Zion National Park - Sep 2015

This was a last minute plan with my friends Jerry and Anuj. Initial plan was to hike Grand canyon rim to rim, but we changed it to Zion. Zion is about 6 miles from LA (about 2.5 hours drive from Las Vegas). We had to stay in St George, Utah since it was a last minute trip. Ideal option is to either camp inside the park or stay at Hurricane, Utah. 

We drove to St George and reached pretty late in the night.

Map of Zion National Park - From National park website

Zion Canyon and Map of park shuttle service

Angel's Landing hike, Sep 5th

We started the day a little late. We headed to park after grabbing breakfast at 9.30am. Park entrance is about 45 minutes drive from St George. We reached park at 11am and were greeted by long line of cars. It was impossible to find parking inside the park that late in the day. So we found a spot on street outside the park gate and walked half a mile to enter the park. 

The park also offers shuttle service. Check details on park website. 

We took shuttle from visitor center to Grotto - starting point for hike. Shuttle drives through the road inside Zion canyon. One can see towering walls of Zion canyon during the ride. 

Angel's landing is one of the iconic hikes not just in Zion but in US. Its a very popular trail with crowds of people going up and down. This hike is known narrow trail and steeps drops on side of trail. 

We started the hike at around 12.20pm. Trail starts on paved path carved in the rock. The trail is fairly steep at the beginning. I was a little out of shape so I kept a slow pace and took frequent breaks. People passing by were motivating me and I felt sorry for my shape!  I had hiked Mount Whitney (highest peak in lower 48 states) less than 2 months ago and nobody would believe that if I were to say that on this hike. None the less I continued further up. 

Looking down on the trail- Some sections of trail are visible in the green. 

Looking down on paved trail

Paved trail carved on the mountain rock

After about a mile and half and 45 minutes of hiking the trail hits a saddle. Anuj decided to wait here as he was afraid of height. Jerry was already up ahead of us. So I continued going up. 

After this point trail starts climbing steep section with drops. Trail has metal chains from this point on. It looks very difficult and scary, but it really is not. There is space for proper footing and one can hold on to chains to get further stability. Only tricky part is you have to wait patiently for your turn with hikers coming up and down on the narrow trail. 

Remember a hiking rule- Uphill has right of the way. 

Saddle before steep section begins

Hikers going down

I navigated my way up and came across Jerry while he was coming down from the top. He turned around to go back to top with me and we made it to top of Angel's landing at 1.55pm. We hiked 20 feet down to actual landing where cairns are placed. Most people think top of the hill is Angel's landing, but it is not. So make sure you go to actual landing. 

After a short break at the top we retraced our way down. I had completed yet another iconic American hike! 

Hike Stats - 

Distance - 5.2 miles roundtrip

Elevation gain - 1,500 feet 

Angel's landing elevation - 5,790 feet

Jerry and myself at the top

At the Angel's Landing - Few feet below the top

View of Zion canyon from Angel's landing

Zion Narrows hike - Sep 6th

We had planned to hike in Zion narrows today. We made it early (by 8.15am)  to visitor center to get parking spot and beat crowd for the shuttle. We took the shuttle to temple of Sinawawa - the last stop for shuttle in Zion canyon.
This is where the southern end of Zion narrows. Zion narrows is 16 mile canyon carved by virgin river. There are 2 options for hiking narrows. First option is 3.6 miles hike from temple of Sinawawa to big springs. This hike doesn't need any permit. Second option is to hike all 16 miles of narrows from Chamberlain's ranch to temple of Sinawawa. This hike needs permit from national park.

We had planned for option 1 and hike as much as we could. We ended up hiking about 3 miles to a waterfall in narrows and it took us good 2.5 hours to do so. Walking in the water is much more challenging that we had imagined. For most part the water was knee or wait deep. But there was one section midway where the water was neck deep for me (6'2" tall guy). So Anuj and I worked our way around the wall to avoid drowning. Jerry was way ahead of us at this point. In fact we did not see Jerry after first 30 minutes of hike. We met jerry at very end near the waterfall where we turned around.

You see fewer people as you go deeper into narrows. At some sections it was just me and Anuj hiking in the muddy waters. Our return trip from waterfall to temple of sinawawa felt much longer. It takes same amount of time for hike back. All in all  - its experience of its own kind!

My suggestions for trip - 

1. Plan to stay in Hurricane, Utah. That saves a lot of driving time and energy. 
2. Plan to reach park early. Visitor center parking lot is small and fills up quickly. Later you go, farther you have to park from park entrance and have to either walk or take shuttle to visitor center. 
3. Angel's landing - It is not as scary as mentioned on many blogs and websites. There is proper footing on trail and you can hold chains for extra safety while hiking. If you are scared of heights then you may want to steer clear of hike past the saddle. Be careful and enjoy the hike.  
4. Go to actual Angel's Landing. It is the cairns about 20 feet below the top. Most people don't know this and totally miss it.
5. For narrows - read weather report and flash flood warning before entering narrows. Flash floods occur on a sunny way without any warning. So don't be fooled by sunny weather. 
6. Have hiking poles while hiking narrows. Poles come in handy.