Hiked Friday, September 7.
This is a short, 1 mile roundtrip hike. I first hiked this almost 20 years ago, and intended to come back here later this night to photograph the night sky. But I forgot a tripod part, so the night hike got scrubbed. Took night shots at Canyon Junction, instead, which worked out mostly better.
The trailhead is right at the east entrance to the tunnel on the Zion-Mt. Carmel highway. If you're coming from Canyon Junction, there's a small parking lot on the right, immediately after exiting the tunnel. If you miss that, or you're not driving a compact car, there is limited on-the-side-of-the-road parking, mostly on the north side of the road. If you're coming from the east and you don't park soon enough, you're forced to drive through the entire tunnel before you'll find a place to turn around, so don't do that!
The tunnel,
according to the Park Service, was built between 1927 and 1930, and was not intended for oversized vehicles, so if you're a large camper or RV, you'll have to pay an extra fee and schedule your passage through. If you're a commercial vehicle, you'll have to go some other way.
But that means everyone who drives may need to wait for a convoy including an oversized vehicle passes one way or the other. I was waiting in just such a queue when I snapped the first shot of this post with my phone camera. Yes, I was stopped.
The trail is highly engineered, with steps cut or blasted into the rock, and railing or bridges at a few crossing areas, and at the end of the trail.
Right after passing the overhang above, I ran across a small herd of desert bighorn. They were still in the area when I walked back, maybe an hour later. Even without trying, they were no more than twenty yards from me as I passed.
The reason for the long gap in time for such a short hike is that I, like many others, waited for sunset. The canyon view looks more or less to the west, so the sunsets in the distance. On the night I was there, there were plenty of fluff clouds that I thought made the sunset pretty spectacular. But someone while I was there pronounced the sunset "a dud." I'm not sure if he was being ironic. It's hard to tell with people, sometimes.
The other thing people apparently like to do now is, rather than take photos or enjoying the sunset directly, they want to stand on a rock and be photographed as though they are somewhere precipitous. Fortunately, they apparently are good enough at Photoshop that they can just edit you out, so you don't actually have to care if they keep crowding behind you to stand on a rock and strike a pose while their friends take their pictures.
In the old days, you could just take a picture of a place, and people could tell by your having taken a picture that you were there. Now, however, it's apparently required to place yourself in the picture, with that very special pose. Even the "I'm gazing out and enjoying the sunset in solitude" shots need to be posed, reviewed, and reshot, which would seem to me to make it really hard to actually "enjoy the sunset." But that's just me. I spend the time around sunset watching the changing colors and shadows of the clouds and landscape around me. These moments are fleeting enough that I don't want to be distracted with how I or someone else looks in their selfie or "candid" moments. Yep, grumpy old man!
