May 7 - Full Zion Day

Knowing how crowded conditions were at the park, we planned to get up early and beat most of the crowds to the trail and we managed to be successful. We were out of our campsite around 7:35 and on the trail to the Emerald Pools by 7:55. It was so nice to have the trail to ourselves for the first mile or so. Once that time was up, the crowds descended! Still, it was a great 2.5 mile hike with decent elevation gain, especially at the end.

We finished our hike and headed to the Human History Museum via bus. It was underwhelming with a few exhibits and the movie down for maintenance. We headed back to our campsite where we grilled burgers and zucchini for lunch. Quite tasty! After lunch I worked on the blog and Haley rested in the car. It is rare we keep our car bed set up during the day because we rarely camp in the same site two nights in a row. We're here three nights.

Later in the afternoon we decided to do a stroll in the valley. It was a nice walk along the Virgin River that runs through Zion Canyon. The only issue was we noticed the clouds building and we got lightly sprinkled on. 

We headed back to our campsite by 4:00 to relax for the rest of the evening - or so we thought.

We built a fire around 6:00 and had subs for dinner. The fire was burning great - until the rain came. This was our first real rain while camping and everything held up well. We hung out under our tent canopy, trying to keep things dry and clean and were mostly successful. The very heavy rain for 25 minutes caused the mud to splash on our stuff some, but other than that we were fine.

We got a surprising shorter heavy shower around 8:00, but still no issues. In fact, we kept the fire going through both rainstorms then put it out when we went to bed around 9:00.

Leon surveying our situation between rainstorms. We were very glad we had put up the canopy the night before!

A family of mule deer came through our campground between storms. The adults showed off their skill of getting to the best vegetation on their hind legs.