In the months Derek and I spent talking about this road trip, and all the places we wanted to see, Utah, and Zion specifically, were at the top of my list. It wasn’t that I even knew all that much about it, and maybe it was just from having worked at TripAdvisor and seeing so many incredible photographs of Zion and all the other amazing geological landscapes across Utah from adventure travel bloggers, it just stuck. But as we started driving into the park, I honestly wasn’t all that jazzed. I’ve started to wonder if this is a side effect of having seen so many amazing places in such a short amount of time (I know, poor us). That maybe our senses have been over stimulated, the bar set so absurdly high by all the beautiful, natural wonders we’ve been fortunate enough to experience, that we’re not seeing places with fresh eyes and have started to take for granted what we step out into each morning. But needless to say, it did’t take long for this to pass. It wasn’t the scenic drive up canyon, or the hike to Angel’s Landing that Zion is well known for, or even the hike through the Narrows where we hiked through the Virgin River. On our second to last day in Zion, I took Murph for an early morning run along the river which cuts through the canyon. I probably only passed one or two other people, and the sun was just coming up behind the canyon ridges, and it was then, without the crowds that so many of these national parks draw, and stripped down of anything touristy, that I fully appreciated Zion and how beautiful it was, and how lucky we are to be able to be where we are.
It’s also one of the great things about camping in these parks, or camping in general; you get to see the sunrise and sunset when all of the crowds have left for the day, and experience being in the outdoors in a way you can’t if you have to walk out of your hotel or get into your car. And there is something so refreshing about the wind at night here…it would be 85 and sunny during the day, without a trace of wind, and every night just as we’re pulling our sleeping bag over us, we’d feel the Utah wind starting up. And that wind grew angrier through the night and into the early morning. Nothing better than feeling and hearing the cold wind blowing while you sleep, and wake up to sun rising from behind the peaks around you. Makes you want to go camping right now, doesn’t it?
But I digress…after dropping Derek’s Dad at the airport in Phoenix, and a quick stop in Flagstaff to break up the drive, we put some miles on Bruce (the truck) and made the 6+ hour drive to just past the Utah border. (If you haven’t been to the Grand Canyon and ever plan to, the drive up 89 west of the canyon, and 89A north of the canyon, are incredible, especially at sunset). We’re literally 2 miles from where we plan on laying our heads down for the night, and we get pulled over. The cop comes up to my side of the truck, Murphy squeezing his head through the front seats attempting his most vicious-sounding growl, and quite nicely points out to us that our camper has no lights on it. It’s close to 9pm, so unbeknownst to us, we’ve been driving around the desert in the dark for the last couple hours with no lights. Turns out that getting pulled over was a blessing in disguise. Not only were we lucky that this was the way we (safely) found out our lights weren’t working, but when Derek went back with the officer to turn them on, all of the camper lights magically started working. This won’t mean much to most of you reading this, but basically only the break lights worked and the blinkers flash like hazards. By some miracle, we get pulled over, and not only do the lights come back on but they all somehow work the way their supposed to and the Shasta lights up like a Christmas tree. The cop even thanked Derek for being so polite (Derek asked permission before taking his knife out to cut a zip tie) and then was asking us about Murphy before sending us on our way.
Okay back to Zion…this post keeps getting off track, which is why I have Derek write these things. So we get an early start the next morning in the hopes of securing a campsite in the park..with only one first come, first serve campground, it almost being Columbus Day weekend, and the weather being perfect in Southern Utah this time of year, we knew it was going to be dicey. We get to South Campground at 7:15am and the ranger tells us to pull around to get in the line of cars. At 7:15, there were probably already 40 cars ahead of us. Camping is not for the faint of heart, and you definitely can’t just stroll into a place like Zion expecting to get a site. Three hours later (we made coffee and ate pop tarts in the car for breakfast, Murphy ate his in the backseat), we are assigned a campsite. That’s when we decided to stay for a couple more nights than initially planned, and figured it’d be nice to be in one place for a bit longer.
Our first day out hiking in Zion we set out to Angel’s Landing, a roughly 5 mile hike up a very steep series of switchbacks, called Walter’s Wiggles, to Scout’s Lookout overlooking the Virgin River with incredible views up and down the canyon, and then onwards and upwards to Angel’s Landing itself, an unmistakable feature to anyone familiar with Zion. It earned it’s name because it was said that it was so high up that only angels could land there. The caveat to this hike, aside from being fairly strenuous because, damn does it get high quick and when you are trying to shave an hour or two off the average hike time, those switchbacks will get the better of you, but that they also warn people not to attempt to go all the way up to Angel’s Landing if you have a fear of heights. While there are extremely high drop offs a number of times on the trail, it gets to a point where we’re talking about 1,000 foot drop-offs in either direction. To get up to this point, you have to hold onto chains because not only is it steep, and the drop offs so risky, but your pulling yourself up onto uneven rock edges. People have literally fallen to their death at this point of the trail.
So going into the hike, I was keenly aware of what has become a fear of heights, or more so a fear of falling from great heights (you won’t see me jumping out of any planes or off of any bridges anytime soon). But I thought if I just didn’t give it much thought and just kept putting one boot in front of the other, then before I’d know it I would be at the summit. But here’s the thing about fears, of any sorts. You don’t really have control over them, or not much anyway. And anyone who has a fear of heights..and I’m not talking about heights like from the roof of a house heights, like edge of a mountain cliff heights…you’ll know what I’m talking about here. We made it passed Scout’s Lookout, and when Derek asked if I wanted to keep going and attempt the final part up the chains, with certain death 1,000 feet down on either side, I said, “Let’s do it.”
Up past the first set of chains, then scaled across the bare rock face section where they decided chains might not be necessary (they are totally necessary), and then after some hesitation, started up the second set of chains. That’s where the fear got me. Locked me right up. I could feel my chest tighten, and the tunnel vision setting in. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, to not hold Derek back from this last third of a mile, and to be able to say I conquered my fear. But all I could picture was me slipping or falling off the edge, or making it to the top but freezing up and not being able to stomach it back down, or worse, watching Derek lose his footing and fall. And I couldn’t kick those thoughts, so I had to call it and head back and he insisted on coming with me, even though I know he would’ve loved to keep going. After that, we literally sprinted down the mountain, much easier on your knees the faster you go (probably zero truth in that but it’s what I kept telling Derek). It was a great hike and we definitely earned a cold beer that day, but I’ll tell you what, don’t think I’m not already planning on us going back to Zion and getting all the way up there next time.
After our first hiking experience at Zion and seeing how crowded the trails can get, we learned our lesson to get started as early as possible. Past a certain point, you have to take a shuttle through Zion canyon, and the lines by mid-day are out of control. The Narrows is a very popular hike at Zion; you hike knee deep through the Virgin River through slot canyons pretty much as far in as you want, and 90% of the hike is in water which makes for a pretty unique experience, and draws a lot of people. So anticipating this, we headed out early and were really glad we did because a few hours later, as we were coming back out of the river, it seemed like hundreds of people were heading into the water. Not my idea of fun. The other thing we were really glad we did was heed the advice of a fellow hiker we met the previous day. He told us it was well worth the 20 bucks to rent the waterproof boots and socks to do this hike, as we had every intention of wearing our hiking boots which would have been destroyed, not to mention we would’ve been freezing. So into the river we went, and I have to say, while this is not a tough hike by any means (I tend to prefer hikes that are physically painful, Derek loves this about me), it was really fun. We’ve hiked across rivers before, but this hike was in the water, through the river. The walking sticks were key too. The river bed is made up of large, slippery rocks and small boulders, the currents and rapids in places were pretty strong, and there were parts that got pretty deep and dicey to navigate.
Over the next five days, we hiked, took Murph for long walks along the Virgin River, checked out a couple restaurants in Springdale (the town just outside Zion), had beers at the Zion Brew Pub and went to “Rocktoberfest,” had giant scoops of ice cream at Hoodoos, watched Brady’s first game back at Switchbacks for a Pats win, showered (4 bucks for 5 minutes…that’s not a steal) and did laundry, relaxed in our hammock, read, and drank good whiskey at our fire each night. We even had some bacon for breakfast one morning – courtesy of the guys in the campsite next to us offering us their leftovers.
It was a great place to re-charge our batteries, take a breather, and appreciate our surroundings. And Zion, we’ll be back for more…one day. In the meantime, a few more pics from our drive leaving Zion heading west to Bryce Canyon.
withoutwhatifs 
That was just so well written. Informative, and quite touching. Loved it 🚲
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