Zion Canyon
- 6 minutes read - 1149 wordsTravel Day - Virgin, UT
On Saturday, Amber and Bruce went to Red Canyon and did a hike there while I got things hooked up and moved to Virgin, Utah, which is a few miles outside of Zion National Park. I seem to have a pretty good system/routine and was afraid that if extra people were helping out it might distract me and I might miss something, so I thought it would be best if I just did things myself. This drive was the first time Google Maps not knowing I was towing a trailer was a bit of an issue, as the route it wanted me to take was through a tunnel in Zion National Park which had height and width limits that would require a $15 permit for me to go through, where park rangers close the tunnel to two way traffic and I would have had to drive down the center of the lanes. There is also a combined maximum length of 50 feet, which I think is right around my total length, so I decided to back track and take the long way around. I think it went from a two hour drive to three, so not too bad for what ended up being an 150 mile drive. It’s a pretty nice RV park but with close campsites again:
Cedar Breaks National Monument
After getting setup at the new campsite, we drove about 90 minutes north to Cedar Breaks National Monument, which was a small but beautiful park. We did a couple of short trails, neither of which gave us views that we couldn’t get just from driving between the lookout points, but we did a lake trail that I really enjoyed because it was mostly through the woods, which I haven’t had a trail like that in a while.
We caught a nice sunset from Sunset Point in Cedar Breaks:
The Narrows - Zion National Park
On Sunday morning we got up and headed in to Zion National Park. This was the first holiday weekend this summer I really felt the effects of it being a holiday weekend, there were so many people! Zion doesn’t have much parking in the park, so you have to pay to park in the town just outside the park, and then there are city buses that will take you to the park entrance. During the busy season, Zion’s scenic drive is closed to personal vehicles, so the easiest way to get up canyon is by riding the park shuttles. It was pretty convenient, as the buses ran every few minutes from each stop, so we never had to wait too long.
We went up to The Narrows section, which is one of the more popular areas of the park. We were just going to do the river walk trail, which is an easy paved trail next to the river: At the end of the river walk, people that are going further up river start their hike:
It made me glad we weren’t doing more of that hike because there were just too many people.
Kolob Reservoir
We got a recommendation to check out Kolob Reservoir, which was about an hour away but at a lot higher elevation than Zion, which meant it was about 20 degrees cooler. So on Sunday afternoon we made the drive up and back, which was pretty, but the reservoir itself wasn’t very special, other than it being significantly cooler and more comfortable outside which was a nice break from the 100+ degree temperatures at the campsite.
Angels Landing - Zion National Park
We had taken Sunday pretty easy knowing that Monday we were going to do the Angels Landing hike. We got lucky in that Amber did win a lottery spot for us to go, unfortunately the lottery spot was for starting after noon, which meant we couldn’t start until it was hot and getting hotter. The first two miles was mostly paved trail, although pretty steep in some sections with about 1000 feet of elevation gain to get to Scout’s Lookout, which already offered a good view: To get to Angels Landing, things got pretty crazy from there. The next section of trail was steep enough and not enough of a trail that they put in chain for you to grab on to as you are climbing up and down:
I made it to the next plateau, and then they didn’t have chain to hold on to, so I chickened out and went back from there. The fact that they let people do this without any safety equipment means it is probably relatively safe, but I couldn’t make that work in my head with the 500+ foot drops on either side of the path. Amber and Bruce continued on, until eventually Bruce chickened out too, Amber was the only one that actually made it to Angels Landing.
On the way back down there were nice views of the main canyon: And part of the trail that was getting covered in shade by that point:
Amber wanted me to be sure to include our Three Musketeers picture:
On Tuesday Amber and Bruce had to head home, so I spent most of the day relaxing and reading. Wednesday I had to do some backtracking, I went back to Cedar Breaks because by the time we had got there on Sunday, the visitor center was closed, so I couldn’t get the stamp. I was going to hike some more while up there, since it was also at elevation and about 20 degrees cooler than Zion, but there was thunder and lightning while I was there. I sat in my car at one of the overlooks for a while hoping to wait it out, but that didn’t happen. I was also surprised at the number of people comfortable with leaving their cars with lightning in the area while also at an elevated position. From there I went back to Bryce Canyon, because I forgot to get a stamp for my parents while there, and then finally headed back to Zion. This time I was able to go through the tunnel on the way back, which was a pretty cool experience, because unlike most highway tunnels I’ve been through, this one had no artificial light in it, so once you got a decent way in it was very dark, even with headlights on.
Thursday was another mostly relaxing day, I did some more planning for campgrounds for my route home. I’m running out of time left for this planning!
On Friday I got up and tried to do one of the hikes on the other side of the tunnel in Zion, but the buses don’t run there and parking was very limited, so after waiting for 45 minutes for a parking spot and not getting one, I gave up and decided to go back to reading instead.