Though I’d visited Zion before, it had been during Thanksgiving time and there was not much opportunity for hiking due to the weather. After doing further research on the park, especially discovering Angel’s Landing thanks to our good friend, Wally, I knew this national park was getting moved to the top of my priority list to visit.
Summit of Angel’s Landing
The park gets REALLY hot during the day, so we decided to wait for Labor Day weekend to make the trip rather than July 4th weekend in prime time summer weather. I’m glad we waited, Labor Day was still plenty hot! Zion is a 16 hour drive from Lincoln, and we left Friday afternoon, arrive on Saturday morning. With 4 of us in the car, we figured there would be plenty of drivers. But boy was it a miserable way to spend a night- no one really slept well at all and we were exhausted when we arrive the next morning. I swore I’d never do another drive like that again, but by the end of the weekend it was all completely worth it.
We were so excited to hear that our good friends in California were going to be able to meet us there! What a fun reunion with James and Rachel again :-). They have long been our camping buddies so it was fun meeting in the middle to enjoy it once again. I reserved our campsite months in advance and got the VERY last one available in the park for Labor Day weekend. It’s a very popular park in the summer, so if you are planning on going, make your reservation online asap. We were warned there may not be shade on the site (there was none) but the bathroom facilities were excellent (no showers though).
Angel’s Landing has got to be one of my favorite hikes I’ve ever done now. It’s really a short hike, took us about 2 hours to get up. But it’s steep the entire way. I was exhausted after just a few minutes of walking up such steep angles through switchbacks and literally climbing tons and tons of steps. This hike is also not for the faint of heart. The last quarter of it is extra high, extra steep, and very narrow with cliff drops on either side. There were quite a few groups who chose to wait at the 3/4 mark and just enjoy the views from there. But all of us did the whole thing, and it was not as bad as I was expecting at all, I felt pretty comfortable the whole time. The chains available on the steepest parts really help.
Climbing up Angel’s Landing
Once you hit the top, the views are incredible. All along the way there are spectacular outlooks, but at the very end you really have a true 360 panoramic to enjoy. Be sure to start early ( we left the visitor’s center by 8am) as it quickly gets hot throughout the day. I still had my hoodie on when we hit the summit, but on the way back down, It quickly came off as the sun began beating down on us. We enjoyed our views, grabbed some photos and chowed down on some snacks as well before heading back down.
Although the way down is completely downhill, it’s so steep it was actually a little tough. My knees were sore by the end from the constant slap of stepping down hard each time. But I would totally do this hike again in a heartbeat! Keep in mind that cars are not allowed to drive past the visitor’s center in the park. You must take the free shuttle instead. The shuttles operate very frequently (ever 5-10 mins) and we never had a problem catching one. But we spent close to 40 minutes on the shuttle riding from the Visitor’s Center to the trailhead for Angel’s Landing. So be sure to calculate that into your time.
We were all quite sleep deprived and figured we’d head to our campsite for some lunch and a nap before doing another hike. Lunch worked out well, but it was so INCREDIBLY hot by this time mid-day that there was no chance of being able to sleep. It was pretty miserable sitting in the heat so we figured we might as well find another hike to enjoy. We decided on the Narrows as that is the other big draw to Zion (besides the Infamous Angel’s Landing hike). This 16 mile route is between canyon walls through a river and it was so much cooler there I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an afternoon hike in Zion. We took the shuttle back out (took closer to 50 minutes to get to this trailhead) and walked the 1 mile River Walk to the start of the Narrows.
From there it’s really up to you how far you want to go. We weren’t going to do the 16 miles, but just figured we’d go along until it got late we decided to turn around. The water was very cold, our feet were numb quickly, but it wasn’t to the point of being painful. Some sort of water shoes are definitely a good idea. A couple people in our group had to go barefoot which was not impossible, but definitely more difficult trudging through the water over rocks and all.
The water levels really varied along the route, from ankle deep to levels close to my hips. It was SO MUCH FUN! It was not hard to see at all why it’s such a popular hike and the amount of people there gave evidence to it. There was a wide range of ages, including many families with children hiking through the river. The current could be strong in some areas, but it was all quite manageable. We enjoyed heading upstream for a couple hours until we decided to turn back. I wanted to keep going farther, but it was getting late and we wanted to be back to the campsite before complete dark.
What an incredible day we had! Even though we were running on practically no sleep, it was so much fun and we were all quite energized from the beautiful scenery along the way and the thrill of climbing steep cliffs and wading through rivers. There are many opportunities in the Narrows to do rappelling and more technical routes. However, you need to enter a lottery to receive one of the permits. You can do this 3 months in advance, or a last minute one within a week of the date you’re looking for. We saw people in a line waiting at 6:30am to try to get any last minute available spots for many of the canyoneering routes Zion offers. Since we had such a large group with us, we didn’t even attempt the lottery but still enjoyed our experience very much. Plus, we had plenty of rappelling in store for the next day.
Fire Round the World 