Marching to Zion

In the southwest corner of Utah, the high plateau desert begins to drop off into a series of dramatic canyons, the rivers cutting curvy trenches through easily eroded sandstone, forming slot canyons like can be found nowhere else on Earth.  

The scenery and geological formations of this area are so interesting and unique that several national parks have been established here, offering a glimpse of the geological layers of time.  Highest up on the plateau is Bryce Canyon National Park, which is best known for its hoo-doos, pillars of sandstone still standing after all else around them has eroded away.  One canyon has so many that it is called the frozen city.  Bryce is a beautiful park.

At the lowest end of this staircase down the southwest is the Grand Canyon, with it's mile deep gorge surrounded by a vast canyon that stretches from horizon to horizon.  

Both Bryce and Grand Canyon are beautiful parks, but in between them is Zion, which is by far my favorite park in the west.  Zion is, in fact, one of my favorite places on the planet.  With dramatic drops into the canyon of the Virgin River, Zion eventually becomes a wide valley surrounded by towering stone cliffs.  When inside of the park it feels like one surrounded by mountains, but none of the peaks are considered mountains.  When you see the park from the sky you see why.  Once out of the canyon, the land is then flat all around.  Only the major drop in elevation to get to the floor of the valley produces the illusion of mountains on all sides.  

All the same, the walls of the canyons tower over you as you ride the Zion shuttle up into the valley.  Zion is a large park, but the most visited area follows the Virgin River up from the town of Springdale, all the way back to the narrows, where the only way to continue is on foot, in the river.  Hiking the narrows is one of the most amazing experiences Zion has to offer.  

At the start of this hike, the river is wider and the walls less severe.  The farther in you go, the steeper and higher the walls get, and the narrower the river.  At times you are standing between walls two thousand feet tall, so close together that two people can reach out and hold hands while touching opposite walls with their other hands.  Several tributary canyons offer side trips excursions, often with waterfalls.  You can spend all day hiking up the narrows and not reach the end.  In fact, lots of people hike in from the top, taking two to three days to make the entire journey, camping in the canyon wherever they find a decent spot.

Angel's Landing is another incredible hike.  It's not the highest point in the park, but it's got one of the best views, and the hike there is exhilarating.  First you climb up a sheer wall on a switchback trail, and then you have hike into a slot in the stone wall, a small pass known as Refrigerator Canyon.  Once inside, one walks along a trail of trees and shrubs, cooled by a fresh breeze that flows through the canyon, which seldom sees sun. 

Then you get to Walter's Wiggles, an impressive feat of engineering that leads you on the final steep ascent up to the rim of the canyon.  Appropriately named, the wiggles zag back and forth some twenty times, with only short runs before the switchback.  It's a tough climb and it leaves you exhausted.  

At the top of Walter's Wiggles one has a great view of the park, and for the first time, a view of what makes Angel's Landing so remarkable.  Sticking out from the canyon wall is a narrow spine of rock that dips down and then climbs up again, rather steeply, to a promontory point that looks out over the big bend in the Virgin River.  (In fact, the formation that is Angel's Landing is what causes the River to make its big bend, around the base of the landing.)

For many people, this is the end of the line.  To get to top of Angels landing, you must ascend this narrow rocky ridge.  Even from the viewpoint on the canyon wall you can see that the pathway atop the ridge line is narrow, but not until you get out onto it (if you so choose to do so) do you really get to see how narrow it actually is.  In places you are scrambling over rocks no wider than four feet, with a thousand foot drop on either side.  It's nothing too technical, but the psychological effect is huge, and many people cling to the rocks for dear life, moving along a very slow and careful pace.  Especially on the final climb, which involves some steep climbs, though there are chains anchored into the rock to help in tough places.

Once arriving at the precipice, the views are unbeatable.  One has something like a 325 degree view, with the Virgin River sparkling below in the sun, the green belt of life that follows its course also glistening with the fluttering cottonwood leaves.  

Another really cool hike in Zion is called the Subway, so named because of the way the creek cut its way through the rocks in almost a tube-like fashion.  This hike is much more technical, and requires a permit so that too many people don't crowd into the narrow subway tunnels at once.  The only way to make it through is to have climbing gear (for certain repels) and a dry suit for the numerous swims.  In places the canyon is narrow with steep walls, with water permanently trapped in the lower areas.  This water is often over your head, and being so far down in the canyon, it receives practically no direct sunlight, ever.  So needless to say, its freezing.  Even with the dry suit, it was chillingly cold to plunge and swim across, pushing our waterproof backpack ahead of us.  

There are numerous other hikes to take through Zion.  The west end is basically another park entirely, with far fewer people, and quite a bit more wilderness.  Once my dad and I did an grand trek across the park, from the Virgin River valley all the way to the west end.  It started with us driving way up into the higher elevation in the west end of the park, leaving the car, and then taking our bikes down the way we came in, to get back to the highway.  We did this trip specifically for the epic bike ride.  Fifteen miles of entirely downhill riding, with views like you wouldn't believe.  It was so fun.  We could get going so fast, and it seemed like the downhill ride would never end.  

When it finally did we then had about a four mile ride back up to the main part of the park, on a main road.  This entirely uphill ride was less fun, but still worth it.  My dad was living in Springdale at the time, so we rode straight back to his house, with plans to head back for the car tomorrow.  

This would be another great day.  It was a twelve mile hike across the wildest part of the park, so we equipped ourselves with plenty of food and water and started early.  

The hike was amazing, but it took longer than we thought.  When it started getting dark, we began to wonder if perhaps we should have brought flashlights.  Or coats.  Thankfully it was a full moon, and watching it rise over the desert landscape was exquisitely  beautiful.  The moon provided us enough illumination to see, and we kept our pace as well as we could.  By the time we finally got to the car we were getting pretty cold, and it wasn't until we got out back at the house that it dawned on us how tired out we were.  

The west end offers many other great hikes, but I won't go into any more details about that.  If you haven't been to Zion, I highly recommend it.  It's definitely one of the most beautiful parks in this country, right up there with Yellowstone and Smokey Mountains.  

Springdale is also a beautiful place.  My dad had a great spot, only a few hundred yards from the Virgin River, and the property had some great shade trees and lots of fruit and walnuts growing.  We could bike or walk to the park from his place, and we were also close enough to walk just about anywhere in town.  

Once Phillip and I did a pretty wild canoe ride down the Virgin, which wasn't roaring, but rather was low.  This made for lots of rocks and bumps.  In places the water was flowing enough to make for some thrilling descents, but mostly it was just jarring.  Still, a great adventure.

More pictures from around Zion