My friend, I assure you photographs were taken. The problem is
that I have never been granted access to them, despite filling out all
Required Forms in triplicate, standing in all proper Interminable
Lines, and so forth. Please direct complaints to:
Citizen Jackson
N.B.: this is a highly abbreviated account, and one that I only intend
to flesh out once I have those pictures to inspire me. So if you
want to read the full account, squeak, wheel, squeak!
Location
Zion is in southwestern Utah, due north of the Grand Canyon. It is right in the midst of that amazing cluster of Utahn and Arizonan parks and recreation areas sometimes called the Grand Circle.
Route Information
Day One we hiked the Narrows, a narrow desert canyon carved by the Virgin River into the Markagunt Plateau. Starting from the Temple of Sinawava, it can be a 27 km through-hike; we just a hiked a few hours along the river until we were past the crowds and had the canyon to ourselves, then started exploring the side canyons, such as Mystery Canyon, Mountain of Mystery, and Orderville Canyon.
Day Two we hiked about 10 km from the trailhead near Spendlove Knoll along the Hop Valley Trail to a campsite near Kolob Arch.
Day Three we returned along the same route; most of us left the park then, but Eric and I remained to walk up Angel's Landing before tearing ourselves away. Angel's makes for only a 6 km round trip but an elevation change of amost 500 meters in the course of about 2 km of trail.
Trip Information
Our roster on this trip was large. We were Michael and Neal from Denver; Lukman and Nina from San Francisco; and Citizen Jackson, Eric, and myself from San Diego. Fun guys all.
At the beginning of this trip, Lukman was still limping pretty badly from his famous cliff dive down along the Baja California (Mexico) coastline about a month before. In deference to his injury, we elected to take things easy our first day, and explore a bit of what the park had to offer in the way of dayhikes. This turned out to be the best thing we could possibly have done, not merely because the Zion Narrows are incredibly good fun, wading through refreshing waters, bouldering, climbing waterfalls and the like, but also because the exercise of exaggerated leg lifting to wade along the stony bottom of the river, in conjunction with the icy waters, did Lukman's hip joints a world of good, eliminating virtually all trace of limp over the space of a few hours.
It's a hot and dusty trail to Kolob Arch, across a weird, cracked landscape. As one nears the end of the trail, the landscape changes, becoming less lunar and more martian, a rich red rock, pockmarked with cavelets and tunnels. Once we reached our destination we bouldered like madmen, playing on the eerie rock formations until well after sunset.
On the return journey the next day we stopped to swim with the watersnakes in a cold river cutting through the solid stone of the desert floor.
Upon our return to the trailhead, everyone left except Eric and me. The two of us decided to walk up Angel's Landing before returning to civilization and responsibility. Angel's is, at its top, a small round flat stone area whipped by high winds, overlooking a grand valley. This summit is perched at the end of a 3 km hike, with all of the elevation gain coming in the last 2 km. In places the trail is very steep, sometimes with strenuous switchbacks. The final approah to the summit is along a narrow neck of rock, in places no wider than a man's outstretched arms, with a sheer drop of 500 meters on each side. The view from the top is magnificent.
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