Worshipping at Zion

I hardly dare to say it, but I found Zion National Park a bit, well, busy. I happened to be there mid-week, mid-April, at a time when I'd guessed things wouldn't have been so thickly peopled, but Zion is Zion, one of the really great national parks, one of America's all-time favorites--fourth place favorite, I'm told, a place that even on off-days, draws a crowd. 

I was passing through, if anyone can actually do that in a state as magnificent as Utah, so, like an idiot, I hadn't planned ahead. The woman at the state info desk in St. George offered some immediate sympathy for the fact that I could no longer get a shuttle ticket, but, she said, if I'd watch my phone at 5:00 that afternoon, I could try to secure a ticket for the next day, the day I already had planned. I was on the road.

"You can drive through," she said blessedly, as if I'd been rescued from sin. So I did. I drove back and forth, snapping shots of the place named by its first white resident as "Zion," a place apart, a rugged, red canyon for meditation, a place for awe.

Mountains--even generic mountains--take your breath away if you're a flatlander. They're massive, but almost entirely useless. I suppose there may be some minerals in these canyon walls, but cutting them up for whatever reason would be sacrilege--it's Zion, remember.  Spend a couple hours at Zion and Teddy Roosevelt will find his way into your thanks.

I have no doubt that my way of visiting Zion, simply driving through, is not the way to visit; but even if you can't get a shuttle ticket, a couple hour's worth of the place, even if you never leave the road, is not to be missed. You can find a way, I'm sure, to worship at Zion.