Today is our last day of this Christmas holiday. To end up this wonderful Christmas break, we decided to hike to the Lower Emerald Pool at Zion. The hike starts across the Zion Lodge (where we had our Christmas dinner).
You can hike three trails that respectively lead to the Lower, the Middle and the Upper Emerald Pools. As of January 4th only the Lower Emerald Pool trail was open because of the snow and ice.
Our trail was icy but practicable with caution. As you will see on the pictures below, the scenery is breathtaking. The nice part of walking this trail in January is that it is not as crowded as it will be during the summer months. As the trail is quite narrow this was most appreciated. Having snow added greatly to our enjoyment. Hikers usually describe the emerald pools as an oasis in the middle of the desert. The excitement was such to walk on a trail covered in ice and snow with the Virgin River flowing on the right hand side and the red cliffs on the left that in my wonderment I told my family how meaningless was the fact they were starting to be peckish. Looking at my family faces I realized that I was the only one ready to skip a meal! We enjoyed our picnic facing the waterfall at the Lower Emerald Pool. Besides the fact that I had planned a hearty picnic, we had to cut short the final course as our hands were changing color from the cold. Sabrina commented on the fact that nobody can mistake that I am French because (1) I was sorry to have forgotten our paper plates and (2) I was telling my family what food to eat together and in which order! They are slow learners… but I shan’t give up! This hike is family friendly and worth doing at different seasons to experience the changes in the waterfalls and the vegetation.
View of the Virgin River
The colors of the sandstone rocks at Zion never cease to amaze me!
The bridge crossing the Virgin River between Zion Lodge and the Emerald Pools
