Day 18: Zion National Park

Approaching the entrance to Zion National Park

Friday, August 20

Zion National Park

After a continental breakfast mostly consisting of Cheerios at the hotel and a quick gas station run, I made the drive out to Zion, for the final National Park stop of my trip.  Zion has very limited parking and driving options within the park, so they feature a pretty convenient shuttle system with two loops: one making six stops in the nearyby town of Springdale, and one which makes eight stops within the park itself.   I parked my car at the visitor center parking lot and then hopped on the shuttle to head to my first hiking destination, Angels Landing.

For the same reason that I neglected to let the family know I was planning on driving up the treacherous Mount Evans path earlier in the trip so they wouldn't worry, I neglected to describe the Angels Landing hike to them until after the fact (this blog post).  From everything I read about this hike ahead of time I knew that it sounded scary, dangerous, and intense but it was highly reviewed by everyone who had completed it.  I'm really glad how I ended up making this trek on my last day of hiking because this was by far the most fun hike I made on the trip.

The narrow hike up to Angel's Landing

One aspect that made Zion unique from the other parks I had visited was the diversity of habitats.  The Virgin River ran throughout the park and was often visible, and there were also areas of forest, swamp, desert, grassland, and mountains, with a variety of plant and wildlife throughout.  That was one thing that made the early part of my Angels Landing hike interesting, despite an intense uphill trek (the full trail moved up 1,500 feet in around 2.5 miles) in 98 degree weather.   The trail got really interesting though after the 2 mile mark, after reaching a great scenic overlook called Scout's Lookout.  This is where a lot of hikers finish up their path and turn around, because the final half mile or so to Angels Landing requires an extremely steep climb utilizing rock climbing techniques and paths that are in some places only 3-4 feet wide next to straight dropoffs all the way down the mountain.  Chain ropes had been added in recent years to help support climbers in the most uphill sections (not to guard the dropoffs though) because there have been multiple fatalities from people stumbling and falling off the mountain in the past.  After gathering enough courage to continue, I made the slow climb up the remainder of the mountain, and although intimidating it was an absolute blast.  It was definitely intense in the direct sun, and such a vertical climb required a lot of energy.  Also because in some areas two people couldn't fit next to each other, it was necessary to check for hikers returning from the top and plan a path accordingly.

From bottom to top it took about an hour and a half, and the views from the peak were stunning and extremely rewarding.  A nice bonus was that there was so much area at the top that hikers didn't need to just snap some photos and then immediately turn around, as in some lookout points on other trails.  There was a huge area to hang out and relax, and I did this for quite some time, eating my packed lunch while I was there.  The trek down was easier (although you were forced to look down throughout the intense portion of the climb, which was kinda scary too) and I made it back to the bottom about an hour later.

View from top of Angel's Landing

The only major problem I had during this hike was that the lunch really wasn't settling too well in the stomach and during the rope climbing portion of the descent I was getting pretty nervous about what extreme and possibly embarrassing measures might have to be taken to remedy the situation.  Luckily (I didn't notice this on my climb up) something that resembled a single bathroom was at Scout's Lookout.  The facility was extremely lacking to say the least so I had to be a little creative with it.  I don't really feel like getting into any more details here, let's leave this part of the trip in the past.

Narrows hike through a river

Once at the bottom I was pretty tired, and my blister that started the previous day during the Grand Canyon hike had been feeling worse, but I didn't feel like heading out of the park yet.  I shuttled around to the other stops and got off at the furthest point from the entrance to go on a short walk along the river.  Another interesting aspect of this park is that where the canyon narrows at the back of the park the roads and marked paths end and only the river continues further back.  There is one more trail that ambitious hikers can go through called the Narrows which is 60-70% in water, involving walking, wading, and swimming through parts of the river.  Sounded cool, but despite the heat was not something I was interested in for this trip.  I did the 2.2 mile loop that went to the start of the Narrows and back, watched a video at the Visitor Center, filled up some oil in my car, and then said farewell to my last National Park of the trip.  Tom's flight had landed several hours earlier and I still had a 3 hour drive ahead of me.  It was time to shift gears for the trip, and I was off to Vegas.

Here's a decent description of the Angels Landing trail with a lot of pictures better than mine if anyone is interested: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-angels-landing-trail.htm

Including drive to Vegas:
Miles traveled today: 195
Miles traveled total: 4,370
States traveled through: 14