Zion, Refuge in Hebrew, should mean Oh My God!! What an unimaginable place so grand in scale as to be completely overwhelming to me. I spent about 4 or 5 days here I’m not really sure. Anyway the hiking here is just amazing, first they have a transit system to be marveled at, you can take the shuttles all over the park which really reduces the vehicle traffic. OK the hiking trails are super maintained and some are pretty difficult to hike. Steep and many with very scary cliff drops to the edge of the trails. I did a couple that actually had chains for railings that if were not there I may not have been able to hike because I am chicken shit when it comes to exposed heights. I hike to a hidden canyon that had the chains but getting past that was worth the hike. The dcanyon went on for ? miles and I hiked in about 2-3 miles with the last two hrs. being half climbing and bouldering up the canyon. This was one of the dry slot canyons and was just amazingly beautiful. The next day I hiked up the Narrows a wet slot canyon where you basically walk up the river at time up to you waist in the water. Believe me it is just as cool as you can imagine it. And yes the water is cold as !@#$% but oh so worth the ten minutes of pain before your feet get numb.
I did take a day off from hiking to ride at a place called Gooseberry Mesa, It’s a combination of Moab slickrock and desert single track. This trail was very technical in places with some of the slickrock sections almost impossible to climb on the bike. What a great trail though. The Rim loop trail that goes all the way around the mesa is about 12+ miles and a great ride. Thank goodness there was not much elevation change because the technical sections wore me out. There are some spots along the rim of the Mesa that you literally ride with your tires just a few feet from the edge of a 1000 foot vertical drop. I found it less scary on the bike than off, I’m not sure why but maybe if I’m peddling my brain cant figure out what to think about the drop? Unfortunately I forgot the camera so no pics of the trails this time.
After a good ride I felt like I could explore more hiking in Zion, so off to Observation Point another strenuous trail that goes up through another spectacular slot canyon to an overlook. It is all really so grand it can’t be described by me or the pictures, you just have to come here for your self.
The only pitfall to this magnificent place is the tourist. I include myself in this group. This place is easy to access but you can’t see the really cool stuff without putting on your hiking boots and working for it. I came on Labor Day and there was a mass exodus of people but it was still very crowded after that. On the upbeat side is that I met some really great people there. Chan and Jason were staying in the same campground, which was very nice by the way, rite in the canyon. We had a great time in the evenings sitting around the campfire talking and meeting others as well. I met a great German family that were on a long vacation, it seems that there were a lot of foreign tourist from all over the word there.
All in all a fantastic place to go I will return one day to hike all the trails I didn’t get to this time.
I did take a day off from hiking to ride at a place called Gooseberry Mesa, It’s a combination of Moab slickrock and desert single track. This trail was very technical in places with some of the slickrock sections almost impossible to climb on the bike. What a great trail though. The Rim loop trail that goes all the way around the mesa is about 12+ miles and a great ride. Thank goodness there was not much elevation change because the technical sections wore me out. There are some spots along the rim of the Mesa that you literally ride with your tires just a few feet from the edge of a 1000 foot vertical drop. I found it less scary on the bike than off, I’m not sure why but maybe if I’m peddling my brain cant figure out what to think about the drop? Unfortunately I forgot the camera so no pics of the trails this time.
After a good ride I felt like I could explore more hiking in Zion, so off to Observation Point another strenuous trail that goes up through another spectacular slot canyon to an overlook. It is all really so grand it can’t be described by me or the pictures, you just have to come here for your self.
The only pitfall to this magnificent place is the tourist. I include myself in this group. This place is easy to access but you can’t see the really cool stuff without putting on your hiking boots and working for it. I came on Labor Day and there was a mass exodus of people but it was still very crowded after that. On the upbeat side is that I met some really great people there. Chan and Jason were staying in the same campground, which was very nice by the way, rite in the canyon. We had a great time in the evenings sitting around the campfire talking and meeting others as well. I met a great German family that were on a long vacation, it seems that there were a lot of foreign tourist from all over the word there.
All in all a fantastic place to go I will return one day to hike all the trails I didn’t get to this time.
5 comments:
Sounds like an amazing place... Good luck hiking ALL the trails...there are a bunch and you will need a few ropes...and probably some PB&J :) You might even need some honey and cucumbers...
What about the Ice cubes?
Those might melt too fast...you'll just have to use them before the hike I guess...
Are you ever going to post any recent adventures?
Hi Rick, maybe I'm a part of the "great German family" you wrote about ...... if not - dosn't matter :-)
We wish you all the best for 2009!
Mathias (aka MaMaJoJa)
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