight on our tour was a "slide" that is active and changing much more frequently.  In 2010 after a large storm and vigorous flooding, there was a significant landslide that destroyed part of the park road.  The hillside here looks raw.

The next feature we toured was the most surprising -- it was a waterfall.  It is called Menu Falls, odd name right?  So named because a picture of this waterfall graced the front of the menu at the Lodge at Zion.  That's what the locals began calling it and the name stuck.  The ranger explained that this was the oldest water in the park.  It has been carbon dated to determine that it is about 4100 years old.  I didn't realize that you could test for the age of water!  This water is held under the caps of the largest mountain peaks and it gradually seeps vertically through the layers until it encounters a barrier.  Then the water pushes along horizontally until it finds it way out.  The foliage surrounding the waterfall included maidenhair ferns and columbine.  It felt so familiar, but I'm sure our waterfalls don't have old water in them in Michigan.

We were able to get one question answered with a great story.  We saw this flower everywhere and admired it because it looks like moonflower -- but it seems to be very hardy.

This lovely flower is sacred datura and is not from the same family as moonflower.  It is poisonous.  Some people are highly allergic and react even to a small brush with the leaves.  Our ranger told us that it was used in Native American ceremonies and that it is hallucinogenic if ingested.  The hallucinations could last for up to three days!  When he told this to one of his tour groups, a woman drew him aside and said that she had consumed Sacred Datura when she was younger (a hippie girl); she told him that his explanation was completely accurate.  The things you can learn on a tour!

After the tour we walked a mile to the museum to check out the exhibits, but along the way we saw this mule deer and her kids grazing.  You have to look closely -- they are masters of camouflage.

Tomorrow we are going to do a couple of the easy hikes to some of the icons of the park - can't wait.