A Short Time in Zion National Park

Last year I took a west trip in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California where I did much exploring and hiking. First time I had experienced the “west” of the United States as we see it. A lot different from the North West of America like Oregon and Washington where there were tons of tall trees to this land of rock, dust and short sage brush.

Zion National Park is one of five National Parks in Utah and probably is the one that is most visited. It was extremely packed at that time of year, June, and it was hard to enjoy the nature and scenery in the late afternoon. The traffic congestion was awful, I sat in traffic for 1 hour to go 3 miles to the visitor center. There were many hikes I had in mind to do but there were queues for the trail. I never heard of something like that. The scenery was awesome though and I am glad that I made the stop here. I wanted to hike up the narrows as well but the water level and amount was to much for people to go up the Virgin River.

Images taken with an X-Pro2, The Virgin River below looking up the “trail” into the Narrows and the bottom is the Virgin River flowing through Zion Canyon with The Watchman standing in the back.

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Painted Hills

I’m really glad my girlfriend mentioned the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in the Central part of Oregon. It was a different land coming from Portland and the mountains. Dry but still wonderful. This is really the first dry place I visited in my life. The heat wasn’t to bad as it was not really humid which I’m use to experiencing in Virginia during the Summer. There were a lot of interesting formations and the Painted Hills were really interesting. There was hardly anyone out there, we had the place to ourselves most of the time.

Taken with a X-Pro2 and Rokinon 12mm lens

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Bend in the road

Olympic National Park is a large park a a lot of it can not be visited at all unless you get out of your car and hike in. I wish I had the time but I was on the road to see a lot. This is from a popular area Hurricane Ridge  that is accessible from Port Angeles Oregon. Lovely area but can get busy later in the day.

Taken with a Fujifilm X-Pro2 and Rokinon 12mm lens

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River of Rocks

I wish I was able to spend more time up by Mt. Saint Helens. It was gorgeous there and I may have lucked out with such awesome skies to go hiking. I guess this is from a flow for rain and or the glacier melting. I couldn’t find any water running just rocks/boulders. This is the back side of Saint Helens as the other side has the gaping hole from where it erupted.

Taken with a X-Pro2 and 18-55mm lens

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