Where the sidewalk ends

We got up earlier than yesterday to beat the crowds and heat at Zion National Park.  I even went without coffee which means I was surprised on the drive when Devin hit the brakes to avoid hitting a baby rabbit.  For today’s hike Devin had picked Observation point which would give us the best viewpoint of the canyon.  It also meant we were going up. A lot of up.

Going up

The hike starts at bus stop seven near weeping rock.  The rock weeps because water sinks into the sandstone and oozes out when it hits a less permeable rock.  All sorts of ferns and vegetation not common in deserts flourish in these weeping rocks.  The park calls these hanging gardens.

Almost instantly the hike goes to the vertical.  There are switchbacks that make it easier but its still quite the leg workout.  The hike has 2,100 feet in climb over 3 miles and there is very little flat trail to traverse until you get to the top and there is a mile of flat terrain to the point.  A lot of the trail was paved in a way that was designed to minimize erosion.  There was a section that was recently paved that looked like a sidewalk but ended abruptly into a pile of rocks.

Along the way there were some great slot canyons to check out.  The landscape kept changing as we ascended which we were not expecting.  We went through desert, forest like area, and canyons.  Near the top we really struggled but prevailed and made it to observation point.  We ate our lunch and took some pictures of the canyon from our high perch.

Back down

The descent was a easier since we weren’t fighting with gravity but rough on the knees and feet.  I tried to have some fun with hikers going up telling them they were almost there but Devin explained to them that almost was relative and Chris was full of it.  Devin was wearing her GPS watch and tracking our hike.  She used this to tell some Germans how far away they were and we sheepishly admitted that the watch was only counting in the silly imperial system so we gave them the useless standard of measurement.

Once at the base we caught the bus down to the Zion National Park museum at stop two.  I wanted to go there for the air conditioning but it was a pretty basic museum so we headed for are car.