The Cactus Trip Diaries

Although I had been in this area in 1997, we had somehow missed out on Zion National Park. Today I would make up for that omission.

As we drove to Zion, we passed a sign to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Why not take a look – we had plenty of time. There was an impressive coloured hillside to our left and we followed the first track towards it to take some pictures (S2507). As soon as we stepped out of the car, it became clear that the main purpose of this area was to allow people to tear up the countryside on scrambler bikes and ATV ‘doom buggies’. The usual tranquil peace and quiet usually found in parks was disrupted by the continuous sound of these bikes buzzing up and down the sand dunes like angry wasps. 9 images, including one of the local Yucca sp. and we had seen enough. We drove on to the official entrance in case there was more to this park, but learned that State Parks (or at least this one) was not covered by the annual pass that we had bought for the parks we hoped to visit was not valid here. The Ranger found it difficult to believe that we did not want to pay the admission and eventually allowed us to turn round on the Park’s premises.

The other stop of the day – S2508 – covers all images taken at Zion, mainly taken from the car as Cliff drove us through the impressive scenery, or from the many stops on lay-byes and later from the shuttle bus as it took us on the scenic route through the park. Unfortunately there were just 9 stop points where you could get off, take some pictures than jump on to the next shuttle bus along (if there was space). Pictures of the local Opuntia prevented this from being a ‘No Cactus Stop’. Right at our last stop in the park, Opuntia basilaris also showed up. Very enjoyable none the less.