Daniel is usually the author of the blog but I'm taking over for this post since he was not with me on this trip. For my 40th birthday this year I decided to plan a hiking trip with some of my friends to Zion National Park. There were 5 of us who ended up going and we were gone for 5 days. 4 of us flew down to Salt Lake City where our 5th friend picked us up from the airport. She lives about an hour away from Salt Lake so that was super helpful. Our plane landed nice and early at 8 am. We decided to go to temple square and check our the new visitors center.
We went on one of the tours at the visitor center. Inside they have replicas of all of the rooms that are found in the temple. You are able to walk through each of the rooms and a missionary talks to you about each of those rooms and what they are used for. Here is the baptistry room.
The celestial room.
This shows what it looks like inside the Salt Lake temple. You can catch a glimpse of the actual temple just outside the window on the left.
We had to make a quick stop in Beaver at The Creamery for some yummy ice cream!
Back in May we were able to secure a permit to hike The Subway. Permits are extremely limited and are awarded with a lottery system. You cannot be on the trail without a permit. It is a 9 mile hike up a slot canyon. Here we are at the start of the trail head.
Excited to start our adventure
After dropping down a steep descent into the canyon we found the river which we would then follow for the remainder of the hike until we made it to the Subway formation. You are frequently crossing the river throughout the hike. Getting your feet wet is inevitable and all part of the experience.
There were so many pretty little waterfalls that we got to hike up as part of the trail.
When we weren't walking in the river bed we found ourselves doing lots of boulder hopping.
The giant red canyon walls were very impressive.
Cute little runoff stream that had carved its way down through the rock. It was surprisingly deep.
First glimpse of the subway rock formation in the distance.
We made it! The rock through this part of the canyon has been eroded away over the years to resemble a subway tunnel.
Here is some video of the hike
Here we all are: Beth Ann, Nicole, Holly, Kim and Bessie.
A view from the other direction of the canyon. This is as far as you can hike on foot. There is an option to do this hike from the top of the canyon down to where we began. To do that you need to have rappelling gear. You can see people in the back of this picture that are getting ready to rappel down.
These little pools throughout the subway section were really unique.
On our way out. This is the view from the top of the canyon. One of the great things about this hike is because they issue so few permits for it we hardly saw anyone during the hike and felt like we had the place to ourselves.
After the hike we started driving back to the air bnb. As we were driving down the road we could see something on the road ahead, turns out it was just a tarantula crossing the road!
The next morning we decided to go and hike the Canyon Trail overlook. This was a picture I got on the drive to the trail head. The mountains were so beautiful. The last part of the drive involved driving through a one mile tunnel through one of the mountains.
This was a short 1 mile hike with some great views.
Look at that view!
Here's the crew
Cool little boardwalk to help us get around one of the cliffs.
Our next adventure was hiking Angel's Landing. This was another hike that we had to enter a lottery for to get a permit to hike. This hike was just over 5 miles. The majority of the hike was switchbacks gaining a lot of elevation. This picture shows the final stretch of switch back before getting to the chained section of the hike. It was in the 90s this day and our permit was for noon so we got to hike in the heat of the day!
After getting through all of the switchbacks we showed the ranger our permit and then were allowed to proceed to the chain section of the hike. This final stretch was a 1/2 mile long. The trail was very narrow at times with steep drop-offs on either side. Most of the trail had a chain link rail for you to hold.
The trail followed this skinny ridge all the way to the top of that peak.
I definitely appreciated having the rails to hold onto. The trail was very steep and narrow at times.
Pictures can never do it justice but this kind of shows you how steep the trail was.
Holly and I holding on for dear life :)
Definitely not your typical trail.
It was fine as long as you didn't look down.
Almost to the top
As we would run into other groups of hikers coming down we would have to find places to wait so we could safely pass each other.
View from the top!
We sat on the top and ate some lunch, the views were incredible!
It was hot out but beautiful
Some video of the hike
Coming down those steep chained sections was definitely an experience but we made it!
Back down to a regular trail
Here we are on the bridge at the start of the trail head. You can see angels landing on the left, the peak of it is just barely cut off. Once we got down we were all really hot and we all walked down to the river and jumped in to cool off.
We decided to take things a little easier the next day. We did a simple 5 mile hike to double arch cover in Kolob canyon. We hiked into this giant alcove amphitheater. The red rock made the whole area seem to glow a red/pinky color.
After that hike we went back to the condo to hit up the pool and one of my friends taught us all how to play the game mahjong. It was definitely confusing with a lot of complex instructions but it was fun and now I want to play again.
The next day we had to get up and we packed and checked out of the condo by 6am . We stopped by the most amazing bakery called Bonrue on our way out of town, I wish I would have taken a picture! We took a detour to Bryce Canyon on our way back to airport.
The hoodoos were very impressive, nothing like the ones we are used to seeing. We hiked the Queen's Garden and Navajo Loop trail.
I liked these cute little arches you could walk through.
After hiking all the way down to the bottom of the canyon we had to hike back out.
The amazing views were definitely worth the trek.
Holding Thor's hammer
A video of the hoodoos
We only had a couple of hours in Bryce canyon because we had a flight to catch but I'm glad we were able to go for a little while. Now I want to take my family here because I know they would all love it.
It was an incredible trip with lots of bucket list hikes for me. It was fun to catch up with friends who I hadn't seen in a while and spend time with new friends. I loved Zion National Park and would love to go again with Daniel and the kids.
