Temple of Sinawava, The Grotto, Court of the Patriarchs, and Watchman

On our last day in Zion, we got up bright and early and walked over to the shuttle stop at the visitors' center. We took the shuttle to the last stop, the Temple of Sinawava, where the riverside trail begins. 

One of the more well-known hikes in Zion is the Narrows, where you can hike upstream (without a permit) or downstream (with a permit) for miles and miles and miles. Neil did the 18-mile downstream version when he was a teenager and described it as one of the most painful things he'd ever done, since you're basically walking on slippery bowling balls for 18 miles. He said the first 10-12 miles were super fun and the last few were just agony and he didn't know it was possible for his feet and legs to hurt that bad. 

So while we looked into renting gear for the Narrows hike, we figured that with the ages of our younger kids + the spring runoff (the Virgin River is closed if the runoff is above a certain level; it was closed our first few days in Zion and only opened for the last day) + the toxic cyanobacteria bloom going on which meant NOBODY CAN DRINK ANY WATER and I didn't feel confident about the younger kids' ability to avoid getting water in their mouths...anyway, we decided that this was NOT the trip where we would hike the Narrows. Instead, we decided we would walk to the end of the riverside trail and decide at that point if we felt like hiking upstream for a mile or so. 

It was so beautiful--but very very cold! Matty and I were the only ones who had brought our coats; everyone else was dressed in anticipation of the day's high temperature (85) and was shivering like crazy. 

We got to the end, watched a couple dozen people struggle into the river and try to keep upright against the current in the 39-degree water, and decided we were happy to just turn around and go find a sunny spot to throw rocks in the river. 



And there was much rejoicing when the sun finally got high enough to peek over the canyon walls!




Then we got back on the shuttle and I convinced everyone that instead of going back to our campsite for the rest of the day, we should do a little more hiking. Just short stuff! 

So we got off at the Grotto stop and walked half a mile down a delightful shady trail to the Zion Lodge stop. It was beginning to get warmer now and everyone felt pretty good. 

Then when we got to the Lodge shuttle stop I convinced everyone that we should keep hiking to the next shuttle stop at Court of the Patriarchs, which we'd been planning to get off and check out, but it seemed like kind of a boring stop because the viewpoint trail was only a couple hundred yards long, so I said we should just hike between stops so we could really enjoy it. 



And there was, in fact, a trail--the Sand Bench trail which was mixed use for horses and hikers. 

Long story short: we took the Sand Bench trail. It smelled, predictably, like horses. 

It smelled more like horses the hotter it got. And it got HOT!! I thought it was absolutely beautiful. Everyone else thought it was disgusting, they thought that the mix of sand and horse droppings that they were walking in was disgusting, they thought that when the wind blew sand into their mouths that it was even more disgusting, and they thought that this was perhaps the worst trail they'd walked in their lives. Neil was supportive but about lost it when Matthew stepped in the lone puddle of horse urine on the entire trail right as Neil was lifting Matthew onto his shoulders. 

So weirdly enough when we got to the Court of the Patriarchs, everyone was happy to wait in the shade while I climbed up a little further. 

When I came down, I pointed out the trail winding up towards the cliffs and suggested we could go a little further but was shouted down by a unanimous crowd. 

So we went back to the shuttle stop, boarded it, and rode back towards our campsite. Everyone spent the afternoon either sleeping or reading or doing origami, while I tried to do the math on how late in the day I could hike Watchman by myself and still make it back for dinner (it was REALLY hot by this point so I was trying to be smart about it and not hike while the sun was at its peak!). 

Just as I'd finished refilling my Camelbak, Neil woke up and decided he wanted to come with me. The kids were all happy to wave us off (nobody wanted to come!) and since we all had four bars of reception, I felt okay about leaving them at our campsite, especially since we were leaving the van. 

So we walked over to the trailhead and had a very fast, fun, hot hike together. I was so glad we had the chance to do this (and it was delightful to just go together!! We always go on a walk together every night wherever we're camping, but it was nice to go hiking in the day and go at a non-Matthew pace). 

And then as we were coming back down the trail we remembered that just over the bridge from the visitors' center is a little market that had fountain drinks, so we texted the kids and told them we'd be a few minutes late (and then indulged in the most glorious ice-cold Dr. Pepper). 



It was the perfect end to a wonderful week! It was exhausting and took SO much planning (and yes we did drive through the night both ways!! 26 hours baby) but it was so worth it and I'm so glad we went!! 

 

Emerald Pools + Watchman campground

On our way down from Angels Landing, we decided to hike the Kayenta Trail towards Emerald Pools. I really enjoyed the Kayenta Trail--the views were beautiful and it was relatively uncrowded. 

There are two ways to access Emerald Pools--you can take the trail from the Grotto shuttle stop via the Kayenta Trail and you'll come out at the Middle Pool, or you can take the trail from the Zion Lodge and you'll hit the trail at the Lower Pool, from which you can then proceed to the Middle and Upper Pools.

 



The picture above shows the rim of the waterfall that goes from the middle to the lower pool (it was not doing much waterfall-ing). The upper pool is tucked back at the base of the cliff in the dark spot above the trees. 

This is what the middle pool area looked like when we were there--not that impressive. We had a snack break and then went on up along with approximately 11,000 other people. That's a slight exaggeration, but this was seriously one of the most annoying trails I've ever hiked because it was SO crowded that half the time we were just standing in a line waiting for people to pass going the other direction because the trail was so narrow and crowded. It was a pretty rough trail, so a lot of people were going extremely slowly. 

By the time we got to the upper pool, we were all hot and annoyed with each other and everyone else on the trail. (The Instagrammers! ARGH!)

I only have pictures of a very limited chunk of the pool because there were so many people spending soooooo long trying to get the perfect shot of themselves doing a yoga pose or handstand or whatever. 



Then we came down to the Lower Pools and again, this is the only picture I got because we spent most of the time trying to pick our way around people who were blocking the trail trying to get their perfect shot. I cannot possibly overstate how insanely annoying this was. One group right in front of us stopped on a bridge and wouldn't let anyone else cross the bridge until they took I don't even know how many pictures of the older daughter kissing a very unwilling younger brother. 

Fun fact: more people have died on the Emerald Pools hike than anywhere else in Zion, including Angels Landing, so it is not exactly a good place to be blocking the trail (from what I've read, the algae makes it slippery and people fall off the trail doing dumb stuff to get their photos). 

Anyway, we finally got down past all of the annoying people, the strollers, the wagons, etc. (the part of the trail up to the lower pool is paved and was just like a crowded sidewalk in the city--so many people plodding along in their flipflops stopping to take photos every 2 seconds and blocking the trail for everyone else) and went into town to buy some tshirts & hats and lemon ice thingies. That restored equilibrium and then we went back to our campsite to chill. 

Pretty good views!!

These deer were grazing all through the campground, which was lovely until we saw the signs saying "deer may attack," so I guess that's cool...

Here on my thoughts on Zion: it's beautiful and it's way way way too crowded. I can't even imagine what it's like in summer. I read that parking lots fill by dawn and there's an hour-long wait to get on the shuttle or to do certain hikes, which is just INSANE to me. I think a lot of this is due to both the geographical location of the park (2.5 hours from Vegas, less than an hour from St. George) and the way the canyon itself is structured--it's basically a one-way canyon with very limited hiking. There were rockslides a few years ago that closed a number of trails (so frustrating bc you get on the shuttle and half of the stops marked on the map are closed), so basically the only day hikes you can actually do in the main canyon are Emerald Pools, Angels Landing, the West Rim Trail, and the riverside walk/Narrows. And for most people who are just looking for a quick hike, it's going to be Emerald Pools, which is why that one was so terribly terribly crowded. You can go on the east side (which we did the next day) but the park doesn't really maintain trails over there other than the Canyon Overlook Trail, and the Kolob area is pretty far and so most of the people who visit Zion don't make it over there (we had planned to, but our kids were tired enough that we didn't want to do a lengthy hike our last day, and most of the ones there are quite long). 

So all of this is to say that while I'm glad we went to Zion, it's definitely not one of my favorite national parks (too crowded, pretty limited hiking for families--sooo much potential for climbing & canyoneering). I want to go back in another ten years or so to do the Narrows or the Subway (and hopefully Hidden Canyon if it reopens!), but until then, there are other parks where I'd way rather spend my time. (Neil and I unanimously agreed that Rocky/Glacier are still our tops for hiking.) 

I have to show a picture of our shower situation because I was SO GRATEFUL for it!!!! Seriously, the ability to take a shower when you're hiking and camping in the desert--bliss. We bought a solar shower the first year we were married and upgraded it this year to the Nemo Pressure Shower and it was worth every single penny (it has a foot pump so you can have continuous water pressure rather than having to hang it 20 feet in a tree). We also have this Kelty Blockhouse which again, worth every penny to not have to rig tarps.  

Another thing I was very grateful for: our down puffer blankets. We have one per person in addition to our sleeping bags. It was in the thirties at night and we were warm and happy! (But getting up is the worst.) 

Also thankful for this peach cobbler I made one night in our dutch oven...

And these fun kids, who are such great adventure buddies. (All six.) 

 

Many Pools + east side of Zion

On our second day in Zion, we just wanted to get away from all the crowds! So we decided to go to the east side to hike. We knew this would be a bit of a tough sell with the kids since it was a much warmer day (80s when we were used to 30s at home) and in full sun. 

The park doesn't really maintain any trails on the east side, although it has parking areas. It's more of a choose your own adventure type situation. Thanks to AllTrails, we knew all the waypoints to look for (finding the trailhead was probably the trickiest part!) and navigated the rest via cairns and consulting the AllTrails waypoints description. 

This hike is basically a lot of up. 

And more up without shade. 

But eventually you start seeing all these desert tanks in sequence, which is very cool. 

The waypoints guide noted that most people turn around at a certain spot, but encouraged hikers to continue past that spot to really get the whole "many pools" thing. And we were glad we went! We found a chain of 75 connected pools that were very interesting. 

The waypoints guide noted that this is basically a look at how slot canyons form, although you won't get to the first legit slot canyon until the end of the hike. So we were REALLY excited to find a slot canyon and very disappointed by the reality. More about that later. 

We hiked on past what AllTrails noted as the end of the hike and realized that we had about 7 miles of bushwhacking before we'd meet up with another trail, so we turned around (but we took a different way down that ended up basically just turning into wayfinding and trying to figure out which cliffs were downclimbable and which were most definitely not without ropes). 



It was hot, but really and truly lovely!



If you knew exactly where to look in that picture above, you might see the faintest hint of a slot canyon. I saw it, and I was determined to check it out because I was pretty bummed that we didn't get to see the slot canyon we were expecting on the Many Pools hike. 



So the whole time we were hiking back, I was watching my suspected slot canyon thinking about how to get into it. 



We made it back to our car, and everyone was SO happy to get back into air conditioning, and I said NOPE we are going to go check out this canyon and see if there's a route!! Everyone was SUPER grumpy and complained and whined and cried and yelled but I insisted. 

So we climbed down a few hills and voila! 



A lovely little wash with beautiful canyon walls. 

Very scenic. 

Everyone was happy and ready to go back to the car. Except me! 

Because actually this was the right fork of the canyon and I'd been eying the left fork. 

So we started up the left fork. It was super narrow and choked with trees and full of wet leaves in a sluggish stream and smelled awful. The kids went up ahead and then came back and reported "there's nothing, it's just gross algae, we should turn around." I pushed past them and kept going. 

The canyon got drier and narrower. At one point it was completely blocked by a fallen Ponderosa pine, so I just climbed up and used the trunk as a path. 

AND THEN I WAS VINDICATED. 

We started climbing as high and as far back as we could get without ropes. (Dad, we need to come back here with gear!)

It was beautiful and cool and shady. AND SO BEAUTIFUL. 

The light was pretty tricky, so I couldn't really capture with my iPhone camera just how gorgeous this was, but the rock was super super deep saturated red. 

Eventually we'd gone as far as we could, so we climbed back out. 

And then we headed back through the bottom of the wash bracketed by the original canyon and climbed back up to get to our car. 

Then it was time to knock the last item off our east side to-do list: the Canyon Overlook Trail. This was not one of my favorites--the view was beautiful, but again, the trail was pretty crowded and there were a lot of steep drop-offs, so I was worried about Matthew the whole time and he did not enjoy holding my hand. 

Here's a look back at the road that goes through the tunnel--this tunnel is really cool because it has these HUGE windows cut into the walls periodically so you're just driving along in the dark for five minutes and BAM huge sweeping panoramic canyon view that's gone before you really realized what you were seeing! 



A very cool-looking canyon I'd like to come back and climb sometime (this is one where you'd need permits & gear). 



And the view at the end of the overlook trail: down the east fork of Zion canyon. Pretty spectacular!