Day 32
States: No way!?! Way!! Utah
Total Miles: 7600 or so
Time Zones: 1, 4 total
Well, we saved the longest hike for last. Or goal was to hike from the northwest part of the park down the West Rim of Zion and into the Zion Canyon. 14 miles + a 1 mile side trip to Angel's Landing. The hike down the rim was nice, especially since it was down hill most of the way. A lot of people do this over 2 days and camp out in the middle but we didn't have any trouble finishing it in 1 day. The people that made this trail obviously spent a bit of time on it. There were some elevation drops and gains that were cut out of sheer cliffs and some places that were obviously blasted away. There were some great views of the Zion Canyons and near then end, at Angel's Landing, the view really couldn't be beat. Angel's Landing is basically a fin-like peninsula that juts out into the middle of Zion Canyon so we had great scenery looking up and down the canyon.
Let me just say upfront that these are very disappointing pictures. I have no idea why all of them are so hazy and way too bright but hopefully a smidge of the beauty will come through. You'll just have to go visit Zion and see it in person to make up for my failure.
Zion Canyon, only 13.5 mile to go:
Or first view toward Zion's canyons:
The Great Short-Horned Lizard:
Can't seem to get enough pictures of the Prickly Pear in bloom:
One of the views from near a campground:
Dropping down on cliff. You can't tell but the drop on the right is pretty
sheer:
Somehow they managed to cut out this path on a cliff that eventually leads
down to the path you can see in the trees:
Looking back up from the bottom (which was more like the middle - we still
had a big drop to go from Angel's Landing):
Looking straight out at Angel's Landing (dark rock, middle-left), not so
impressive yet...
A better look, the red arrow points to Angel's Landing. We have to climb up
that narrow fin ( <10 ft wide in some places) on the right:
A view up canyon (toward the Narrows) while climbing the fin:
A series of huge chain ropes to help the climb:
At Angel's Landing, the cute little chipmunk that I wouldn't feed, but did
give water too. He was very unafraid:
The view down canyon from Angel's Landing:
The view up canyon:
The Grand Canyon next, can it be anywhere near as impressive as all the other canyons I've seen (like the one above)?