49.1

Willie, Yan, and I planned on spending 2 days in Zion and then heading to Escalante to find our way to Zebra Canyon. Mama Nature had different plans for us. While hiking The Subway, the previous day, clouds had begun to roll in as we hiked. By the time we were back at our hotel for the night the clouds had gotten thick and rain started to come down. In the morning we woke up to a pretty heavy rain. Zebra Canyon was no longer an option due to flash flood potential. Not knowing what to do we decided to just roam around the park and see if we could find any fall colors that would be evenly lit with the clouds overhead. That's when we noticed waterfalls all over the park! Normally the waterfalls in Zion are a spring occurrence but with the temperature warm enough to be rain and not snow we were in for a treat!

After photographing a waterfall near the Temple of Sinawava we decided to see if the waterfalls above Emerald Pools were going. Sure enough, they were raging! The 3 of us practically raced the mile to the pools and couldn't wait to take some shots. A trail leads behind the waterfalls and we carefully, lest we slip and fall, made our way to the other side of the falls. I wish a couple more of the trees still had their yellow leaves but I really liked how the water came pouring over these cliffs. I included the 2 by-standers in the right of this photo to give you a sense of scale.

Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/14, 0.8 sec, ISO 125