End of Summer 2024 Tour of the West – 4 – The Red Walls of Zion

Zion provided us with a natural heart emoji on our anniversary, pretty cool!

Waking up on this day, Lana and I have been married for 19 wonderful years! Happy anniversary my dear!

The plan for the day was to meet up with Jeanette and Stu for breakfast at the RV, then head into Zion National Park to enjoy a couple of the main hikes the park has to offer. The town of Springdale, catering to tourists, made that easy. There isn’t much parking in Zion so the town offers shuttles to the park entrance, where you then pass through the gate and take other shuttle buses to various locations. After breakfast the four of us hopped onto that first shuttle to head into the park.

We decided to challenge ourselves with the famous Angels Landing trail. We didn’t have permits for the part of the hike where ropes are required so we hiked up to Scout Lookout which is where the trail forks. One section goes to the ropes part and the other continues higher for even more impressive views, and that’s where we went. We told ourselves that what we did was even harder than the ropes section of Angels Landing. And if we said it, it must be true!

The hike all the way to the top offered ever more impressive views of the valley. It was really difficult taking pictures because every time I moved 20 feet higher I’d take a slightly better picture then I had just taken seconds before. The hike to the top of the trail was hot, challenging, but oh so worth it. It took about 4 hours to go all the way up and back down again, that was with a quick snack at top.

Views of the ropey part of Angel’s Landing. See we went even higher!

After getting back to the valley floor we hopped on another shuttle and headed to The Narrows, another of Zion’s famous hikes. The trail to The Narrows was about a mile long, and mostly flat. At the end of that path people would typically begin the more challenging part of the hike, which was through the river. Since we didn’t really have the right gear (hard soled water shoes) the three others just got their feet wet, while I (with limited success) guarded our belongings from aggressive squirrels on the bank.

After our mostly ceremonial experience at The Narrows we headed back to the shuttles and town to get ready for dinner. Jeanette and Stu were going to take us out to dinner at The Spotted Dog to celebrate our Anniversary and my recent birthday.