Angel’s Landing and the Narrows were an amazing first day and our second day didn’t disappoint either. Zion is full of opportunities for canyoneering but there are a few complications. First, for most of the rappelling areas you need to get a permit. These permits can only be gained by winning a lottery and there a lot of people who enter this lottery. On top of that, many of these rappels involve swimming and wading through deep, COLD water. We don’t have wetsuits so that wasn’t going too work too well for us either. But we REALLY wanted to do some rappelling while in Zion so Pablo did some researching and found Birch Hollow Canyon.

Birch Hollow Canyon is located about an hour outside of the park to the west. We drove from Watchman campground through the whole park and out the opposite entrance. From there it’s not far to a dirt road that leads to Birch Hollow. This link provides good driving directions to start. This hike does not require a permit as it is outside the park limits. Take two cars and park one at the beginning with the small sign for the canyon. Park the other at the end of the hike where you’ll come out. It took us about 9 hours to make it through the whole hike so we were very happy to not have to walk 11 miles back to the car from the exit as well 🙂

There were 11 rappels total on the hike, the largest at 120 feet and the smallest at around 30-40 feet. It took us close to 9 hours going at a steady pace and we had 7 people in our group. We ran into a few other groups along the way and had to wait for a while behind one of them. When they ran out of rope halfway down it was a good thing we were there with extra for them to borrow! If possible, I’d suggest bringing 2 ropes with you. The last 6 rappels or so are pretty close to each other so the first members of our group would start setting up the next rappel as the rest of us were finishing the previous one. It was a good system that saved time.

Finding the start to the hike was fairly easy. We picked up right away the area that looked most likely to start (left side of the road). Hiked for around 45 minutes or so until we hit the first rappel- the big one, 120 feet. It was a little scary beginning with such a high one! But there was gear all along the way set up for us already. We only left behind a tiny bit of webbing on the whole hike! All the anchors were stable along the way and easy to locate at each rappel.

You can’t really get lost along the way once you find that first rappel, just keep following the wash the whole way.

When we reached the end, we didn’t plan to go down through Orderville and back into Zion (that would take a lot longer) so we turned right to head back out to where we had parked the second car. This was a really tricky route to follow. We found it in the end, but for about the first half of the way we weren’t even sure we were headed in the right direction. And wow was it a lot longer hike out than we expected! I’d say it was around 2 hours. It was also around 5:00pm at this time and HOT out in the sun. Thankfully part of it was in the shade, but the last bit is walking UP A VERY STEEP ROADWAY. The rest of the hike is pretty easy, not strenuous at all, but wow the end was tiring :-).

The whole trip was so fun. Most of the rappels were not free rappels which was a little disappointing. The first one is but after that most of them have a wall you follow down. One of them had a really tricky ledge, they’re definitely not the easiest rappels to hit. But we had more than one newcomer in our group who did just fine, it’s just helpful to have someone along who knows what they’re doing and can help direct.

I would DEFINITELY recommend this route to anyone looking for rappels. It’s an easy hike, full of lots of rappels, and just fun along the way. Inside the canyon is not too hot, it was just the hike out that was warm. Plan for lots of time, bring snacks and pack lots of water 🙂 Also plan ahead, there are no bathrooms anywhere along the way or signs- you better be observant!

Another helpful link: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/technical/birch-hollow/

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.

Although both Pablo and I had already been to Arches National Park, when rain showed up in the forecast for Bryce Canyon we had to change our itinerary. Bryce still awaits for a future visit.  At least we still made it to Escalanate

Moab is beautiful. And apparently quite popular during Memorial Day weekend, we had to wait in a long line of cars to enter the park. After about 20 minutes we paid our $10 entrance fee which covered us for 7 days (the minimum time option).

We stopped at the Visitor Center right away since we wanted to do some canyoneering. Unfortunately the ranger was zero help in this area other than directing us to the forms to fill out for this (free!). There was not much information in the way of maps or locations for good rappelling spots, but we found where we thought Elephant Butte was and decided to head there.

First hike we did was to Double Arch which you could pretty much see from the road. Very short trip, like 1/4 mile. You can actually climb up the rocks and sit right in the arch itself, though it’s a bit steep and I was pretty afraid of it. I’m told I’m just a wimp and it’s really not that bad which is probably true since parents had their small children up there with them. We actually climbed down the other side of the arch (ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING) to try to find Elephant Butte which was a fail. However, this landed us into the Cove of Caves, another cool site.

We turned around after hiking across the cove and decided to move on to Delicate Arch. This is the most famous arch, but was my least favorite. I think this was due to 1) the huge amount of crowds there and 2) the steepness of the hike up. It actually wasn’t all that steep, but it’s uphill pretty much non-stop the whole way which I think is about 1.5 miles. There’s bathrooms at the parking lot, but no water so come prepared! The large crowds also easily filled the parking lot and we had to drive a ways down the road and park on the side. Not a big deal, but just something to be aware of.

After Delicate Arch is where things really got fun! We decided to head to Devil’s Garden which had a lot of hiking options. The trail we picked was the one headed to Double O. We didn’t end up doing the full hike as it was getting late/dark/we were hungry. But we stopped at 5 arches along the way and the whole trip probably took around 3-4 hours.

The first detour option is to Tunnel Arch (very boring) and Pine Tree Arch. It was a quick detour but neither of these arches were particularly pretty. We kept going and the next one we came to was Landscape Arch. Beware that this area around Landscape Arch is completely covered in sand- we saw some abandoned strollers that were waiting to be picked up for the hike back out when the trail had solid ground again.

Hiking up from there to the next arches was definitely my favorite park of the day. There were lots of rocks to scramble over and around which would make it a little difficult with small children. We had tons of fun though and Pablo was quite disappointed to notice there were a few possible rappel areas- but of course we had told him to leave all the ropes and harnesses behind since we had been striking out all day. Oops 🙂

We hit Navajo Arch next by taking the detour. And it was the BEST. Just look at how beautiful it is! Only .3 miles off the main trail.

We walked through the arch and then turned around to take these photos. Then saw this small pathway(?) out the backside and took that to get back to the main trail.

Next up and final arch of the day was Partition Arch. Really great view of the whole area and good one to end on.

We hiked back out and drove towards the picnic area we had seen close to the parking lot for Devil’s Garden. Ended our day with some good old tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Review: Partition Arch and Navajo Arch were my favorites. Moab is just all around beautiful and there were way too many trails for us to hit them all in one day. Definitely picnic there if you can, it was a beautiful location to enjoy some good food after a long day of hiking. There’s one campsite available again right near the picnic area by Devil’s Garden, but it was completely booked when we were there. Maybe next time!

We drove about 1 1/2 hours from Arches on to camp near Goblin State Park. The park was full so we camped in the gravel parking lot camping area closer to the main road. There was just one other RV there and it was free, though camping on rocks is NOT comfortable. Then we headed on to the slot canyons the next day!

Long weekend last weekend meant we had to travel somewhere! I couldn’t stand wasting an extra day off by staying in town 🙂 So we decided on a 15 hour road trip of course! First stop was Arches National Park, and then we headed onto my favorite: slot canyons!

Hiking a slot canyon had been on my wish list for a while, and when I found Zebra Slot Canyon in Escalante, UT I was thrilled! Only problem was when we actually started driving, rain was in the forecast. When there’s a chance of rain at all, a slot canyon is the last place you want to be. So we had to adjust our plans and delay our trip to Escalante by a day. Not only that but when we got there the rangers informed us that Zebra was full of water. If we wanted to hike it we’d have to swim through freezing cold water- which I definitely did not want to do.

Instead we hiked Peek-A-Boo slot canyon and Spooky slot canyon, also in Escalante. These canyons are off of Hole-In-The-Rock Road, a famous road in Escalante, though quite rough. While Zebra is only 7.8 miles down, we had to drive the full 26 miles to reach Peek-A-Boo and Spooky. This took a little over an hour as the road was SUPER rough and we could only average about 20 mph. Picture driving down a giant rumble strip for an hour straight, where the road is dirt and the ruts are from wind blowing the dirt around. It was rough. We were very ready to be out of the car at the end. But everyone agreed it was worth it!

There are two parking lots at the end, and we had to park in the one that was a mile from the actual trail since our Nissan Versa didn’t have high enough clearance to make it over the gigantic bumps along the road for the last mile. It was no problem though and we just parked and hiked over.

The hike itself was AWESOME!! Bring lots of water as it was warm and very sunny and dry. We hiked for about 5 hours and did Peek-A-Boo and Spooky and about half of the Fork.

The start of Peek-A-Boo does involve a scramble up a rock which was a little scary. If there hadn’t been someone at the top to haul me the end of it, I don’t think I would’ve made it. There is an option to hike around Peek-A-Boo and come through the canyon from the back which would then involve going DOWN the rock face at the beginning. I’m not sure if this would’ve been better or scarier, but some people did it that way instead. The canyon itself also required some scrambling throughout so it was good to be in a group and have people to help hoist each other up along the way.

It was pretty, a reddish color throughout. There was a narrow section where we had to squeeze a bit to make it through, but it wasn’t too long. There were other people much larger than I am who made it through so don’t be too worried. And some people even had their little kids hiking it with them as young as 3 years old (they were some tough little girls!).

At the end we took a right and followed the cairns for about 1/2 mile across over to Spooky slot canyon. There are no signs anywhere in the area, but the cairns are excellent and we didn’t worry about getting lost at all.

Getting through Spooky was a bit more challenging than Peek-A-Boo and TONS of fun! The narrows section in here is even thinner than in Peek-A-Boo and much longer. It’s not as pretty, the rocks are a darker gray color but it was so fun and we loved it all. There is one section where we had to scramble down, underneath a pile of rocks and out the other side. That was a bit stressful as we couldn’t see where we were going, the space was dark and tight and we had to have someone at the end to help us down. But honestly it was less scary to me than scrambling up at the beginning of Peek-A-Boo.

Although the trip was a ton of driving, it was DEFINITELY worth it!! It takes a bit of time hiking out to the slot canyons as well and on the way back it’s all up hill. That was tiring hiking up the rocks and through the sand but we all agreed we’d love to do it again. I would totally encourage anyone to go visit! Another bonus? It was all completely free and the rangers are super helpful with tons of information.

Most helpful tip I learned: Call the visitor center and talk to the ranger. They were really helpful giving suggestions and even directions on how to find the visitor center.