Zion hiking: -- East Rim Trail

This is a 10 mile hike from the Eastern entrance of Zion to the Weeping Rock Trailhead in the Zion Valley. The trailhead is close to the eastern entrance to the park. The hike starts off with about .5 miles of hiking in fairly deep sand.

Then you climb up to the mesa and head west along a gently rising plateau. You reach a spectacular view when you come around a bend, at 'Jolly Gulch'

and look down from the mesa, perched next to a 200 ft waterfall.

As you reach the top of the plateau you see quite a few wildflowers

The top of the plateau is a pine forest

Then you come upon Stave Springs, an area green with tall grasses and reeds, clearly out of place in this dry area

Now the view changes to wide expanses of Echo Canyon, the hike ahead is going to go down

Echo Canyon in full view

Then you hike at the bottom of Echo Canyon

You finally join the Observation Point trail to hike back down to Weeping Rock trailhead. This is looking back at the east rim plateau.