The Start of the Grand Finale

9/6:

This morning we finally headed into Zion! This is the start of my trip's grand finale - some of the most beautiful scenery in the US, along with some of the best hiking. I can't wait to show you guys the best and the brightest of the American West!

The plan was to start with a hike of the Narrows. It’s one of Zion’s most famous hikes and includes a lot of hiking through the river. We had rented neoprene socks, water boots, and hiking poles from Zion Adventure Company for the hike so that our stuff wouldn’t be soaked for the rest of the trip. So we hiked up to the river entrance and donned our rented gear.

Now, in camp showers I always wear sandals so that I avoid contracting gross foot funguses and diseases. As soon as I put these rental boots on I was 100% sure that I had just gotten all of them in one fell swoop. These things REEKED to the point where we all had to stand upwind of them. The socks were even worse. They didn’t even smell like feet anymore, just… horrible things, really. But! They did do their job – even when hiking in the ice cold river, my feet stayed nice and warm.

We hiked upstream a few miles. The weather was perfect and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The pictures I took don’t really do it justice – but it might be enough to say that this was one of my favorite hikes of my trip so far. A lot of it was the novelty of hiking in water, I’m sure, but that’s a big part of the draw. It was a lot of fun trying to find my way across when I couldn’t see the bottom (fortunately I didn’t step in any big hidden holes, as some other hikers did). Here's a few shots from the hike. There are going to be a lot of pictures of me for the next week of posts because my mom loves to photograph "the wild Kelly in her natural environment".

Very cool reflections

My parents, both surprisingly not photographing anything

These mineral stains look like a cityscape!

The whole time I was freaking out over the amazing crossbeds preserved here

Surprisingly photogenic today

Family shot!

Deepest part of the hike - fortunately also the part we hit during midday so the water felt good instead of being freezing!

After our hike we headed back to Springdale, where we stayed at Desert Pearl for the night (SUPER nice place to stay, by the way!). It was nice to get all of my camping gear out of Jane to leave in the room for once. We had some fantastic Mexican food for dinner and then called it a night as my mom had pulled a hip flexor or something and wanted to rest up.

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9/7:

Another excellent day in Zion! We were greeted in the morning by a full double rainbow (yes, all the way across the sky – what does it mean??). 

It turns out that we were fortunate that we did the Narrows yesterday, as today it was shut down because of a flash flood warning. It was cloudy in the morning and threatened to rain but never really got much past a drizzle, which was great because I had a bucket list hike to tackle: Angels Landing!

Angels Landing is the most famous trail in Zion, and for good reason. The guy who engineered this trail was both a genius and certifiably insane, I believe. It starts off like any other hike – a good 2 miles up a billion switchbacks to an overlook of the whole park. Absolutely gorgeous. But then the last half mile of the hike is where it gets insane. The trail runs along a knife-edge ridge (quite literally as knifelike as a mountain can get) that rises 1200 feet above the valley floor. Because the ridge is so narrow, the trail mostly consists of a 2-foot-wide path bordered on one side occasionally by a chain handrail. On either side of the trail there’s a steep 1000 to 1200 foot dropoff! Not a trail for anyone who’s afraid of heights.

So here's a few shots from before the insane part:

"Walter's Wiggles" - a series of stupidly steep switchbacks

People headed up the scary part of Angels Landing!

Here’s me and my dad at the entrance to the scary part – I look excited, he looks a little frightened. 

After the first set of handrails he and my mom called it quits and let me go on alone. They had asked me if I was afraid of heights to which I replied, “I don’t know but I’ll find out!” Well, it appears that I’m not afraid of heights. I’ll chalk it up to being young and stupid. Fortunately I found a new hiking partner on my way up – Ada, another girl who had lost her hiking partner to fear of heights. So we climbed on up and chatted along the way and had quite a pleasant time!

The trail runs up along this!

A part that wasn't so scary, though there was a 1000 foot dropoff to my right about a foot away

Almost up to the top, looking back on the trail

Ada and I on a wider landing before the final push!

The view on the top of the ridge is absolutely incredible. A full 360 view – mostly because you’re on the tallest object for miles around! Ada and I hung out and ate a snack at the top, enjoying the feeling of accomplishment. And then it was time to climb back down, a scarier prospect as going down always forces you to look at the drop-offs that you had previously climbed without noticing. But I must be really, really young and stupid, because even that didn’t scare me!

Right on the edge!

You have all now seen a photo of me from every possible angle on this mountaintop

View of the trail heading down

Parking lot 1200 feet below me

Width of the path.

I hit the base of the landing and Ada and I parted ways. My parents and I went to check out another cool overlook, then headed back down to the valley floor. Can’t wait to hike Angels Landing again – it was one of the most challenging and certainly the most interesting hikes I’ve ever done!

Angles Landing overview

But the day was still young and we had more hiking to do! We stopped by the lodge first for a nice scoop of ice cream (by now a requirement after any strenuous hike for me). And then it was off to the Emerald Pools, a nice pleasant hike that leads to a few pools that are not so Emerald. Though these pools may be impressive for Utah, I have to say that they were not that impressive in comparison to Colorado's beautiful lakes! They were still a nice place to hike to though. The cliffs overlooking the hike were majestic (as are all cliffs and/or mountains in Zion, I suppose).

With another great day of hiking under our belt, we headed out for more Mexican food (also a requirement after strenuous hiking out West). After some wandering around in downtown Springdale we turned in for the night. Tomorrow we'll hike the short Canyon Overlook trail before heading on to Capitol Reef. I'm a little bummed that we're leaving Zion already as I have had such a good time here, but time dictates that we must do a whirlwind tour of the "Mighty 5" of Utah! So stay tuned for some more amazing sights! For now... Kelly signing out.