Zion National Park

After conquering the Grand Canyon, the next leg of our journey took us on a scenic drive up along I-89  to the East entrance of the Zion National Park in Utah!

Now, we'll certainly take credit for planning this, but not sure it was really "planned" per se.  But we left the Grand Canyon early afternoon on Friday heading along I-89 passing by some pretty incredible cliff structures.  The whole time Scottie was driving and asking me "What are those? They must be some big mountain range?"  And I kept telling him there's nothing on the map about them, it just shows cliffs and it's part of the Navajo Reservation.  Later, I found out they were the Echo Cliffs based on this map or that's my final answer!  But you can see what he means by the photos above.

It took us roughly 3 hours to get to Zion and we stumbled upon an amazing scenic drive through the East Entrance of Zion National Park along Zion Mount-Carmel Highway.  Luckily, we arrived just a little after 8pm (once we noted that we were on the Pacific Time here) breezing through the drive just as the sunset.  Zion's east side is vastly different from the main canyon.  The road snakes its way between opposing sandstone slopes, famous for the park's 'sliprock' scenery.

Scottie did a lot of the research for our hiking excursion in the Grand Canyon as well as our lodging, flights, etc.  While there are a few decent options here in the nearby town of Springdale, Scottie ended up booking one of the nicer places to stay (in terms of cost and convenience) and we highly recommend it.  It was at the Cable Mountain Lodges essentially located right outside the entrance gates into the Zion National Park.  The inside was sparkling clean, the bed was fantastic, the kitchenette handy, and the view from our cute little porch was out to the Zion vistas themselves!  It was a nice upgrade from our Grand Canyon lodge, though, that was actually perfect for us carrying in a lot of dirt and sweat from our hikes!  Just when our day couldn't get much better with scoring a good room and fun drive, we overate a delicious taco meal at the Bit & Spur Restaurant.

The next morning, despite looming rain clouds, we decided to get after probably one of the coolest and daring hikes that Scottie and I have tackled together, The Zion Narrows!  I think we said before the Grand Canyon long hike that if we could survive that, our marriage could survive anything, but I certainly wouldn't discount this one.  While the Grand Canyon tested our strength, endurance, and energy, the Narrows tested our balance, mind, and senses.  


First things first, we stopped in at the Zion Adventure Company to rent some gear as this hike is in the Virgin River through the narrow slot canyons of Zion.  At times, the water can come up to waist high and it's not necessarily that warm even in the Summer months.  However, the recommendation is at the very least renting the 5.10 Canyoneer Shoes, the 5 mm Neoprene Socks, and a Sturdy Walking Stick.  But once we saw that it might rain and water temperatures were around 50 degrees, we opted in for the Gore-Tex Dry Pants as well.  They do have a pretty thorough overview of the Narrows Hike explaining...

The “narrows” of any canyon refers to the place where the parallel walls squeeze down to their most slender dimension, evoking dramatic light, serpentine form, and, in humans, a humbling sense of beauty and grandeur. Following the Virgin River north into Zion Canyon, 1500 to 2500-foot sandstone walls slowly encroach upon the river, a mere 1/4-mile wide at the Temple of Sinawava. From here, the canyon walls squeeze down incredibly to 25 to 30-feet in breadth at “Wall Street,” defining the world-famous Zion “Narrows.”

And we were off!  The gear came with a nice little stench, a combination of sweat from the previous users and just water mildew smells.  So we certainly did make any friends on the free shuttle ride from the town of Springdale into the Zion Park entrance as well as the shuttle within the park.  While the Narrows can be hiked as an overnight Top-Down or a one day-Thru Hike, knowing that we would be doing the long Grand Canyon hike, I decided to plan for the day Bottom-Hike (more info breaking down the hikes here).  This just meant we'd hike from the Temple of Sinawava as far as the Big Springs, which could be a 10-mile roundtrip hike plus there is about 2 miles roundtrip within the Orderville Canyon that could be hiked.

We were surprised at the people hiking in shorts and Keens, but we quickly separated ourselves from the crowd.  While Keens seem like a good idea, the Canyoneers were handy because of the support, and they weren't going to get ruined by the water.  The views along the hike were magnificent:

After about 2 miles into the hike, we hit there area known as "Wall Street", which is a 2-mile stretch where the walls thin to 22-ft wide and 1,500 feet high.

The river current picked up here too with less places on the side outside the water to hike.  From Wall Street, we hiked up about another mile.  We decided to turn around when the water started getting too deep.  On the way back, we took the pit stop through about a mile of Orderville Canyon.  At 4pm, 6 hours later, we completed the return trip through the Riverside Walk trail for about a 9 mile hike.  

On the way back, we stopped at the Big Bend shuttle stop for a scenic view shot and then we squeezed in another 3-mile hike along the Emerald Pools Trails.  The actual Emerald Pools were a bit disappointing (aerial view must be better); however the views along the hike were spectacular.  

This was definitely one of those family-friendly hikes, so Scottie and I opted for the Kayenta Trail for the way back to the shuttle.  We found even better scenic views along this trail!  And at that point, I was whipped and stinky!  Or evening concluded with a well-deserved pint and burger at Jack's Sports Grill.

For our second day in Zion, we attempted an earlier start to tackle the strenuous Angels Landing hike, but this required a hearty breakfast over at Cafe Soleil.  After breakfast, we quickly jumped onto the shuttle to the Grotto stop to tackle the Angels Landing .  This was a strenuous hike essentially straight up through a series of switchbacks for the first hour to the top of the picture above.

While it leveled out at one point for a half mile or so, we hit another series of swithbacks called Walter's Wiggles.  Upon completion of those, the next obstacle was maneuvering around the false summits as we thought we were close but the trail continued ahead along the series of climbs along the side of the canyon using industrial-size chains!  At this point, I joked with Scottie about how I didn't want to it became more of a rock climb as we had to work our way around narrow paths grabbing hold onto these industrial-sized chains.

But we both survived the additional 500-feet in elevation gain along the chained-trail to see this view of the valley floor from 1500-feet above.  While we weren't on the highest peak, it was high enough for a great view all-around, 360-degree view!   After recouping for a half hour or so up top, we made our way back down, where we encountered lines of people coming up.  At certain points, it's pretty much a one-way street, so we were happy to have started this one early!

On the shuttle ride back, we stopped at Weeping Rock, where we took the trail through Hidden Canyon.  It was said that this was a 2-mile round-trip gaining 850-feet in elevation, but it felt much higher and longer!  Once up a half-mile of steep switchbacks, we finally hit a stretch of scenic views along the cliff edges.  Again, at certain points along this hike, we had to resort to the chains to prevent us from slipping off the edge!  The secret at the end is Hidden Canyon itself, a deep, narrow chasm separating the Great White Throne from Cable Mountain, but we were more intrigued by a free-standing Arch that remained ahead on the off-trail.

As you can see though, this was certainly not worth the extra mile or so that we tacked on, but I made Scottie pose anyway!  For the rest of the day, we continued along the shuttle taking pit stops to get the scenic views.  While we didn't attempt anymore crazy hikes, here's a nice map of all the hikes in Zion.

Then, we took a 45-minute drive up to the other part of Zion Park, the Kolob Canyons.  We opted for the 5-mile scenic drive through the park instead of attempting another 5+ mile hike.  The Kolob Canyons scenic drive includes dramatic narrow canyons and brightly-colored, towering vertical cliffs.

Scottie convinced me to take a 1-mile Timber Creek Overlook Trail to stretch our legs a little more.  At the end of the trail, you're supposed to see South to the Kaibab Plateau all the way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  But I enjoyed the scenery back into the park.  On our way back to our lodge, we stopped in at the Zion Pizza & Noodle Company for some pizza and beer!  Another winner!

Day 5 and 6 complete!  See more photos from our adventures in the Zion National Park in my photo album.