Zion after the storms
Post date: Jun 20, 2019 3:45:04 PM
On our recent trip to the Southwest, we managed to visit Zion right after a series of storms. What did that mean?
First of all, the Virgin River was roaring, and that meant that the Narrows were closed for safety reasons. Looking at the river, no sane person would want to even try.
And then we noted that the Kayenta Trail, Hidden Canyon Trail, Observation Point Trail, and Upper Emerald Pools Trails were all closed because of major slides. That didn't leave much hiking for us to do.
We did the Watchman Trail, which greatly exceeded our expectations, thanks to the flowers blooming everywhere. And we did the East Rim Trail from up above, at least for a few miles. That was also lovely. And we did the Par'us Trail, which is always one of our favorites because you can almost alone in the heart of Zion.
And we did Angel's Landing---but it was so stacked full of people that M called a halt when we got to the chains. P climbed on quite a bit further, but finally bailed in the face of massive groups of massive people sweating bullets and clinging to the chains with both hands. Apparently we weren't the only ones who felt that way. The next day the rangers started a quota system down at the trailhead, and they were holding people up for as much as two hours to keep things from getting too crazy.
When all was said and done, we were a bit disappointed that we couldn't hike some of these trails, but we also really enjoyed Watchman and East Rim---trails that we would never have taken otherwise.