Travel in the time of Covid pt. 3

In this third installment describing our trip to Utah, I’ll cover our time in Zion. This was definitely the busiest of the National Parks we visited, but we still had a great time!

Because of the weather, it took us quite a bit of the day to travel from Moab to Zion – but we still got a quick hike in, the Watchman Trail. This was still a decent first hike (3.5 miles) and gave great views of Zion without having to drive too far.

We also checked into a great hotel – the Desert Pearl. This place is definitely expensive, but the offseason prices put it within our budget. I recommend checking it out if you have a large group – the suite we stayed in was perfect for a group stay, with a full kitchen, two bathrooms, and a separate bedroom.

For day 2 in Zion, we decided to tackle maybe the most famous hike in Zion – Angels Landing. This hike is about 5 miles, with a 1500 ft elevation gain, and includes sections of chain railing that you hold onto or risk… FALLING OFF THE SIDE OF THE CLIFF!

For me, someone afraid of heights, this was probably one of the scariest hikes I’ve been on. We started out early (about 7am) so the crowds were pretty minimal, which is good because the chain sections would cause major problems with lots of people. We came prepared with crampons – also good, because the trail was steep and covered in snow and ice. We saw several groups without any traction, struggling hard to make it up the incline.

We ended up not making it the entire way to the end of the trail – we traversed one chain section (likely the easiest) and decided with the snow and ice, we’d rather just enjoy the view from where we were and live to see other views! I really enjoyed our decision – we instead turned around and headed down the West Rim Trail for a bit. There had been so few people down the trail since the last snowfall, we eventually had to start forging the trail ourselves. We kept hoping for a Bighorn Sheep sighting, but unfortunately never saw one.

Day 3 included maybe our favorite hike of Zion – and an almost trip ending injury! We were really getting ready to get away from the more populated trails, but still wanted some good sights. We decided to try Observation Point via the East Mesa Trail. The Observation Point trailhead itself was actually closed due to some rock slide or something – a bummer because that was the trailhead for another trail we wanted to take – but as we discovered, taking the East Mesa Trail was a lovely, easy walk to a beautiful view. Bonus: we only saw one other couple for the entire hike.

Getting to the trailhead was a bit of an adventure – one that made us glad we had a Subaru and new winter tires. We had to exit the park and traveled through deep snow-covered trail roads that were mostly just ruts. I’m actually really surprised we didn’t get stuck!

But it was worth it! The trail was an easy 7 miles roundtrip, very little elevation change, and the views were stunning – really rivaling Angels Landing for someone who doesn’t want to deal with that trail.

Unfortunately, at basically the farthest point from our car – literally, the end of the trail was just around the next bend – I missed my footing and severely twisted my ankle. We rested at the end of the trail, enjoying the view, eating lunch, and resting my ankle, and with a little gritting my teeth I was able to make it back to the car. We headed back to the hotel suite, and I spent the rest of the day practicing RICE – rest, ice, compress, elevate! It was fortunate I had actually purchased a brace for my other ankle, so I was able to use that for the rest of the trip and I think we still managed another 30 miles of hikes.

After Zion, we headed to Bryce Canyon and Grand Staircase-Escalante, where we got massively snowed on and traversed our first slot canyons! Check out the details in the next update.