This left me with the yearning to see the great American desert, but no specific place in mind. Mike decided he'd like to go back to Las Vegas, because he has great dreams of the time he went shooting at the gun store there, hotels are cheap, and flights are easy to come by. So, I started looking around on TripAdvisor (oh how I love this website) for sites to see near Las Vegas. There are heaps of beautiful national and state parks near the Nevada/Arizona/Utah border. For a 9 day trip, I was really struggling to choose how much time to spend in each place, and stretch my time for the number of parks I wanted to visit. In the end, I narrowed it down to Zion, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Staircase. I began looking into all of the hikes to do in each place, and again there was a lot to narrow down with our limited time.
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| The Narrows |
We then found out we could only travel for 7 days for this vacation. So I cut a day from Las Vegas, and a day from Bryce Canyon - and in retrospect, this was the right decision for us.
7 Day Utah Itinerary
Trip Style: Self directed
Transportation: Rental Car
Average Accommodation Cost: CAD$120/night ($30 - $150)
Travel dates: June 1-7, 2013
Saturday, June 1
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| The Emerald Pools Trail |
From here, it was around midday already when we stopped at In-N-Out for a burger. This was another stop from Mike's "What I love about America" list. It certainly delivered, you can't go wrong with $12 for two solid cheeseburgers, fries, and unlimited refills of raspberry lemonade.
The drive to Springdale was about 2.5 hours. We dropped our luggage at the accommodations, then drove to the visitor centre for Zion National Park. The visitor centre is right outside the park entrance. There is a free shuttle bus that runs through Springdale to the visitor centre each day. We drove because our airbnb accommodations was off the main road the shuttle takes. Word is that parking at the visitor centre is tough to find from 10am-3pm, when the bulk of the tourists are visiting.
During peak season, there is a free shuttle bus from the visitor centre that takes you on the scenic route through the park. It stops at the entrance points to hikes, so you just hop on and off where needed. The bus has a narrative that gives you an outline of the park history, so it's worth doing the 45 minute one-way trip right to the last stop just for the tour (the last stop is also where the popular Narrows hike leads off from). You can drive your car into the park for further parking opportunities.
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| The Top Emerald Pool |
We did the Emerald Pool trail, as a low intensity and short hike to make the most of the remaining daylight. It was already after 4pm and most of the trail was shaded. We enjoyed the hike in the sandy trail, under some small waterfalls to the upper emerald pool. My assumption would be that the emerald pools look more emerald in the direct sunlight. In the shade, they looked more like mouldy puddles. So my suggestion for this trail would be to hike it earlier in the day. The upper emerald pool was still pretty despite the shade though, one of those perfectly still bodies of water where you can see a completely clear reflection of the rocks above. We took the longer return trail via the Grotto, and I enjoyed that walk a lot more - it's not very steep, and runs along the canyon wall that outlines the river valley.
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| The Grotto Trail towards the Emerald Pools |
We stopped by the supermarket on the way home - it's right by the visitor centre and the only supermarket we found in Springdale. It's a strange one. Some foods were oddly cheap, while others were greatly expensive. For a small town supermarket, fresh chicken was cheap and a small jar of peanut butter was expensive. We focussed on fresh food, and got some chicken, potatoes and salad for a BBQ dinner. We definitely saved a lot of money by home-cooking breakfast and dinner each day in our host's kitchen, and packing a sandwich for lunch.
We stayed at this airbnb for the first two nights, it was significantly cheaper than any hotels I saw in the area, and had access to a full kitchen. We had a view of the outer canyon walls, and hummingbirds were dancing around us as we ate dinner on the patio at sunset.
Sunday, June 2
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| The Narrows |
We were out of the house by 8am for a few reasons. 1) It was averaging over 35°C for most of the day, 2) To beat the crowds and 3) To do as much as possible. We took the shuttle all the way out to the pathway to the Narrows. We started on the hike around 9am.
The Narrows is one of the most popular hikes in Zion National Park, and for good reason. Most of the hike is within the river. Starting that early, the narrow canyon was shaded (until about 11am) and the water was COLD. My one regret for this day - to have worn some wool socks that morning. Anyway, I digress.
At the entrance to the river, previous hikers had left a selection of decent walking sticks, so we each picked up one of those. The alternative is to rent from one of the stores in town. We wore neoprene water shoes (some cheap ones I picked up in Costa Rica in a pinch, nothing fancy was needed). A swimsuit under shorts is a good idea, because some of the deeper sections are around waist deep, and because it gets very warm.
This hike took us 4-5 hours, and the water became more enjoyable after the day started to warm up and the sun hit the canyon. I can see why this hike is so popular, every turn was breathtaking. And the great part of starting early, despite the tendency for my feet to get numb while in the water, was that it felt we had the whole river to ourselves, there was a deeper red colour to the canyon walls in the shade, and the hike back looked completely different in the sunlight.
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| The Narrows |
I will also have to state that none of my photos could do the Narrows justice for its beauty.
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| The Narrows |
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| Hidden Canyon Trail |
We had eaten a packed lunch while in the Narrows, and we finished the hike around 2pm. We went home to relax for an hour in the air conditioning, during the high heat of the day. We ventured out again later to do the Hidden Canyon hike. The Hidden Canyon shares part of the route to Observation Point, so they can be done in the same day, but it was getting a bit late for us to attempt the entire Observation Point hike. The Hidden Canyon was definitely worth branching off that trail though. The hike has a few technical parts where you have to hold on to a chain to stay stable. We reached a point in the trail where it involved a lot of scrambling. With my fear of spiders hiding in crevices, along with the dwindling daylight hours, we decided to turn back, so I can't say I've completed that whole trail.
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| Frogs at the Narrows |
Monday, June 3
We left the house bright and early again, this time for the Angel's Landing trail. For this trail, definitely the earlier the better, because when the final portion of the hike gets crowded, it can become a lot harder to navigate.
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| Angel's Landing Trail |
The Angel's Landing I found to be challenging. Apart from all the uphill in the sunlight, that is only the beginning. After hiking up a wide trail, the path turns to take you through to the other side of the canyon. There begins the Walter's Wiggles, with hairpin turns to lead up to the Scout's Landing. From Scout's Landing, the rest of the trail is along the rock face with chains for stability. We made it part way along to the viewpoint of the Angel's Landing. From here, there is a spectacular view worth the whole hike already. We had a picnic and chilled out with the view.
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| Angel's Landing Trail |
Even though it was early, before 11am, the Angel's Landing itself was already fairly busy. There was a point at the start of the hike with a very narrow ledge, and we could see the people trying to pass each other and hold on to the chains on the landing. Just the look of the way up the landing was very intimidating. I won't say who was already feeling vertigo from the height, but we were unable to continue to the top of the landing. Even if you don't think you could continue, this hike is still worthwhile and I'm glad we did it.
We made our way back down, and packed our things around midday. With so much time left in the day, we decided to make our way to Bryce Canyon for the afternoon. Now came my favourite part of this week. If you ever do drive to Bryce Canyon, make sure you do the drive through the Zion Canyon park (the Utah 9). Even if you are not driving to Bryce Canyon, at least drive this part of the road. The road through Zion Canyon takes a scenic route leading to a tunnel. When you emerge from this tunnel, the change of scenery and the view of the rocky platforms and wavy texture to the hills is spectacular.
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| Zion National Park |
I couldn't help but stop the car and take a stroll through this wilderness. Again, no camera could capture the entirety of this awesome scenery.
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| Zion National Park |
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| Emerald Pools Trail |
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