Zion Weekend
- Lex
- Sep 10, 2019
- 10 min read
We took a trip to Zion National Park over Memorial day weekend and here is how it went!
My recommendation, don’t go to Zion National Park during Memorial weekend unless you plan on being in the park before 7:00 AM.
That being said, it was still one of the coolest weekend trips of my life.
We left on the Saturday morning with some friends with no campsite reservation in hopes of finding a spot to test out our new car-top tent somewhere in the desert.
Saturday was our day scheduled to climb one of the favorite climbs I have ever done. Sandstone climbing is so different than other climbing. I imagine that it is what it would be like to climb on Mars. The hike into the small canyon (of which I might just never name so all the ‘yutzes’ don’t go ruinin’ the place) is about 30-ish minutes, depending on how fast you hike and how much bush whacking you have to do. We were taking our friends to this spot for their first time and my husband and I were so excited to show them our favorite little climbing spot. Hiking through this area is a little bit of extra fun since it is less frequented by most, which makes it so the wildlife is a little bit more alive. We walked through the soft red sand, among the seemingly misplaced pine trees, watching the lizards scurry off into the bushes. It truly is otherworldly. For the first part of the hike you don’t notice the canyon walls peeking through the trees much until they are right on top of you. Then, you finally see them. Gigantic sandstone walls towering over you on both sides, covered in huecos bigger than most humans and streaked with black from the water finding its way through the rock. It is truly amazing.
We finally make our way to the base of our next adventure, the climb. As my husband is the strongest climber of the bunch he gets the arduous task of leading the route, and believe me, it’s not an easy climb even on top rope. This climb rates a 5.10+ but we don’t truly believe that rating, as it might be a bit sand-bagged. After my husband gets everything set up on the climb, the rest of us peons can have a whack at this unique send. This wall actually has plenty of wonderful holds to grab the whole way up the wall, but what makes this climb much more difficult is the significant steady overhang that makes you do a constant pull-up into the wall while still trying to make progress up the wall. By the end of making your way up this your arms feel like logs, but it is more than worth it. After everyone pumps to their hearts content it’s time to clean up, hike out and find a spot to crash before the sun goes down.
Since, of course, all the main campsites are full due to the very busy weekend, we set up shop on some beautiful desert BLM land. We pitch our tents perfectly in the middle of nowhere, but not too far away from the next days adventure. We decide to go for a vegetarian BBQ for dinner, complete with veggie patties, and veggie hot dogs; very delicious but definitely make you a bit gassy. Since we were camping in the dessert the heat would not leave us alone until far after the sun went down, which did make it a little bit more difficult to turn in early, or sleep much in general for that matter. But no matter, we enjoyed a yummy dinner and of course, smore’s around the campfire, not that we needed it for heat or anything, but when camping, how can you not? I had never just camped out in the desert before and it was a real treat. When dusk came around the bats decided to join us, and it was wonderful just watching them swooping around for a bite to eat. They were everywhere and if you couldn’t see them you could definitely hear them. Watching their silhouettes dance across a dimming orange sky was a wonderful end to an amazing day.
Sleeping while camping doesn’t actually seem to be a common thing, at least not for my husband and me. Our new car-top tent was a perfect purchase, but it did bring along some new worries. What if I have to pee at night? Do I just try to squat out from the ladder and hope I don’t get it everywhere? Or do I fully gear up to squat in the sand and just hope a scorpion doesn’t find my bare buns a threat? This is why I always struggle camping, the constant fear of where to pee and what is the best way to pee for where I am. A constant struggle really, for those of us with small bladders. Other fears included: Will the tent break the car? Will the car roll away with us on top in the tent? Are the coyotes that we can hear and see outside the smart ones? Can scorpions climb? Also what mystery animals live in the desert that for some reason hate me and want me dead? Once you get over these fears, sleeping in the desert is a breeze. I am still working on those fears, so when the alarm when off before sunrise I could feel the puffiness of my eyes swell up like a roasting marshmallow. However, we are trying to get to the park early to beat the crowds so the show must go on. We quickly made breakfast burritos and coffee while packing up to head out which took a lot longer than we had planned for. Finally we are off to the park entrance which I was hoping we were still early enough to not have to wait in 3 hour lines to get into the park and another 3 hours to be allowed to hike Angels Landing. I was wrong. We got to Springdale and the parking lot for Zion was full and there was a huge line to get into the park. We decided to park in town and bus in, probably our best idea of the day. After a quick bus ride into the park we are met with an hour-long line to get on the park bus to get to the Grotto where a 3-hour line is waiting for us to hike Angels. Sometimes I really wish less people liked being outside. Everyone just stay in your little homes and do not come to these beautiful places. Anyway, we ended up just hiking to Scouts Lookout and not doing the full Angels so that we didn’t have to wait for the estimated 3-4 hours. I love this hike, even though it is very manicured to allow more people to ascend it, it is still fun. The view from the top is beautiful and I would like to take our friends on a significantly less busy weekend so they can actually experience the Angels Landing hike, but for how busy it was, at least we got to do some of it.
Our next little adventure was wandering up the Narrows a ways, which of course was more difficult than normal because there was hundreds of people everywhere you turned. After the sweaty heat of our previous hike we were very looking forward to the Narrows. To be honest, I do not have a lot to say about the Narrows this time around. A lot of this few hour journey was tainted by people smoking many different things, illegally flying drones, and ‘Instagram hoes’ posing for every basic picture in every basic spot. For example this one chick literally brought a full wardrobe change to take different picture in…what. Anyway, the water was beautifully chilly and refreshing, and wandering around bend after bend in search of less people was fun. Someday I would love to canyoneer the top portion of the Narrows where it is very narrow to get the true experience.
And thus our ‘basic’ day in the park had tuckered us out physically and emotionally. We gradually made our way to the exit of the park in search of a pizza place that we love to visit, but I don’t remember the name, it is tasty though. Finally getting food in our bellies and drying out from the river we were able to relax just a little bit. But we did smell so bad. I could smell every different stench from each individual part of my body. I feel bad for everyone around me, I swear I put B.O. Blaster on, it just ain’t working anymore. After winding down for a bit we said goodbye to our friends who were heading home that night and we set off in search for a closer campsite to prep us for tomorrows adventures. Which did not happen and we ended up basically at the spot we were before but not until dark. Stress levels were high as the sun had gone down and we still needed to set up camp, feeling a bit more vulnerable with it just being the two of us now the night time camp fears set back in hard. Trying to sleep this night proved even more difficult that the night before. The temperature never dipped below 70 degrees and the coyotes decided to visit us once again making for a long very hot night.
Morning came very quickly and as tired as we were, I was very excited for the final days journey. We quickly packed up camp and sprinted off to meet my uncle who was generously taking us on a canyoneering adventure. Running a little late because we struggle sometimes, we shimmy into wetsuits and harnesses feeling very weird and sweaty already, and we got ready to descend into Pinecreek. I was a little intimidated at first because I had never done this specific type of rappelling with a little bit different equipment. But after the first two descents I was much more comfortable. Having the opportunity to go through this narrow slot canyon made every other part of Zion National Park feel juvenile. As we worked our way through the beautiful sandstone, water and beautiful views, we come to our first bigger rappel. I believe it is called the Cathedral. This is the first section where we have to slide down the line into the water and take a swim. I guess this time there was a significant decrease in the amount of water in this canyon so we didn’t have to swim as much as originally thought. Part of me is thankful for this because the water was freezing and you never know what lives at the bottom of spooky cave water. It was very much worth it and would do it again in a heartbeat. I don’t even know how to describe the scenery, I just feel like I could have sat there for hours just looking at every little part of the canyon, listening to the echo’s bouncing off the walls and watching the light play off of the red stone. But, we were ‘sprinting’ our way through, which is a relative description seeing as though there was 7 of us, so it still did take a while.
On one of the sections apparently there was a large tarantula right at face level! I wish I had seen it however, it also might have freaked me out for the rest of the journey. Hopefully the wetsuit, gloves, helmet and shoes gave enough of a protective layer against the critters, but if that didn’t deter wildlife, it boosted my confidence for sure. This was just the first critter encounter of the day, but the rest weren’t until later.
We scurried along chatting and gawking, and having a good time until finally we were out of all the water sections and could shed the wetsuits (I was wearing two remember). I am pretty sure taking all that stuff off took like 30 minutes, it was a real struggle. After we were freed from our confined wetsuits, we continued to get to the final biggest rappel of our adventure and it did not disappoint. This final one was 80-100 feet of free hanging rappelling with a view. At first it took me a minute to get the hang of letting myself down without having the rock to place my feet on, but I got the hang of it and enjoyed every second floating down to the ground. I can’t explain any of this much, I might just need to show pictures and video to get the full effect.
At the bottom there was a little fresh water pond with a tiny waterfall spewing straight from inside the sandstone wall making the water crystal clear and the most beautiful turquoise. While this view was right in front of us, behind us was the mountains of red rock surrounding us.
I had assumed the hard part was past and now we just somehow do a short hike to the car. I don’t know what I was thinking because I was very wrong. If I am correct I think the hike out of the canyon took longer than getting through the canyon did. We spent the next few hours scrambling over boulders, across ponds and streams, jumping from log to rock to sand hoping not to twist an ankle. It was an adventure to say the least, and thank goodness it was still overcast at this part of the day or I think we might have just cooked to death. This is a part of Zion most do not see, and it felt like we were on another beautiful planet where humans hadn’t scared away all of the wildlife. We found so many tadpoles and baby toads it was amazing. At one point my husband stepped onto a sandy bank not thinking much of it and suddenly 50 tiny toads went hoping away as fast as their tiny hoppers could take them. They were so adorable, and we had to watch our feet very carefully as not to step on any of them. We also saw many lizards, which both the lizards and the toads looked so cool on each of the different colored rocks because no matter the color they made themselves blend right in. Seeing them on the red rocks was probably the coolest.
After quite awhile and getting lost multiple times, we made it! Stinky, damp, sweaty and hungry, my first canyoneering experience was finished! We made it back and had a wonderful time. As our adventure was coming to a close we were so hungry we knew we wouldn’t make it the four hour drive home without some good food, so we headed back to town for a bite to eat. I don’t know if the food was actually amazing, but not having have eaten all day it was heaven on earth.
Finally, we began our drive home, but I would very much like to note that my husband let me drive on a road trip for the first time in the history of our marriage. That is all.
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