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.