Zion National Park, Mountain Goats, UT

 As we were leaving Zion, we ran into a herd of mountain goats.

We watched them until they disappeared into the shrubs, then left Zion with smiles on our faces.

Zion National Park, Emerald Pools Hike, UT

We just finished the river walk, and had two more hikes that we really wanted to do, but the weeping rock hike is closed indefinitely due to a landslide, so we’ve decided to just spend more time here instead.  This is the emerald pools hike.  There are three emerald pools, the lower, middle and upper.

We started out by the Virgin River, and started climbing from there.

The path to the lower emerald pool is partly paved, and by far the easiest.

The lower emerald pool is by far the coolest, because it has a waterfall flowing into it.

Then on up the canyon to the middle pool.

After leaving the lower pool, there was less shade and the hike started getting much hotter.

Middle Emerald Pool.  Since this flows over the rock to the lower Emerald Pool, they have it roped off for safety reasons.

There were lots of people at all of these pools.  I tried to keep them out of my pictures, but that wasn’t always possible.

Then on up to the Upper Emerald Pool.  Taking in the incredible views.

This was the most crowded of all the pools.  It was a beautiful oasis, but too crowded for us.

And back down we go.  It’s a loop trail.  After crossing the river take the left trail.  It saves the best for last!

And we’re back to the river.  This was a great hike, and it was nice to have time to hike to all three pools.  We would have only done one if the dripping rock trail was open, but this worked out great.  This is our last hike of the day.  We’re hot and tired, so a car ride will be a nice rest.

Back at the lodge, everyone was enjoying the shade.  We will now catch a shuttle back to the visitors center and head back to marble canyon for a wonderful night’s sleep.