Zion

Since grade school I’ve gone to southern Utah over spring break. Usually it was hiking in Moab (before all the massive new hotels popped up). In recent years I’ve used it as a spring training camp of sorts, riding bikes in the St. George sun before the roads defrosted up north.

I still firmly believe that the best way to see Zion is by bike - you can go on the scenic drive year-round and the switchbacks up to the tunnel are a fantastic climb - but I had never got to see Utah’s most popular national park by foot. This year, after a very stressful few months, I decided to take a solo trip.

These kinds of trips are so much fun to do solo because you can just make decisions on the fly, stop wherever looks interesting, and hike at your own pace. You can also listen to whatever music you feel like, and I found that reggae - especially dub - fit the chill vibe pretty well this trip.

On the first day, I stopped by the Kolob Canyons area of the park on my way down from Salt Lake City. I would have loved to spend more time here but since it’s significantly higher elevation than the rest of the park it still had a lot of snow from our record snowfall winter. I tried out my fancy new microspikes on a snow-covered overlook trail, only ate shit once, and got some amazing photos of the white snow on red rock mesas.

Day two the sun fully came out and I decided to go check out the Emerald Pools area. I got going pretty early while the mud on the trails was still frozen.

Watching the weather, I knew that Friday the rain would come in, but still for some reason chose the hardest hike for that day - Scout Lookout. It’s basically the first 3.5 miles of the Angel’s Landing trail, but without the (permit required) last half mile along the ridge. The full Angel’s Landing is definitely now on my todo list, because despite the cold rain this was such an amazing hike.

The journey itself was fantastic, and you finish at the top of a 600+ foot sheer cliff down to the river below.

The 40° F rain on the way back down got pretty miserable, but I made a hot meal and some coffee in the back of my car to warm up. It was definitely a type-2 fun day.

On my final day in Springdale, the canyon and town shuttles finally started running. They’re such a good idea, they make visiting the park sooooo easy and it’s great to be able to fully look around the canyon while you’re driving through it. With all the rain and melting snow (the weather had been in the 40°s and 50°s) a ton of waterfalls appeared all over the canyon. The moody low clouds also made for amazing views of the red rock walls.

Closing pro tip: buy your hiking snacks (and plenty of them) before you get to the tiny tourist town. They jack up the prices on banana chips way too high.