Hiking the Zion Canyon Overlook with friends

Another sunny and warm day here in the Zion National Park.

Today we gathered to drive over to the east end of the big tunnel within the park and go hike the Canyon Overlook Trail, which we thought was rated easy but was really rated moderate.

Boy, was it moderate.  My ankle still hurts.  Still, not too bad a trail.

 Martha and Bridget at near the beginning of the trail

After a couple of false turns where I lost the trail, we finally made it to the overlook point:

Closeups of the far rock formations:

After a little waiting for clueless fellow hikers to move out of the picture, here's the group resting at the overlook:

Then it was time to return to the trailhead, Bridget and I lagged behind as usual:

We caught up with Martha and so they posed at one of the points on the trail that seemed nice:

 One last look

We all made it safely back to the trailhead, which is pretty steep as well, and drove back to camp.  The ladies went to the museum while the men hung out at the campsites.  Turns out, one of the pictures they saw in the museum depicted a thin arch on which a farmer had been standing back in the late 1800s.

Bridget, spotted the same arch as they walked back from the visitor center:

 Maybe the arch is wider closer up, but I wouldn't go up or down

this arch the way it appears now.

After I took Martha in the sidecar to get some laundry and a shower in, I rode to the tunnel area to get some shots of the mountains and rock formations:

 Our campsite's background, not too shabby

 Waiting for some construction delays enroute to the tunnel

 The overhang/arch near the last switchback before the west

end of the tunnel

Following are the rock formations, peaks visible as one descends from the west side of the Zion Tunnel into the park:

Back at camp, after retrieving Martha from the showers/laundry, it was just relaxing while waiting for the sunset hour.  I didn't have far to go, couldn't really capture the sun itself as there were no clouds and high mountains to the west so I settled for how the light illuminated the peaks visible from our campsite:

Another good day in Zion NP, tomorrow we head towards Page, AZ for different type of pictures.