Zion National Park (05-06-12)

   Zion is one of the easiest National Parks to visit.  The RV Park we are staying in is a half mile from the pedestrian entrance to the park, so we can just walk to the park if we want, but the town of Springdale also has a free shuttle service that runs up and down the main street every 10 minutes or so. If we want to go shopping at the cute little shops down the street, we can just hop on the shuttle- which we did, the other day.
   Once in the park, the driving of private vehicles is severely restricted.  Instead, there is another free shuttle system that runs every 5-10 minutes that will drop you off at any one of about a dozen stops.  So much easier than fighting traffic and trying to park.

After our total body workout hiking The Narrows, we tried to take it easy the next day by doing a shorter hike- Hidden Canyon.

Although the trail was short, there was 850 feet of elevation gain in less than a mile, which is pretty steep. 

 

The trail curved along the solid rock, with drops of several hundred feet in several areas.

 

With chain available in appropriate spots, I didn’t have any issues with the heights, and enjoyed the incredible views along the way.

Once we got to the canyon itself, we didn’t walk too far into it. The scenery was on the trail to get there, and we were already tired, so we turned around (we also heard that there was a bevy of Boy Scouts up ahead).

 

Yesterday was our day to tackle Angel’s Landing.  One of us even made it all the way to the end!  It wasn’t me, that’s for sure!

Angels landing is a 5.5 mile long trail, with about 1500 ft of elevation gain.  It is probably one of the best known trails in this area, because of how challenging it is to complete.  The elevation gain isn’t the issue.  The last half mile or so traverses along a ridge that at times is only 4 feet wide, and has 1000 ft drop offs on both sides(um, no thanks!)

This is Angel’s Landing from a distance.  The peak on the left, combined with the saddle, or dip, comprise the last half mile of the trail.

 

I left the door open for the possibility of my completing the entire trail, but I get Vertigo when I am close to a drop off, so I really wasn’t leaning towards attempting it. Luckily there is a flat spot where the wimps can wait.  There was a volunteer at the summit, and I chatted with him about what the last half mile really entailed.

What he told me is that the beginning section, shown in the picture above, is the easy part.  There are chains most of the way, for people to hold on to, but once you get over the small ridge, the trail narrows, curves to the left, and becomes more challenging.

I took this shot with the zoom in most of the way.

You can see the people grabbing the chain as they head up the saddle.

These are two of the pictures Paul  managed to take along the way:

Paul had someone take his picture once he reached the edge of Angel’s Landing.

I asked him if he thought I would have made it, and he said no.  There was one spot where you had hold onto the chain and swing your leg over a steep drop to get to the other side. He’s been wanting to do that trail and I’m glad he got the chance.  I am equally glad I didn’t attempt it and then have to turn around halfway through. 

The Grandfather of All Slot Canyons

Zion Narrows is a slot canyon in Zion National Park, and one of the premiere slot canyons in North America. Over the course of millions of years, the Virgin River has carved a deep canyon in the surrounding terrain.  In one of the Narrowest portions, called Wall Street, the canyon walls are less than 25 feet apart and rise well over a thousand feet. Hiking the Narrows means hiking in the Virgin River.  In order to do that, the water flow needs to be under 150 cfs (cubic feet per second).  The last time we were here, it was flowing too fast and the water was too high.  This time, the cfs was 109, well within the range for hiking.  There are several ways to hike The Narrows- hiking “Top Down” , or Thru Hiking involve a commitment of 16 miles.  If you hike “Bottom Up” you can hike as far as you want and turn around.  That’s the one we chose to do.
  The day we arrived here we headed to Zion Adventures, where we got information about renting Dry Suits, poles and special boots. Armed with the information about the river (water temperature being 40 degrees) we elected to reserve the necessary equipment for the next day.  The weather forecast was for a high of 88 and we figured that would be the best day to walk through a cold river.

the ultimate test of a zip loc bag

  I wish I could say we got up early the next day and hit the road, but we didn’t, so our day was shorter than we would have liked it to be.  Everything took a little longer than we expected.  We had to repack our backpack, leaving only what we needed, and double bagging everything we brought.  Swimming and/or falling in the water was a distinct possibility.

Once we got to the outfitter, we found neoprene socks and boots that fit, which took a while.  Once we were ready, we wore the boots, but carried the dry suits so we wouldn’t swelter on the way to the trail.  After taking the Zion shuttle to our stop, we used the benches to put our dry suits half way on, leaving the top half wrapped around our waists for the hot, 1 mile walk to the river.

The outfitters had told us to wear multiple layers of fleece- and we really wish we hadn’t listened.  Between the dry suit and fleece, we were hot most of the day.

Anyway, once we were in the water, the adventure began.  In the first mile or so we would see people venturing up the river in shorts and water shoes, which was relatively easy since the first few river crossings were shallow.

As we got deeper into the canyon, and the walls got more narrow, the river got deeper and faster.  We crossed the river dozens of times and once we were deep into the canyon, we had to walk in the water for longer stretches, until there was someplace to get out. 

I did have some struggles.  I was nervous about falling on my wrist, since the brace wouldn’t fit under the suit, so I was trying to be extremely careful with my footing while in the water. Even knee deep water, when its rushing, can be challenging and exhausting to walk in.  Our sticks were invaluable.
 



Paul gave me pointers such as facing into the water flow so I could maintain my balance easier.  Easy was a relative term though.  On one of the crossings, I came to a clichéd frozen panicked moment when I didn’t think I was going to make it across.  It took about 2 seconds to realize that I was about half way (of course) and one more second to realize that I was using valuable energy just standing there trying to stay upright.  It’s not like I could relax, with the water flowing past me trying to knock me over. From that point on, I did better by trying to keep a reasonable pace. It was certainly a better workout than any Thigh Master on the market!

After a couple of miles, the walls started closing in, and the canyon was gorgeous.  The water was a pretty blue/green and because it was deeper, it was actually easier to walk in. 



turn-around point



Nearing the end of the Wall Street section, we chatted with  fellow hikers who informed us that the next section required actual swimming.  Since it was so close to the end, we elected to pass on the swim, and turn around.



some guy deliberately floating down the river in his dry suit



I started out the day with the camera bagged inside Glad ware and in the back pack, but every time I wanted to take a picture, I had to have Paul wait for me (makes it tough to get good shots of him), take the camera out, shoot, wrap it up and give it back to him.  About half way through, I kept the the Glad ware package inside my dry suit, which had just as good a chance of staying dry as in the backpack.  It survived the day, and neither one of us actually fell in the water, which was nice.

We were extremely tired by the time we got out.

Bryce Canyon National Park

The early bird gets the worm, as they say, and because we were at the Park early, we got a site inside Bryce Canyon National Park. We have no internet or electricity, so I’ll post this once we leave here.

Bryce and Zion are about 2 hrs away from each other, but completely different as far as their looks. In Zion, we were in a canyon, looking up at the walls, in Bryce we are at the rim of the canyon looking down. The elevation here starts at 8000 ft and goes up from there. My body does not appreciate the thin air, and I am having a difficult time hiking. Its frustrating to be breathing heavy after walking a short distance, but there isn’t much I can do about it except “take it easy” according to the ranger.

       Bryce is home to “Hoodoos” which are rock spires created by the erosion of stone by ice and rain. There are about 200 days a year that temperatures in Bryce reach below freezing, and then thaw. That constant freeze and thaw action creates the spires by eroding away the softer stone that lies beneath a harder surface stone. Bryce Canyon also isn’t a true canyon, as canyons are usually created by rivers cutting through stone. There is no river here, just the effects of ice and rain. The spires range in color from bright orange to white, and really make an incredible first impression. 

        Our first day here I needed to acclimate, so we took the shuttle bus to various stops and looked at the different formations down in the canyon. It reminds me of Silly Sand- a toy I had when I was young- you use a small squirt bottle of sand and water and create whatever you want from sand. These spires look like that, on a much larger scale. 

Several of the spires have names, but you can imagine them to be whatever you want. I definitely saw ET as we hiked along. There are several that look so much like castles that its difficult to believe that they aren’t man made.

Tuesday night we attended a ranger talk about the night sky. After an hour talk he led us all outside where 6 telescopes were set up. One was aimed at the moon, and the others were aimed at Saturn. For the first time ever, I got to see Saturn, complete with rings and 6 moons! We also got to see M-15, which is a cluster of stars in a different galaxy. We could have stayed longer and seen other sights, but it was 11 pm and we were tired.

Yesterday we went down into the canyon and hiked 2 trails- the Navajo and the Queens Garden-about 3.5 miles total. It was even more impressive being down inside the canyon looking up at all these spires.
After lunch we checked out the local town and fueled the truck.
This morning we did a 5 mile hike into the canyon, and afterwards drove the 17 mile scenic drive. I had already gotten some pictures of prairie dogs and Pronghorn Antelope, and I wanted to see what else is out there.

Zion and Bryce are both small parks-and both are very organized. Zion has a propane powered shuttle that stops at about 9 stops, “up canyon” and “down canyon”. There are no cars allowed on the roads, which actually makes sense from an environmental standpoint. At Bryce, cars are allowed on the road, but in most cases its just easier to take the shuttle. After seeing both parks I would have to say that even though Bryce makes an incredible first impression, once you have seen Hoodoos, they all begin to look the same. I am glad we saw them, but I won’t hurry back anytime soon.

Zion to Bryce

When we only have a couple of days to see an area, it’s always a tough decision, deciding what to do and see, to try and hit the highlights, without killing ourselves physically. Our 8 mile hike took a lot out of us, but we wanted to see the “Emerald Pools”, which was a 3.5 mile hike. In retrospect, we could have passed it up, since the Pools weren’t really green right now, more of a muddy brown. From there we walked the Riverwalk, which runs along the Virgin River, towards the Narrows. The river is beautiful in this area, and it was a nice stroll. It also gave us the chance to see a little of what we were missing because we couldn’t hike the Narrows. The Park Ranger said it could be closed for weeks, due to high water. Once we had walked as far as we could, I waded in the river to cool off a bit. The water temperature was in the 50s, so I didn’t wade very long. We would have had to have special boots (which you can rent) to hike in water that cold. By the time we had cooled off, we were pretty tired, but we wanted to stop at the Museum of Human History on our way out. We watched a ranger talk about the Navajo sandstone and how the layers of rock got to be here. Millions of years ago, before the Rockies were formed, the Appalachian Mountains were the tallest around, and the 2000 ft deep sandstone here, came as run off from them. They were the old Continental Divide. The theory is that millions of years ago, a Pacific Plate slid into a different Plate, causing the Rockies to rise up and changing the landscape of the west. The canyon here was formed solely by the Virgin River flowing through soft sandstone for millions of years. Hard to believe when you see how small the river is now. Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon and Grand Canyon make up the Colorado Plateau, with Bryce being the highest elevation. The lowest elevation of Bryce is the highest of Zion, and the lowest elevation of Zion is the highest elevation of Grand Canyon. Today we are on our way to Bryce. We hope to stay in the park itself so we may have no internet or cell service for days. Our next big stop after this, may be Denver.

Zion National Park, UT

It was a 2 day drive to get from Yosemite to Zion National Park. There wasn't anything we planned to stop and see along the way, so we just drove through California, part of Nevada and arrived in Utah. Its really my first time in Utah, so I get to color in another state on my map. We hadn't made any reservations anywhere, which turned out to not be the best idea. There aren't that many RV parks really close to Zion and the only one that had availability is a "resort". Its actually really nice (Paul has commented twice that he really likes it). Its well laid out, has great amenities- a game room, pool, and lots of activities,etc., but Holy cow, its not cheap. Ah well. We stayed in one spot last night and then had to move today since they are pretty booked and just squeezed us in. Our first trip into Zion itself was today. We have heard of several hikes in the park that are supposed to be awesome, but the trails up to the canyon rims here have extremely sheer, long drops, with very little trail width. The most famous hike is Angels Landing. I researched it pretty thoroughly and reluctantly decided I would not be able to hike a trail that is 4 feet wide with 1000 ft drops on both sides- even if there IS a chain to hold onto. Not that the whole trail is like that, but even so, I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it. We would also have liked to hike "The Narrows" which is a really unique hike- the trail is the river, so you literally hike in the water. That would be so different, it would be really cool! Unfortunately, the hikability depends entirely on the weather, and there were flash flood warnings yesterday, into this morning, making it too dangerous. We are going to bring our water shoes to the park tomorrow and at least go check it out. So what we elected to do was the Observation Point Trail (8 miles, 5 hrs, 2150 ft elevation gain). It offers some of the best views in the park. When you start at the bottom of a canyon, its really hard to believe that you're going to hike all the way to the rim of the enormous wall that looks like its straight up from the canyon floor, but hike it you do! This was an easier hike, physically, than the hikes in Yosemite, but there were a couple of times that I had to mentally regroup in order to be able to handle the trail. Its not my favorite thing to be standing on a narrow trail with nothing between me and the ground 2000 ft below. The picture with Paul in it was taken close to the top, and he is standing about 2 ft from the edge- a 2100 ft drop. Me- I was pretty much hugging the wall. But- the views were amazing, and the hike was well worth it. As we worked our way to the top, stopping to admire everything around us, we were reminiscing about a hike we did in Kentucky- it supposedly had "views". It was a 10 mile hike and at the end, we saw nothing. There was no view, just an equestrian campground, deep in the woods. This hike today was far from that, thats for sure! Tomorrow its Zion again, and then we move on to Bryce Canyon.