Zion Canyon was cut by the Virgin River, leaving striking vertical walls of Navajo Sandstone towering above the softer Kayenta Formation closer to the valley floor. It's an unreal spectacle. The paved road follows the river upstream ~14mi, til the canyon gets too narrow. Then there's a paved footpath for another mile, and eventually you are free to set out right into the river and hike through the water into "The Narrows" which gets down to 10ft wide at places. This, of course, I had to check out. The cool water was awfully refreshing on my tired legs & knees! Some sections had room to hike along the sandy/rocky banks, while others were just wall-to-wall agua beneath 1000ft vertical cliffs, wading thigh-deep in the river.
An interesting feature is water seeping from the canyon walls and cracks, creating a curious stereophonic array of drips, bloops, trickles & echoes as well as feeding lush ferns and mosses. There are many "hanging gardens" high up on the walls, the last place you'd expect to find lush rainforest vegetation. Rainwater soaks in to the porous rocks on the flat tops of the rock formations and over the course of literally hundreds of years, makes its way downward until it finds a way out. They've determined some of the water fell as rain over 1200 years ago and is just now percolating out of the rocks.
I hiked upstream several miles before turning around and emerging back into the afternoon openness:
One of the most luxurious aspects of camping at Zion is that the town of Springdale abuts the west park entrance. Although it's your standard fare tourist outcropping, having immediate access to a grocery store is a godsend for any cycle tourist. Instead of packing food for its weight-vs-energy/protein ratio, browsing a market for (questionably) fresh produce & meat was pure decadence. Pair a couple local beers with dinner and I may as well be dining at the French Laundry.
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