We were staying at the Driftwood Inn just outside of the park and our room balcony overlooked the canyon walls so that seemed like a good place to plan the activities for the day. We got all of the gear together and headed out to the shuttle stop for the ride into the park. It wasn't very crowded yet as we went through the visitor center.
We had noticed a very short trail from the visitor center up to an archaeology site and decided to check that out first. It turns out that there used to be a few buildings at the site but those have been buried or torn down. Since that wasn't very interesting we hopped on the park shuttle and headed to the Emerald Pools trailhead at the lodge. As we were crossing the river we saw the corral and booked a trail ride for the afternoon, that would give us enough time to hike the Pools and grab a snack for lunch.
The Emerald Pool trail is usually pretty crowded since it's a relatively short hike but as we got to the second and on to the upper pools the crowds thinned out. There was still a good amount of water in the pools so we got some good pictures of the water cascading down to the lower pool.
Back at the lodge we grabbed a light snack and then went back to the corral for our ride. There was one other couple with us and we got our trusty steeds assigned. Danielle was on a horse named Nava-joe and I got a tall mule named Leggs, I was assured that I would have a great view. It was nice to sit after the morning hike and Leggs seemed to know the way so I could relax and enjoy the scenery. This was a fun outing though and provided a different perspective of the park.
We still had most of the afternoon left so took the shuttle to Weeping Rock, one of the other short trails in the park. I tried to convince Danielle to continue on to the Hidden Canyon trail but she said no :) Weeping Rock is at the end of the canyon so you get fantastic views of the cliff faces on both sides.
With just a bit more time before we needed to go back to town for dinner we decided to make a final stop at the lodge and grabbed ice cream cones to eat on the lawn under the shade of the big tree.
The group dinner was back at the Majestic View hotel and we had a pretty good buffet dinner before retiring to the hospitality suite to cap off the day.
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