Every once in a while, the wife and I get to sneak away for a hike on our own. We had someone to watch the children, so this was that day. Jacqueline hadn't ever hiked Deertrap Mountain before, so I drove her back on the backroads near Zion Ponderosa Resort and we found a spot at the Cable Mountain Trailhead. It was a Sunday in May in Southern Utah, so the weather was warm and the flowers were out. It was our dating anniversary. Thirteen years earlier I had met this beautiful woman. Introducing myself to her was the best decision I ever made. We were still enjoying our every day together, but it was sure nice to get out into the wilderness together. The trail from the Cable Mountain trailhead is pretty flat. It starts out in the forest and meets up with the East Rim Trail in about a mile of hiking.
From there you take the Cable Mountain Trail until it cuts off and from that point on, you are on the Deertrap Mountain Trail. There are a few springs and some pools of water to enjoy along the way. They look like they have been manipulated in the past and they probably were by the people who ran a sawmill up on the East Rim 100+ years ago. Those are the same people who wanted Zion to be a national park, though, so you can't fault them too much since they wanted to protect the land. The trail was open with some trips up and down some small mesas. The trail had been changed in my time by the park service, so that it now went a different, more scenic direction. I took Jacqueline out to one of my campsites I had stayed at when I was a ranger at Zion. The view from there was spectacular with a great panorama of the East side.
After that, we started to come around the corner and see the real views. The trail took us down a steep drop until it opened up into a meadow. I camped here previously also and it was a very nice spot. When we made it around the corner, though, there were the views. You could see straight into Lodge Canyon with Mountain of the Sun poking up. The views were just amazing of the whole inner canyon. Jacqueline was a little nervous at time hiking on the edge because the views were just so many and so spectacular, but also you could see straight down for thousands of feet. We hiked this all the way to the end of the trail with full views of Lady Mountain and we could also see down into Hidden Canyon. This made me very happy to be sharing this with my special lady friend.
Now that we made the journey out to the end of the trail, there was nothing left to do but to turn around and hike back the way that we had come. The views were still as great coming back, but I really enjoyed the conversation with Jacqueline just as much. We really felt at home in the desert. This is where we had met and this is where we fell in love. We both put a lot of time and energy into working at Zion National Park, but once we were gone it is like we were almost completely forgotten. I missed working for the Park Service with Jacqueline. That connection to the land was gone. There is just such a different feeling of hiking out into the wilderness on your own and doing it on a patrol where you feel like you are making sure it is protected. When we decided to raise kids, it kind of put working for the park service out of the picture with the weird hours and the lack of meaningful compensation. Teaching was enjoyable, but it wasn't like waking up in the morning every day and being excited for the vistas and adventure that you were going to have each day. I was lucky I got to experience that with this lovely lady and I was glad on this day I got to go back and touch at least a part of that again. The hike back seemed to go quickly and it was a great way to spend a Sunday before another week of teaching math to 7th graders.
