Saturday, November 5, 2016

Many Pools & Big Horn Sheep

Saturday we did something out of the ordinary; we went for a hike in Zion National Park.  The Park is close to home, but it's also one of the busiest national parks so we usually avoid it.  We were pleasantly surprised not once, but twice during the hike; first we didn't see any other hikers and secondly we saw Big Horn Sheep!      

Starting out for Many Pools . . . there are no signs or an actual trail

Fall colors in Zion National Park

Mountain Maple leaves covered this section of the trail

We are hoping to see some Big Horn Sheep today

There they are!  Can you see where Kent is pointing?

Believe it or not, this is our first Big Horn Sheep sighting in Zion

They stopped to munch on the bushes

One of the many potholes etched into the sandstone that make up Many Pools

We continued up along the slickrock

It was a beautiful day for a hike

Colorful Paintbrush growing in the sandstone

Kent is watching for Big Horn Sheep, can you see him?

I stayed down in the ravine and had fun watching these two

We ended up seeing three different groups of Big Horn Sheep

Zion is an amazing place
Kent spotted this Ram . . . wow!

What an impressive Ram!

Seeing him made this hike more memorable

 Tee-shirt weather in November . . . gotta love it!

I'd love to return in the Spring to see the water cascading through the Pools

We're on our way up to check out this hoodoo

It was fun hiking around the hoodoos,
 they are bigger than they appear from the canyon below

No matter where you look, you'll see many different colorful rock formations

One of the many unique rocks we came across

Kent . . .  doing his best Kokopelli pose

Looking south we could see the highway 

The afternoon sun made this tree really stand out

This tunnel means our hike is coming to an end