Day 16

We hiked in Zion Canyon today, and the place is just magnificent. The red rocks are wonderful, and there's a lot of water and vegetation. We even saw a family of deer.
The most beautiful trail here is supposed to be "Angel's Landing". However, its description says: "Hiking out on the ridge requires exposure to 1500 foot drops on either side". Since Noa and heights don't love each other as much as Noa and Elad do, we had to find another trail. So we started on a trail called "Riverside Walk", that takes you into the canyon with magnificent red rock walls around you. It culminates with another trail, "The Zion Narrows" that involves walking in the river, in knee-to-waist deep waters. We decided to start it, but the water was freezing so we soon changed our minds and headed back. In short, we didn't do the trail, but still had to walk in wet shoes for the rest of the day…

We went for another trail – "The Emerald Pools", which takes you up to three consecutive greenish pools. The water looks very clear, but has a greenish tint that's caused by algae. When we got to the upper pool we climbed on a big rock and had a rest, during which a friendly squirrel came to say hello. You can see him in the pictures.

After we finished the trail we caught a bus back to the visitor center (there are no private cars allowed in the park). From there we headed out of Zion and towards Bryce Canyon, which is where we are going to hike tomorrow. On our way we stopped and ate a buffalo cheeseburger at a buffalo and horse ranch that is also a beautiful resort. Next time we visit Zion we will definitely stay there. It's so beautiful.
As you can see from the pictures, around 4 pm it started to get cloudy and by the time we were on our way to Bryce it was raining quite hard. That didn't stop us from enjoying the drive – we drove through some beautiful places.

We got to our motel – Ruby's Inn – at around 6:30 pm and it hasn't stopped raining since (it's nearly 10 pm now). We hope it will clear up tomorrow, otherwise we might have to spend the day at our motel or hike in the rain.