#653 Zion National Park, Utah, USA

View of Zion National Park just before and after the gates.

Before I went to Zion National Park, a friend told me to try and accomplish two things: the Narrows and Angel's Landing. These are truly amazing, but only a tiny part of this small and spectacular National Park. The north fork of the Virgin River carves the beautiful Navajo sandstone into Zion Canyon, a 24km long and 800m deep. Going from 2600m down to 1100m in elevation, the landscape changes from a cool mountain climate to the red deserts leading off into Nevada, representing one of the steepest stream gradients in the US. It incorporates the three diverse geographic areas of the Colorado Plateaus, the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert.

Walking up 'the Narrows' involves going as far into the park and up Zion Canyon as possible, and hiking to the end of the trail, known as the Temple of Sinawava (the Coyote God of the Paiute tribe), then continuing the trail in the river as it winds through a narrow canyon which gets smaller and smaller. 

Small slots of side streams cut through the spectacular rock and eventually the river splits, about 2 hours walking up river. Around 2000m high and as wide as 20m in some places, the canyon narrows to a 1m squeeze in the side streams, so as you can imagine flash flooding is a serious risk.

It's a popular hiking spot, and by midday there are many people going both into and coming out of the canyon. The slippery rocks make it hard to walk but the water and canyon are cooler than the heat of the main canyon.

The area was settled by small family groups of Basketmaker Anasazi, the Parowan Fremont and other Native Americans from around 8000 years ago. Later they were joined by the Paiute and Ute. Spanish padres Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Dominguez passed close by in 1776, and Jedidiah Smith explored some of the area for the American Fur Company. Mormons arrived and settled in the 1850s. 

Big Bend near the top of the park

Originally, it was going to be called the Mukuntuweap National Monument when it was established in 1909, but the acting director felt that an unpronouncable (Indian or Spanish) name would deter visitors from coming. The northern section of the park, called Kolob, which has a separate entrance, was originally a separate monument, but they became one park in 1956.

Walking up to Angel's Landing is not easy, but has one of the most spectacular views in the park -- all the way down the valley, and it also has one of the most exciting trails. The end is a scramble up rocks with sheer cliffs on either side and only a small metal wire to hold onto, but before that there are Walter's Wiggles which weave the trail up the inside of a narrow canyon half way up the mountain (he was the visionary who created the trail back in the 1920s).

The main part of the park is only accessible by the shuttle bus in peak season (in winter, cars can drive all the way in), but the main Zion-Mount Carmel Utah highway (Route 9) also goes through the park, with amazing views and an awesome tunnel (finished in 1930) cut into the side of the cliff with little view holes spread throughout.

View from the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel entrance

Biggest natural arch in the park

The canyon overlook trail is a short walk from the top of the tunnel.

Checkerboard Mesa

Other trails that I didn't have time to do included the Weeping Rock, Taylor Creek, Kolob Arch, the Subway, the Emerald Pools, Mineral Gulch, Pine Creek Waterfall, the West Rim Trail, Wildcat Trail and many more! I guess I'll just have to go back!

Source: http://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zion_National_Park
http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/zion.htm
http://www.zionnationalpark.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zion_%E2%80%93_Mount_Carmel_Highway

#833 Lake Turkana, Kenya

When I was 18 and volunteering in Kenya the one thing everyone said you had to do was go on safari. I was happy to do that, but I was also happy to forgo the more typical Masai Mara National Reserve and go off the beaten track -- northern Kenya! The ultimate destination was Lake Turkana, supposedly the source of the Nile, with crocodiles, hippos and Nile perch, but I saw none of these (I think I even tempted fate by swimming in the lake at night despite the crocodile warnings!).

It's part of the Rift Valley, is the world's largest desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake and is an amazing bioreserve, despite its appearance of being devoid of life. These pictures (from 1998!) don't really give the impression of its turquoise color. It's a saline, jade-colored desert lake, the 4th biggest in Africa, and it feels like the middle of nowhere.

Looking over the drive down to the lake. This gives you a good idea of the landscape surrounding the lake -- not a tree in sight anywhere!

Our village when viewed from the water -- simple reed huts and a common room.

Visiting a Turkana tribal village near the central park of the lake,

Source:  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/801

#855 Pink and White Terraces (Otukapuarangi), New Zealand

John Clarke Hoyte painting. Pink and White Terraces, Lake Rotomahana and Mount Tarawera. Watercolor and gouache on paper. ca 1870s. Hocken Collections. Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago.
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewImage.do?id=223993&aid=135809

This is an unusual one: The pink and white terraces are an amazing place -- however they no longer exist. Actually, they no longer exist in the form that made them famous.

http://www.buriedvillage.co.nz/pink_and_white_terraces/p/49

The pink and white terraces were two sets of beautiful geyser formations of silica terraces in Lake Rotomahana near the dormant volcano Mt. Tarawera, around 25 km south of the New Zealand town of Rotorua, but they disappeared during an 1886 eruption of Mt. Tarawera. 800m apart, it is thought they had different appearances because of the amount of sunlight they each received, with the white ones being the larger set, around 50 layers and cascading over 40m in height, and the pink ones being the preferred area for swimming.

"The journey from Auckland was typically by steamer to Tauranga, the bridle track to Ohinemutu on Lake Rotorua, by coach to Te Wairoa by canoe across lake Tarawera, and then on foot over the hill to the swampy shores of Lake Rotomahana and the terraces." (Wikipedia)

http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/photos/volcanic/terraces/whiteterraces.shtml

The eruption at 3am on 10 June 1886 caused the lake floor to explode, showering the area with liquid mud, ash, stones and other debris, not only reclaiming the terraces, but burying two Maori villages, Moura and Te Ariki. After the eruption, there was a crater where the terraces had been, which was eventually filled with the water of the lake

http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/photos/volcanic/terraces/waterbasins.shtml

In Maori they were known as Otukapuarangi, "fountain of the clouded sky" and they were a popular tourist attraction from the 1840s, especially after Prince Albert, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited in 1870, but were a source of racist resentment from the white (pakeha) New Zealanders because the Te Arawa tribe that owned them became wealthy from their control and ownership of the area (they even had their marae (meeting house) in Hinemihi made with gold florins instead of paua (abalone shell) eyes. After the eruption killed and displaced members of the tribe, the New Zealand government unfairly converted the area into crown land in a payment-for-relief-assistance system, although much of this (including 13 lakes in 2006) has been returned to the tribe in the past decades as part of the Treaty of Waitangi tribunal.

Lake Tarawera before the eruption and today -- the eruption enlarged the lake. A narrow isthmus separates lakes Tarawera and Rotomahana.

http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/photos/volcanic/terraces/laketarawera.shtml#

http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/photos/lakes/rotorua/nz0277.shtml

I've been fascinated with the pink and white terraces since I was a girl and saw a beautiful painting of them. It was only after a while that I learned that they had been destroyed -- I had dreamed of visiting them!

In a marvel of modern science, the lowest two tiers of the pink terraces were rediscovered 60 metres underwater while mapping the lake floor in 2011, and it is thought that the rest may be buried under sediment, and the increased-level lake.

Sources: http://themeetingplacenz.blogspot.com/2012/07/pink-and-white-terraces-backstory-to.html 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_and_White_Terraces
http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/photos/volcanic/terraces/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Rotomahana