Katie's Outdoor Adventures: Spring Break 2015: Day 6 (Zion NP)

Today was a pretty epic day. I had originally visited Zion National Park in 2007 with JT's family as part of a trip they took to four of the national parks in the four-state area. I fell in love with Zion at that point, and it really helped start my love of national parks and hiking. I had always wanted and planned to go back to Zion, but when the Mission Wolf trip turned into a Kanab + Zion + Bryce trip, I really wondered whether Zion would be as magical of a place this time as it was in 2007? Or was I mis-remembering or exaggerating its beauty and draw? As you will see in this post, Zion was every bit as magical as I remembered, and this 1-day trip just left me wanting to visit again even more!

We woke up at 5:30am and had a quick breakfast of breakfast bars and apples. We left camp around 7am and drove to the visitor's center to park our Suburbans and catch the Zion shuttle. Emily blasted Kesha songs on the way there, which was actually the perfect start to the day! I love when a group gets to the point where we do not really care what each other thinks (and we can all just sing Kesha songs together) - and this seems to happen to much quicker with outdoor groups than with any other group I have ever been a part of. I love it!

We caught the 7:45am shuttle to The Grotto, where we started our Angel's Landing hike. I was struggling with the climb, and was lagging. I used my inhaler about halfway up, and this helped a lot as it allowed me to actually take a full, deep breath. Some people left their backpacks at a wider point before the trail got narrow and the chains started. I also saw a blind hiker and her friend sitting at this point - I assume they were not going to go all the way to the summit? At this point, I looked at the trail to Angel's Landing and had serious doubts. Should I do this? Is this safe? I felt incredibly scared, and seriously considered staying behind, but the group was already starting on the trail, and we needed a guide at the back of the group, so I just forced myself to go. I trailed the group by a bit, but not by too much. I was breathing heavily, partially from the steepness/complexity of the trail and partially from being terrified. Angel's Landing was the scariest hike I have done, due to the combination of heights, steepness, tricky footing / chains, and trying to go quicker than I would on my own to keep up with my group.

Once we finally reached the top, I spent a few minutes on my own enjoying the feat and the scenery before joining the group. We only stayed at the top for about 15 minutes, at which point a few vocal people in the group wanted to go down. I could not understand why they did not want to stay and enjoy the awesome views for a while (it is not that they were nervous about the heights). There were some chipmunks at the summit that were pretty aggressive about trying to get food from the hikers - they must be solely fed by hikers, which is really sad.

Going back down from Angel's Landing was tougher than going up at points, due to momentum pushing you down. Once we finished the sections with chains, most of the group literally ran down parts of the trail. Hence, I was constantly trying to play catch up without harming my knee (since running down a steep trail is not an option - in fact, downhill climbs often go slower than uphill climbs for me).

After the hike we went back to the visitors center to eat our picnic lunch. We left the visitor's center at 2:30pm for a hike on the Emerald Pools trails. I had done these trails before and didn't remember them being anything remarkable, but we decided to go on them anyway. Sadly, I was just as underwhelmed as in 2007. The most notable thing was probably all the families trying to backpack their babies on the trail.

For our last hike of the day, we went to the Narrows board walk, and then everyone except for me hiked in the Narrows for about 80 minutes while I stayed with their bags. I was not feeling getting wet, but I also knew someone needed to stay with their belongings. I chatted with Morgan (who we had met on the trail, and who also works for UT RecSports), until she decided she was too cold to wait for our group. Morgan had spent her entire spring break around Zion, so talking with her gave me plenty of good ideas for future trips. It was also interesting to people watch. It seems there is only one equipment rental company near Zion, as I saw many Zion Adventure Company rentals (and nothing else). One could probably make a lot of money opening another rental company...

Once they returned, I dashed back to the trail head to use the rest room. Then we took the shuttle to the lodge because Emily wanted coffee. She gave up though, so we caught another shuttle back to the visitor's center and our cars.

We were sharing a camp site with Morgan (who we had seen on the trail earlier) for our last night since they had room and we had no reservation. We set up camp and started cooking since the group was hungry. I forgot to chop up the celery and carrots, so they were added to the pasta late. I also completely forgot we had fresh cheese for the pasta, so it went unused. It was a pretty frustrating dinner and evening.

Most of the group opted to sleep outside, so I was actually the only person to sleep in a tent. Emily had not staked down the tent, so I awoke a few times with it flying up around me. Fun, fun.