Zion Day 1

Monday, March 21, 2011

It was chilly last night. I had not planned for a cold week. We started bright and early at 7a. I am still amazed at this campsite, even though it is cold, it’s beautiful. We are surrounded on all sides by the mountains and there were some mule deer in the far campsites early this morning as I crept out of my tent.

At 9a, Jessica, our ranger coordinator, took us over to the nature lodge for our first day’s work. Today we met Barb and Christopher at the Nature Center. Barb said it was normal for them to see several tens of thousands of kids per season there at the lodge where they focused on educational crafts and information. Barb was a previously retired ranger with a science degree and Christopher had a marketing degree. They had two projects for us to help them with getting the place ready for the busy season. One was clearing the outer learning islands which we did for a while before it started getting too wet…we got some done but could have done more if the weather were better. The other involved clearing out the basement and helping to organize some of the material they use during the season. With so many hands, we cleared the basement quickly and were able then to assemble new shelving units and move stuff back in by early afternoon. It was great how well our group works together.

I spoke with Barb a little bit about what she does and it seems that having a good set of core educational courses would help with the organization and implementation of what they do. Working in the national park service is something that I’ve been thinking about. What an amazing way to teach kids about nature and sustainability!

We did a little cactus gathering for the garden center after lunch before it started to drizzle again. They are replanted later in visible areas during the season and it’s interesting that these don’t need any special treatment for replanting like traditional plants do. There were 3 different varieties in this single area and I found out you could eat them and they have tiny little needles that like to stick into your clothes.

After we got done we had a little free time before we needed to fix dinner so we drove up the scenic area and visited the Weeping Rock. Because of the snow and rain, several of the paths were closed but the paved ones were available that allowed us to walk up and behind the waterfall. The water comes right out of the rock from the ice-melt on top of the mountain. There were some mule deer grazing below us, they had no trouble walking up the steep grade and didn’t seem overly concerned about us being there…as long as we weren’t too close. Somebody yelled in the distance and that got their attention for a bit but they went back to their grazing. Pretty cool how nature adapts to its surroundings and reminds me of how truly insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.