When Water is the Gem: Hiking to the Emerald Pools in Zion National Park

Date: April 6, 2021

Place: Zion National Park, Utah

Coordinates: 37.259328, -112.951292

Length: 4 miles

Level: moderately easy

 

The first day in Zion National Park on our 2021 spring break we started with a lovely hike along the Virgin River from the Temple of Sanawava to The Narrows, where continuing meant going into the water. After that hike we looked for another trail that we could do, and we chose to hike the Emerald Pools Trail. 

Our hike as captured by my GPS (with some faulty readings)

The trailhead was across the river from the shuttle bus station. Already from the station we could see that it was a popular trail. 

We crossed the Virgin River and join the thin stream of people that were hiking on the trail. Almost right away I came across some wildflowers: the pretty Utah milkvetch. 

Zion Milkvetch, Astragalus zionis

We were on a incline, ascending on a mild slope on the side of the canyon. On occasions there were sets of rough stairs. 

Emerald Pools Trail

Some more wildflowers welcomed us higher on the trail. Not many other species but more of the milkvetch and some yellow-flowered purple springparsley.

Purple Springparsley, Cymopterus purpureus

Soon we were high enough over the river to have a really nice view of the canyon. Looking north, we could see the narrowing of the canyon, the darkness in the narrows where the sunlight makes id down to the canyon bottom only at mid-day.

The the southern the Zion canyon was much wider and better lit. It was certainly wide enough to support a nice forest of cottonwood trees. 

Zion Canyon

The trail continued ascending on the side of the western cliff of the canyon, and then it leveled and followed a ledge. The cliffs towered above us, sheer, imposing, and very red. 

The bushes and little trees along the trail were also blooming. I didn't identify most of them at the time. At home I used the iNaturalist App to ID most of these plants. 

Single-leaf Ash, Fraxinus anomala

On that part of the trail we were fairly alone. There were other hikers on it for sure, but they were very spread out. Considering our visit was at the height of the pandemic, it was no surprise that there were relatively few people in this park, which is usually packed during normal times. 

Emerald Pools Trail

Other bushes that were blooming at the time in Zion and that we saw along the hike were manzanita bushes. Although they were of a different species than the manzanita I knew from California, I couldn't tell the difference on sight. 

Pointleaf Manzanita, Arctostaphylos pungens

Then the trail curved westward, entering the mouth of a side canyon. Inside there were the Emerald Pools. We couldn't see any of them yet, our view was blocked by a dark green thicket of oak, pine, and ash trees.  

I couldn't resist taking another view of the lovely south side of the Zion Canyon before we delved deeper into the trail leading to the Emerald Pools. The Virgin River below looked very thin in comparison with the grandeur of the canyon. It was hard to believe that it was this river that carved it from the mountain over the eons. 

I found some Utah penstemon plants along the trail. These plants were just beginning to bloom now, we were a bit too early in the season to see them in their full glory. 

Utah Beardtongue, Penstemon utahensis

It was a bit deeper into that trail when I saw for the first time the effects of the severe drought that the west of USA experienced for the fifth year now, with 2021 being the worst. The juniper trees which are of the most resilient plants of the western deserts were half dry. Of course, the low count of wildflowers could have been a drought indication as well but not knowing what normal a spring looked like there, I couldn't compare. 

Emerald Pools Trail

Eventually the trees opened up and we got view of the side canyon's end: a sheer wall of red sandstone with water marks, indicating that every now and then the end of the canyon turns into a live waterfall. 

There was a big ledge below the cliff at the end of the canyon. Even though we were still a good distance away, we could see that there was a live waterfall coming down off that ledge. The waterfall was but a trickle, but flowing nonetheless. 

I asked Pappa Quail to take a close-up photo of the waterfall from that view point with his strong birding lens and he obliged. 

 

 

The sandy slope on the up side of the trail had many of the Utah milkvetch plants that were blooming. Like a thorny belt above them were yellowish-looking beavertail cacti. I thought that these cacti were not looking happy. The drought must have affected them. 

As we got closer to the ledge with the waterfall I was seeing also more wildflowers. Here too I saw the wallflowers blooming. There were still before peaking out their season. 

Western Wallflower, Erysimum capitatum

The people that we saw earlier on the trail seemed to have concentrated on that ledge where the higher pool was. When we approached the pool at the top of the waterfall I noticed the spring water that emerged from a bit higher up the cliff and run down the rock face, shining it up on the way. 

Naturally, there was more vegetation near the water. Most of the vegetation were bushes and small trees, some of them still in their bare winter-wear. Other bushes were already blooming, such as the creeping mahonia. 

Creeping Mahonia, Berberis repens

Eventually was got near the upper pool on top of the waterfall. The pool looked nice and calm, but its color was not emerald. The elder chika was happy for the change to wet her bandana in the pool and cool off her head. 

I looked up the sheer cliff above the pool. I could tell where water seeped out of the rock wall, where higher springs, now dry, were flowing at an earlier time to feed the pool and the waterfall. Perhaps in times of higher flow the pool would look emerald. Perhaps it was the time of day. 

The back side of the pool was in the shade, and the water looked brownish-gray. I looked into the water, hoping to see some life in it, but I didn't see anything, not even insect larvae. 

The view past the top pool was of the northwest side of the Zion Canyon. The canyon floor with all of the cottonwood trees looked very far. We wood be going back down there soon enough. 

The Emerald Pools Trail is a loop trail, but the continuation of the trail was not on the rock ledge at the top. Instead, we needed to go back a little bit on the trail we came on, and then go down below and past the waterfall.  

The cliff below the lip of the ledge was concave. The waterfall tricked off the lip but the watermarks on the rock face told the story of much stronger flow in other, wetter times. 

Below the waterfall was another pool, which also didn't look emerald. The trail didn't go down to that pool though, but stretched on another ledge of the rock above it. (That trail is visible in the photo above, the tiny-looking hikers show the scale of that cliff.)

The trail  below the cliff goes right behind the waterfall, in the concave part of the rock. I assume that in wetter times the waterfall spray doesn't spare the hikers. 

The trail didn't go all the way down to the pool at the bottom of the waterfall so I used the maximal zoom of my camera lens to get a close-up photo of the water below. The pool surface was rippled by the dripping of the waterfall but it still showed a fairly clear reflection. 

In the heat of the day I did welcome the little spray of the waterfall when we went directly beneath it. I loved the tree that was growing right out of the rock just about where the water was. 

Past the pools the trail took us on a mild descent downhill on the side of the canyon wall, providing us with the lovely southward view of the Zion Canyon. 

I was actively and vocally admiring the sheer cliffs of the canyon walls. That kind of hard, red sandstone that made the entire area and gave Zion the looks of the promised land that the Mormon settlers saw when they arrived in Utah. 

Near the trail I saw the smaller, off the wall samples of that red sandstone. I loved in particular the boulders that had the harder rock knobs sticking out of the surface after the softer rock around them had eroded. 

Going downhill was quick and before long we were crossing the Virgin River again and heading back to the shuttle stop. 

Virgin River

Pappa Quail wanted to finish our day in Zion National Park with a stop at the place where the recently introduced California condors were frequently seen. When we came to that stop however, the first bird that welcomed us was a wild turkey. 

Wild Turkey

After nearly going extinct in the1980's, all surviving California condors, about 20 in number, were captured to form a breeding colony in captivity. The breeding program was successful and condors were successfully reintroduced back in the wild in a number of locations, with the Pinnacles National Park in California probably being the most famous one. Condors were also reintroduced in Zion National Park and in the Grand Canyon National Park. We got to see three condors that evening, and since all the condors were tagged, we were able to find out that two of them were local residents of Zion National Park but the third one was a younger individual that flew in all the way from Grand Canyon National Park, nearly 100 miles away. Quite impressive. 

California Condor

After two nice hikes and a high note of seeing the condors we got back on the shuttle and out of the park. We commenced having a nice evening in the cabin we rented and discussed where in the park we would go tomorrow.