Taylor Creek Trailhead – Kolob Canyons – Zion National Park

Having enjoyed our time in Salt Lake City and happy with our Bonneville Salt Flat photos we headed to Zion National Park. Interestingly ‘Zion’ was the name Joseph Smith Jr. (Founder of the Mormon faith) envisioned calling the place they would settle and call home, the promised land or “New Jerusalem”.

Our first experience of Zion National Park was from the north-west section known as Kolob Canyons. There is a dead-end road which leads up to a lookout point with various trail heads along the way. We decided we would take the Taylor Creek Trailhead which was said to be an easy walk to a beautiful Double Arch Alcove. A ranger at the visitor’s centre who explained the route to us also advised that there was a high likelihood of seeing a rattlesnake on the walk. Scary!

The walk followed a creek, “Taylor Creek” and was relatively easy-going and mostly sheltered from the sun by trees; not the most interesting walk in the world but pleasant. Along the way you encounter two historical cabins dating from the 1930’s which we took photos by.

Renee In Front of Historic Cabin

Crossing Taylor Creek

The Double Arch Alcove was not actually an arch as I was expecting and at first we weren’t sure if we’d arrived. However when we considered the “Alcove” part of the name it made more sense; it’s essentially a shallow cave with black and white lines formed by water dripping through the sandstone. We took our pictures and headed back.

Double Arch Alcove

All up the Taylor Creek Trailhead is a five mile round trip and took us just over three hours to complete. We didn’t see a rattlesnake.

More Photos:

Amazing Rock Formations

Renee on the Trail

A Cheerful Walk in the Sun

Indian Face in Rock Face

Holding the Canyon Walls Apart

 My Favourite Two:

Black & White Creek & Large Rock

I like this photo because of the cloudy sky above the large pointy rock, but its a little busy and the creek doesn’t exactly lead your eye to the rock and sky like I would like. I should play around with some different crops.

Twisted Tree (My Favourite)

This is an awesome tree, all twisty. I walked into this clearing by the creek and immediately felt compelled to photograph it. Renee actually composed a better shot which didn’t include the other tree branches which impose into the top right corner of my frame, damn ‘other’ tree.

Zion National Park is amazing, this is just the start…

Want to see more of our Great North American Road Trip?
– The Plan
– Map showing Posts by Location

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