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Zion National Park
September 2007
UT
posted by zeps
Zion Trip Report
Flew to Las Vegas from Michigan on Saturday the 22nd of September, my friend Mark who lives in Tucson AZ. picked me up at the airport, he brought all the camping gear so I just brought backpack on the plane with me which sped things up and we were off to Zion National Park. We Arrived at Zion around 3:00 pm. in rain, after getting the camp set up it stopped raining (of course) and we went for a little hike and scramble in the Watchman campground area where we were camping, I figured we lost a few good hours of hiking because of the rain and how flooded everything got but we would start fresh in the morning as they were calling for sunny skies for the next three days. We decided to put the Narrows hike off to Monday after talking to the park ranger, he told us it takes a day or two for the river to subside due to the heavy rain so we headed off to do Angels landing. What a hike, great views all the way up and the elevation change really got the heart rate up, once at the top we made our way to start of the half mile hike down the narrow path which led to the tip of Angels Landing it has a 800 ft. drop off on one side and 1500 ft. drop off on the other, I’m not a huge fan of heights, and even after hiking at some high elevation at Yosemite a few years back I figured I could make the hike Wrong!!
They have a chain you can hang onto but after going a little ways I knew or could feel that I was going to have some problems so I told Mark to go ahead with out me and I was heading back. After getting back and sitting there waiting for Mark and watching other hikers attempt the hike out, you could just tell that either you have that gene in you to do something like that or you don’t, some people were practically running out there and others like myself were hanging on to that chain so tight and inching along so slow… No shame though the attempt was made. After Mark got back we continued up the West rim trail which took us up to higher elevations and even more spectacular views, we hiked on for a few miles then we decided to head back down, running, what a rush!, people going up just look at you like you’re kidding me!. It was noon by then and we had been for about 4 hours so we headed back to camp for a quick water re- fill and peanut butter sandwiches. Then we headed off to the Weeping rock trail head which would take us to the Hidden canyon trail. We made our way up the switchbacks to the entrance of the canyon and when I saw it I knew I was in my element, as we hiked into the canyon you had to look ahead to strategize your next move, how are we going to get around this, get over that, go through waist deep water or try to find a way around it, sometimes you could go only so far as you would hit a dead end and then have to turn back and find another route, we did not have any rope with us which made it more difficult, is a good thing that Mark is 6.5” tall, he helped me get over and up some pretty good climbs with his reach, after about 2.5 hours into the hike/ climb we ran into a dead end at he end of the canyon, rock straight up about 30’ even with a rope I don’t think we could have gone any farther with the skills we have so we turned around and headed out retracing our steps, it took about 1.5 hours to get out of the canyon and another half hour to run down the weeping rock trail to the road where we started, when we got to the bottom Mark said let’s run back instead of waiting for the park tram, so after hiking up to Angels landing and the West rim trail that morning and hiking 4.5 hours in and out of hidden canyon that afternoon we ran the roughly 6 miles back to the Watchman campground, it was dark when we got back, neither one of us felt like cooking or cleaning up after so we drove into town for some pizza we were both pretty spent so their was not much conversation over dinner we headed back to camp and called it a day.
Monday morning I felt pretty good considering what we did the day before, we ate some oatmeal then drove into town to Zion adventure co. to rent some canyon shoes, neoprene socks and hiking pole for our hike down the Narrows, they show you a ten minute video on safety and how to get the most out of your hike, the shoes and socks were a little weathered but for $17 we found out later it was worth it.
We started out on the hike at about 10am. The Air temp was about 62 and the water temp 52. This is why I came, for this hike and I was not disappointed. Hiking in the river bed at times waist deep with rock on both sides of you going straight up it was unbelievable!!! We saw only a few people the whole time in there which was great because I heard this hike can get a little crowded during the peak seasons, some of the people we saw were using trekking poles and wearing sandals, the trekking poles did not seem to work well navigating over the rocks or for checking the depths or the river bed but our rented five and half foot poles worked like a third leg balancing us over rocks and were long enough to check the depth of the river to chose a pathway. From what we saw the sandals let in sand and pebbles which in turn you would then have to stop and take them off to clean them out, but our trusted rented shoes kept all debris out and the neoprene socks gave us a little warmth for our feet in the cool river water. We hiked as far as you can go with out a permit; it took us three and a half hours to get to that point and another two and half to get out. Words can not describe how cool it is to do this hike, after returning the rented gear we went back the camp site ate and relaxed around the fire that evening. Tuesday morning we broke camp and I picked up some souvenirs for the kids grabbed some Joe for the road trip back to Vegas to catch my flight back to Michigan, not a bad way to spend a long weekend.
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