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Zion Canyon

7.21.04

In late afternoon we drove an hour and a half to Zion National Park and wound our way into the park amazed at the giant rock faces that surrounded us. Since the vertical rock walls of this canyon do not allow access to anyone but birds from three sides, a tunnel had been carved behind the surface of one of the sides (so as not to spoil the view). The first view out of the tunnel is a giant arch in the surface of one of the rock walls (though not a through arch like at Arches). The road then snakes its way down to a narrow canyon floor with the winding Virgin River. To give you the scale of this scenery, the altitude difference between the river bed and the tops of the surrounding peaks reaches up to 3000 feet (1km).

At 6pm when we arrived, it was still around 105. We settled into the South Campground, the park's first-come campground. Unfortunately, it was crowded and really noisy. At night we had a number of people trot through our camping area carrying bright lights. The air remained hot late into the night and we both had a difficult time getting to sleep. We decided that we had to get into the backcountry to truly enjoy the park.

7.22.04

Thursday we did a couple of quick day hikes in the morning, got our backcountry permit and then waited for the heat of the day to subside in an air-conditioned internet café just outside the park. The first hike was to Angel's Landing. Car movement in the park is restricted to the main area, so we took a propane-run shuttle bus to a more remote stop to start the climb. The rock named Angel's Landing towered right in front of us and for a while along the path we kept wondering how on earth we will make our way up there without serious rock-climbing equipment or a helicopter. It turned out a path had been carved out into an adjacent rock formation that took us about halfway up through a number of switchbacks. A passage between this rock formation and Angel's Landing then led us to another series (23) of very dense switchbacks on the back side of a rock connected to Angel's Landing (see photo).

With some scrambling over rock, sometimes using chains, we reached a small flat area with a stunning view. To the right we could see down the canyon, with rocky peaks standing guard over the river on both sides. To the left, there was the coul-de-sac of the end of the canyon where the road turns around amongst smooth and vertical rock faces. The shuttle passing by just then was just a tiny white line (see one of the photos in Ofoto, link below). We were pretty high up. We were well above the half point of the above-mentioned 3000-ft difference.

The most breath-halting view, however, was straight ahead. We were not yet at Angel's Landing. That rock jutted up straight ahead of us into the middle of the canyon like a shark fin. To get there we had to traverse an even narrower stretch of maybe just 3 feet in width. From where we were standing, we could see the left side of this narrow stretch and of Angel's Landing itself. It was a perfectly vertical, nearly smooth face with nothing intervening until the valley floor more some 2000-2500 feet below. The path made its way across the narrow fin and up the narrow ridge with an almost equally vertical drop on the other side. True, there were chains, but. We decided we did not have enough rock-climbing savvy to attempt this, and sat there content with the sights we got to see from our little view point. Of course, we have regretted not having done the climb ever since.

Back at the trailhead we took up a different trail, which was supposed to be very scenic. In fact, it turned out to be a bit disappointing after Angel's Landing. It was called the Emerald Pools Trail, and its low, middle and upper branches were supposed to lead us to spectacular green pools at the feet of the cliffs. That they did, but the pools weren't all that. The trail, however, did provide us with a return route closer to our campsite, so we only had to take the shuttle a few stops and got some nice vistas of the canyon floor and Virgin River along the way. This pretty butterfly was fluttering along the way.

It was now 11am and unbearably hot, so we retreated to a small town right south of the park gate. We caught up on email and the news in an internet café, and then in late afternoon we decided to take the shuttle to the very end of the canyon and back, just to see all there was to see before heading out on our evening hike into the backcountry. The shuttle was hot and took an hour and a half to complete the round trip. We didn't see anything new, but it was nice to do it anyway.

Our backcountry trip was to a different part of Zion NP, the Kolob Canyon, northwest of the main canyon. We had to leave the park and drive around for an hour to get there. We parked at a small roadside viewing area, which offered an amazing vista of the rocky landscape we were about to enter. The sun was low at this point, so the rock faces ahead of us were shining particularly red. Our trail led down a small ridge with great views of the red cliffs to our left (see photo), and then followed La Verkin Creek. It should really have been termed La Verkin Creek Bed because it seems not to have seen water for a long time. This was a problem for us because we had planned to hike in 2 miles, camp, then hike a 10-mile roundtrip the next morning without packs to see the Kolob Arch (apparently largest in the world), spend the rest of the day at our campsite, and then hike out the following morning the remaining 2 miles. Despite warning about all the dried up streams in the area, the Visitor Center did not include La Verkin on that list. We would have to shorten our plans somehow so as not to run out of water. While pondering this question, we made our tent and dinner in a lovely spot opposite the reddening rocks. There was not a soul in the area, and the scene was very peaceful.

Having used up 2 of our 5 liters of water just for dinner, and fearing the heat of the next day, we ended up deciding to return to hike back out that night, rather than risk getting caught in the sun with our packs on and an inadequate water supply the next morning. Since we arrived back at the car too late to find another campsite, we went into a nearby town and slept in a motel.

7.23.04

More pictures at Ofoto