The weekend of 29 Jan 10, Tracy and I headed down to Page, AZ.  We hadn't been to that

side of Lake Powell in a long time, and I wanted to explore the roads north of the lake.  So we

spent Friday night in Mt. Carmel, and then on Saturday we drove towards Page.  When we

started driving on Saturday, though, we were surprised by how much snow there was.  But I

had looked at some webcams of Page before we left, and I felt confident that there was no

snow once we got to the lake.  Well, when we got there, I was right: there was no snow around

the lake.  There was plenty of snow south of the lake, but right around the lake itself there was

no snow.  But when we drove down Smoky Mountain Road, Wahweap Creek was really

swollen.  We might have been able to cross it, but I didn't have much hope that all of the roads

I wanted to explore north of the lake would be dry enough to drive.  Also, there were no tire

tracks leading across the creek, so I felt like others hadn't been risking the crossing.  Well, that

blew the plans, because there are really no other outdoor activities around Page, because

everything else is on the Navajo Reservation.  So, we decided to just drive around and explore

other places.  We headed down to Lee's Ferry, and really enjoyed it down there.  There was a

group heading out on the Colorado River, and we were finally inspired to add floating the

Colorado to our Life List.  We hiked a little down Paria Canyon, and just enjoyed walking on dry

ground.

We kept driving back west on Saturday, and ended up in Springdale, UT, outside of Zion.  We

got a room in Springdale, and then spent an hour or so hiking in the dark in Zion.  We were

hoping the full moon would light up the canyon, but the clouds never really broke enough for

the moon to shine through.  We then went back into town and walked around there for awhile.

On Sunday we went back into Zion and hiked the loop around Emerald Pool.  The trail was

nice, with some good views of waterfalls, and I enjoyed hiking behind the falls.  However, there

was more snow and ice than I wanted to deal with, and it definitely made me think Angels

Landing was out of the question.  We then drove to the end of the canyon and decided to head

home.  We drove a little back into the park on Kolob Reservoir Road, but there was too much

snow to do any hiking without snowshoes, so we headed back home.

We pretty much decided that Zion didn't offer much that you couldn't find in other places in

Utah.  And Zion has more people than we like.  I still want to hike the Narrows, but other than

that, I don't know how much time we'll spend in Zion.