Last summer we went on a group tour with REI Adventures and had such a fabulous time that we signed up for another tour pretty much immediately after getting home.
I knew my contract with Microsoft was going to end in December so something in January made a lot of sense as I would likely have some downtime. I wanted to go somewhere warm and sunny to get away from the dreary Seattle winter so we decided to go to Zion & Bryce National Parks (NP). Please note the irony here as one of the activities listed in the itinerary is snowshoeing…
A few random photos from Las Vegas. Far left is from our favorite restaurant, Tacos and Beer. The middle one is from one of the few remaining Rainforest Cafe’s and the far right is from a fancy af milkshake bar.
This tour had our group meet in Las Vegas, pile into a 15-passenger van, and take off for Zion NP. Four hours later, we’d arrive at our destination and go on our first hike.
Unfortunately, there were a few missteps in the communication process. See, they told us via email that we’d be going on a hike when we arrived in Zion but there were various assumptions from the group regarding logistics. Some of us assumed that we’d stop at our lodging first to change clothes and gear up. Others assumed we’d immediately go hiking when we arrived in Zion. The latter group was correct and so we were delayed in leaving Vegas as a number of people needed to change clothes and get the right gear allocated into day packs. Spoiler alert: not everyone allocated the necessary gear.
Once we arrived in Zion, we went on our first hike, the Watchman Trail. This is a 3-ish mile trail leaving from the Visitor Center with great views into the valley. The elevation change is pretty minor at 368′.
Have I mentioned that we went on this trip in the winter? We expected snow but it was unseasonably warm and while there was snow decorating the canyon walls, the trail itself was quite muddy. We also arrived a bit late in the day as we had been late leaving Vegas, had a 4-hour drive, and hit a bit of traffic. Ergo, the sun was due to set about an hour after our arrival.
Extra layers and headlamps weren’t necessarily a consideration when the group packed their day packs but it doesn’t matter. We shared the gear we did pack and we all safely made it up and back down again. Plus we got to have some amazing twilight (albeit foggy) views from the top!
