Backpacking on the East Rim

Zion could not have been more popular. I was issuing permits nearly nonstop at the desk for all sorts of trips, but mainly backpacking. It was spring break and while the rest of the country remained cold and/or wet, we were experiencing comfortable weather and rather dry conditions. Everything was full and when I say everything, I mean everything. We have 5 popular backpacking areas and all of those hit their limits. So I had to go up for the night to see what all of the fuss was about. This was my second time backpacking on the East Rim and I knew I wanted to head out toward Deertrap.

 I left later in the afternoon on this trip intentionally hoping to run into a few more people in camp. I did run into some people exiting early, but not many in camp. I had to educate some college age guys about not camping right next to the trail. They were receptive. As I got farther on I found an amazing site overlooking the East side of the park. The views were fantastic as I approached dark. I put up my tent, made my dinner, and took a look over the edge. With the East Temple in clear view, I could see most of the area near the tunnel with the Pine Creek drainage right below me.

I wondered why people all wanted to be around the spring on the East Rim when their were so many better choices for campsites. I read a little before getting some early rest. In the morning, it was an AM hike out to the end of Deertrap, before packing up my stuff and heading down to Zion Canyon. It was a beautiful hike and camping spot that I always enjoyed having on a work day. 

Feeling Fairly Phallic

We awoke the next morning in the town of Escalante. There was nothing left to do but pack up our stuff, eat some breakfast, and head out on the road back home. We intended to hike on the way back home which can be a difficult task to do because sometimes you are just motivated to get home and have a day there.

But I was determined, so we stopped at Kodachrome Basin State Park. We paid the expensive entrance fee and then parked at a trailhead for the Panorama. Jacqueline took about ten steps with Conrad and decided that it was far too windy for him.

So I took off with Zyla and we decided to do the loop on our own. I would usually encourage Zyla to walk normally, but with the ticking clock of my wife sitting in the car with Conrad, I had to do this hike as fast as I could. The views were great and the rock formations were interesting. Kodachrome has a large collection of rocks that look strikingly like penises. They all had other names, though. I think I went the wrong direction by going clockwise, but my first stop was a viewpoint that I hauled us up to.
Zyla was such a cooperative hiker and at this point, old enough to hold a conversation with me as we moved along.

Then I kept going around the loop which seemed to run many different directions. I went to various different offshoots with names like the Hat Shop and Ballerina Spire. I think that being in Southern Utah, these needed specific names to get the other names dropped that would have come out. It was a fun hike and all in all it took us five miles roundtrip to complete the loop. Zyla was good the whole time and we made it back to tell Mommy about all the interesting things we had seen. 

Upper Calf Creek Falls

Being the parents of two children under the age of 3 makes many seemingly simple tasks big adventures. Going for a weekend hiking trip to Escalante in March is one of those many things. In the past, this weekend may have been a drive at night to a remote campsite. Then an early rise in the morning for a long trip,  maybe a backpack or two long day hikes could happen on a weekend without the kids. I would return to my normal life refreshed despite the challenging long trip without having to spend much money.

Now this trip was different. We rented a motel room in the town of Escalante because that was the only way that anything of a significant nature was going to happen. We did drive at night and after cramming our many bags into the room, were able to eke out a night's sleep. In the morning, it was a late rise that would eventually end with a trip out to breakfast. We had a goal for the day which was to hike Upper Calf Creek Falls. By the time we got to the trailhead, it was 10:30 AM. We got our kids loaded in. I was letting Zyla walk as much as she wanted while hiking with the baby backpack.

 Jacqueline was carrying Conrad in the Baby Bjorn. Our hike was steep at first and Jacqueline was already worried about falling with the baby. I assured her it was going to be okay, but I don't think she was ever convinced. The trail dropped a lot of elevation before finally flattening out. Eventually we came to a junction where the trail split, one going up above the falls, one going below. We took the one below. There was one steep part that Zyla and I managed easily, but Jacqueline was unwilling to try it with Conrad.

I asked her to let me take him, but she had hit a wall and was refusing. I was disappointed because they never made it out to the falls. Zyla and I did, though, and we enjoyed it. On the way back to the junction, we ran into some Zion folks Sarah, Michelle, and Jessica that we had seen at the coffee shop in the morning. They were out for just a day trip. They had gone above the falls, so we decided to do that. It was somewhat interesting, but much better below.

 Then it was back up the hill. When we topped out, this 2 mile hike had taken us an entire hour and a half of our day. It was pretty but we were already worn out from carrying the kids up and down the slickrock hills. We went back to the hotel room to regroup.

Eventually we ended going back out to hike Lower Calf Creek Falls. But by the time we got there, it was already 2:30 pm. I let Zyla hike for a while instead of carrying her. It was obvious we were not going to make it out to Lower Calf Creek Falls and when it started to sprinkle, we turned back. Then it was out to an expensive dinner with the kids and another night's sleep in the hotel room.

We had an entire day in Escalante and we managed to hike about 3 miles and we were both exhausted. This is the joy of being a parent. Every time you can get everyone in the family moving in the right direction, you are doing an adventurous thing. There is just something about making sure your kids are exposed to this that makes it all worth while, but it sure changes the way that one looks at the world when they have children to always think about. Regardless, it always makes me a happy person when I get to be out in the natural world with the people I care about the most.

Snowmobiling in Zion

Up until this year, I had been at Zion for quite some time and have never been snowmobiling. I am not much of an adventure seeker when it comes to the power sports using motorized equipment. It just is not one of my passions, but still I am willing to do it if it is needed. Andrew, who is one of the law enforcement rangers, has to do it as part of his winter duties. He needed someone to come with him. I fit perfectly into the schedule for that. So he asked me if I could go. I was excited to give it a try. The first time he took it easy on me. We drove the roads up the Kolob Terrace Road from Wildcat Canyon to Lava Point. From Lava Point we hugged the park boundary until ending up back on the Kolob Terrace Road.

 We then went up to the Kolob development by the reservoir. There was a nice family by the name of the Cottams who we had some hot chocolate with. We visited with them for quite some time. Then we went up to the reservoir. Andrew wrecked his snowmobile here trying to get around something. He quickly righted it and then we were speeding down the road. He was definitely going faster than me, but I was only going to go as quickly as I felt comfortable. The most difficult part of the whole day was putting the snowmobile back on the trailer where we had to line it up just right. The next week we went out again. This time Andrew was determined to break my cautious streak.

We did the same patrol around the boundary, but we also went up onto land outside the park to try some things out with the snowmobile. Andrew encouraged me to experiment and I did try but I was not particularly interested in seeing how much interesting things I could do. Still, we charged up to the top of this very steep hill where we rode the ridgeline for some time. We both got our snowmobiles stuck with Andrew tipping his. But we carefully maneuvered and eventually got off the other side of the ridge. I followed Andrew as he took us through the trees, once running directly into a tree.

 The snowmobile came out just fine and eventually we were fitting ourselves through tight spaces with brush sticking up above the snow. We found our way out of the trees and Andrew thought that was awesome. I was just happy that I didn't wreck as I was not sure what we would do if it would happen. We road back up and visited with the Cottams again. Along the way, we saw a llama that was loose outside the park. Andrew tried to feed it a cliff bar. That llama could reek havoc in the park later this year as there was nothing stopping it from getting in. We rode down again picking up all the boundary signs for the season. Then the treacherous climb onto the trailer and back down to the warm days of summer slowly approaching. It was a beautiful couple of days playing out in the winter snow, but it was time for spring to start melting it all away.

Narrows in Winter

I had been pining away wondering about how the work that we had done in the fall in the Lower Narrows had held up with 5 months of leaving it alone. So I put on a wet suit and made my way up to the Lower Narrows. It was a warm day for the 2nd of March meaning it was somewhere in the low 60's. The Narrows were incredibly quiet which is a break away from the normal. The water was chilly, but I wore two pairs of booties to deal with it. That seemed to protect me and since the flow was low, it actually turned out to be rather comfortable. The social trails looked great and it was so nice to not have the masses in there to destroy all of the work that we had accomplished. Now if we could just maintain it through the winter.

It was interesting being in there when the trees were without leaves and most of the plants were either dead or just starting to make their way to the surface. There was this incredible frozen waterfall coming out of what some people call "Not Imlay" Canyon. Quite an original name. I hiked only up to Orderville and then worked a little bit on a trail that I had not yet worked upon. I could not find much material to use so it didn't go that spectacularly. I saw a few other couples hiking through with their full dry suits. There were even an occasional fool trying to do it without a wet suit or a dry suit. They looked miserable. I left after working for a few hours glad that the work I had done had held and holding out hope that it would last through the summer time.