Stanford Stories XXXIV - Zion National Park

After spending a night in Page, Arizona where we could witness another spectacular sunset at the Horseshoe Bend (see photo from last post), the next scenic stop of our road trip was Zion National Park. Zion Canyon - located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions in south western Utah - features amazing steep walls made of reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone eroded by the North Fork of the Virgin River.

Interestingly, former President Taft named the region Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1908. But in 1918, the acting director of the National Park service proposed to change the name to Zion because it was believed that people would not visit Parks that hard to pronounce.

We started our day by taking the shuttle bus that transports visitors into the valley during summer to the final stop called “Temple of Sinawava” - a massive “amphitheater” that unofficially marks the beginning of the canyon. Starting from there, it possible to hike into the actual canyon of the Virgin river called “the Narrows”. Although being a very hot June day in Utah, this hike is very refreshing since (a) you are in a very narrow canyon surrounded by tall sandstone walls creating tons of shade and (b) you are walking inside the shallow Virgin River for most of the time.

After this refreshment including wet feet and shoes for all of us - you need shoes to walk over the stones in the river bed - we headed back to toward the Park entrance where we once again amazed by the late afternoon sun light illuminating the red Navajo sandstone formations. Before we had to drive back to Las Vegas, we spent a last night in an Air BnB in the small town of Hurricane including dinner at “Dairy Queen” which to my surprise is not a place for ice cream and milk shakes, but instead serves good old American fast food.

All in all, we had a fantastic 3.5 day road trip around the Grand Canyon with lots of stunning views. I am very happy that we decided to go on this trip with an amazing group of colleagues and friends.