Two days on Zion’s West Rim Trail

So…. apparently the desert does get cold in the winter.  Who knew?

St. George is at a relatively low elevation (about 3000 ft) so it stays fairly warm all year.  (Stephanie confirmed that before agreeing to move here.)  Most of the best hiking however is up in the surrounding mountains and canyons between 5000 and 10,000 ft and it gets a quite a bit colder up there.  We had our first real taste of it last weekend on the West Rim trail.

The West Rim Trail.  I like the sounds of that.  Sounds impressive - kinda like we scaled Everest.  I can hear myself now, all withered and old and crotchety sitting in a rocking chair, shaking my cane at the young’ins and their “rock and roll” music, and telling anyone who will listen about how when I was just a wee lad, we were high up on the West Rim when a Nor’wester rolled in and we were trapped for days in the snow with nothing to eat but our shoe laces.  It’s not true of course, but I’ll be pretty darn old, so people will nod and pretend they’re interested.  (They’d better - or I’ll give them a good whacking with my cane!)

Well it wasn’t quite Everest, but it was a feet pounding 14 miles.  Add to that, most of the trail is at about 7000 ft and between the packs, the distance, and the relatively thin oxygen, it was tougher than it sounds.

Getting to the trailhead required hiring an hour long early morning shuttle, so we climbed out of the van to start our hike, just as the sun was coming up – at 7400 ft and a brisk 24 degrees!  We knew we were in for a chilly start when we noticed that a pond we passed was frozen over.  That’s never a good sign when you realize the next time you will step indoors is still a day and a half away.

The trail starts off by crossing a plateau through open fields dotted with huge pines that still showed the scars of a forest fire that went through in 1995.  It warmed up quickly however and we made good time.  So good in fact that we ended up at our intended campsite just after 11 am.  Apparently “somebody” (OK, it was me) had grossly overestimated the time it would take to reach the campsite.  But it was early, the weather was clear and cool, and we hadn’t yet reached the rim of the canyon (and therefore the spectacular views we came for), so we decided to keep moving.

The challenge with backpacking in the desert is:

a) water is in short supply (I know, shocker, right?), and
b) water is obscenely heavy.

These two things don’t go well together.  It is commonly accepted that you need to drink at least 1 gallon of water per person per day – more if you are doing any physical activity.  Add another gallon for cooking and for two people for two days you are looking at about 8 gallons of water - weighing in at a breezy 64 lbs!

So unless you are planning to carry a 100 lb pack or are intent on dying of thirst, you have to plan on finding water as you go.  It is pretty darn important.  The campsite we were leaving was next to a tiny spring.  The next campsite with a spring nearby was another five or six miles down the trail. So overall we covered just over 10 miles before stumbling into our new campsite later that afternoon and learning a very valuable lesson:  eight miles in one day, at elevation, with a heavy pack is more than enough.  Ten miles is too much.

That said, once we got across the plateau and started following the rim of the canyon the scenery was great, and that made it all seem worthwhile.

We set up our tent at the top of a 1000 ft cliff overlooking a beautiful canyon valley, heated up a foil packet of dehydrated chicken risotto for dinner, boiled some water for coffee and watched the sun go down.  Then we ran like hell and climbed into our sleeping bags as the temperature started to plummet...

Morning came with a beautiful sunrise and the distinct realization that it was getting much too chilly to be sleeping in a tent this high up in the mountains.  From now until spring it will be day hikes.

With the tiny spring, getting water was a chore.  It bubbles up out of the ground in a barely perceptible flow, and then almost immediately drops over the edge of the cliff.  We had to use a piece of bark to channel it into a pot, taking five to ten minutes to gather one pot full.

Fortunately, our extra efforts the day before left us with only 4 miles to go – and it was all downhill.  Easy right?  No problem?  We had thought so.  Why then did it feel far, far worse than the day before?

First of all we were already sore from the previous day, and second, the last four miles decended a knee busting 3000 ft to the canyon floor.  Trust me - hiking downhill with a backpack only stinks slightly less than hiking uphill.

Again however, the scenery was incredible.  Trees were in full fall colors and as we approached the final decent to the floor of Zion Canyon the views went from beautiful to stinkin' spectacular.

On the way we passed a turn off for an infamous (and popular) trail known as Angels Landing.   Back in the 30's some unemployed people needed something to do, so the federal government poured money into the National Parks and told them to build stuff.  What did Zion do?  Build possibly the most dangerous hiking trail ever unleashed upon the general public.  Got a bum ankle or a crippling fear of heights?  Don't even think about it.  At one point you cross a ridge only a few feet across with a straight drop of over 1400 ft on either side.  To keep you from immediately falling to your death they have a chain for you to hold onto.  Not clip your harness into, not tie your self onto, just hold...

Considering we were already physically spent, we decided to give this short side trip a miss this time - but I will be back.  Oh yes, I will be back.

Remember the knee busting downhill descent I was talking about?  Here it is.

Almost at the bottom.  See how we are smiling?  Wrong.  Actually we were just gritting our teeth to take our minds off the pain in our feet.

Up next... Miscellaneous stories and photos and stuff!