Zion & Escalante

 Zion National Park:

When Jenn, Joyce, and I went to Zion in the spring and rented e-bikes, I knew I had to do it again with Mark in the fall. Joyce wanted Phil to experience Angle's Landing, and we all wanted to hike the Narrows.  We made a plan, and off we went!

The e-bikes were just as fun as I remembered. It's such an amazing way to experience the park. When you're riding down the road without a car in sight, it feels like you have the whole place to yourself. We loved it!

We saw this little tiny baby deer. It was the cutest thing, and had to have been born the day before.

I just wanted to put it in my bike basket and ride off with it. 😄

Angel's Landing:

All 4 of us put in for an Angle's Landing permit the day before, and we got picked! We were so excited! Mark hadn't hiked it since we did it years ago when the kids were little. He wasn't a big fan. His fear of heights took over, and it wasn't a pleasant experience for him. I assured him that he has come a long way since then and that it wouldn't phase him this time. Plus, he's working on overcoming his fear of heights, and what better way to conquer them. He did amazing!

There it is looming large behind us!

Leaving Scout Lookout, and starting the permit section.

Getting ready to go across the narrow section.

Phil-Joyce-Tricia-Mark

The views in every direction are stunning!
This is looking back towards the entrance of the park.

This is looking up the canyon toward The Narrows.

Weeping Rock:

Weeping Rock has been closed for a few years due to some major landslides. It reopened right before our trip. 

The Narrows:

Hiking into The Narrows has been on my bucket list for years. I've only ever been able to go a short ways up. We didn't complete the whole thing, but we went in quite a ways. I loved EVERY SINGLE STEP! We had to have our e-bikes back, so we went as far as we could, but all four of us said we want to come again, just for The Narrows, start early in the morning, and do the whole thing. It was so amazing!

Getting started!

There were two sections that were waist deep, but otherwise fall is the perfect time to go. The water level was way lower than in the spring.

Joyce and Phil turned around and started back before Mark and I. A guy told us that there was a side slot a little farther up the canyon that narrows, and wouldn't have other people. I couldn't resist, so Mark and I kept going. The guy was spot on, and the canyon was amazing!

Even though we did it, it's not coming off my bucket list until I do the whole thing. I loved it so much!

The Watchman:

Joyce and Phil headed home once we returned our e-bikes, but Mark and I went beck into the park to hike The Watchman. 

Zion is spectacular! I've been several times, and it just doesn't get old. Such a great day!

Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument:

Southern Utah is an amazing place. We've done most of the stuff down there, but there are a few places we haven't gotten to yet. Escalante was one of those places. There isn't a ton of information about it, so it was sort of hard to plan. I knew we only had one day, so we just covered one side of the park. It is amazing, and we will definitely be back to explore more areas.

Lower Calf Creek Falls:

This was the best way to start the day! By far our favorite hike in the park. We loved the trail, and we loved the destination. We also had the place to ourselves.

Come run some of the trail with us!

This looks like mist, or frost on the plants, but it's neither. The plants are just like this! I've never seen plants like this before, and they were so cool!

Our first glimpse of the falls through the trees.

So gorgeous!

Upper Calf Creek Falls:

This hike was honestly kind of lame. It was a lot of effort, for not a great reward. I thought we were going to the top of the waterfall we had just hiked to, but it was a different waterfall. The trail wasn't very pretty, and the waterfall wasn't nearly as good as the last one.

Escalante Natural Bridge-Cliff House Arch-100 Hands Pictographs:

This was a great hike, but there was some route finding and that slowed us down quite a bit. We wanted to make it to another arch, but we couldn't find it, and we knew we had lots of stuff to still get to.

Natural Bridge from across the creek.

We passed right by Cliff House Arch and didn't see it until we turned around and headed back.

We also didn't realize it was named because it was by actual cliff houses until another couple pointed them out. I wish we would have had more days so we could have explored more.

The pictographs were really cool.

This is the 100 Hands. It was so high up on the wall. It would be so cool to look back and know the story behind this.

Devil's Garden:

We headed down the Hole in The Rock Road, and our first stop was Devil's Garden. This place is so cool. It's basically a desert, and then there is this section with all these random hoodoos and arches. It would be a kid's dream playground. I wish we had more time to explore here too, but we had something big next, and I was feeling nervous about it and just wanted to get started.

Peekaboo & Spooky Slots via Upper Dry Fork Narrows:

This was quite an experience! I like to push my body, and try new things, but this had my anxiety in full swing, and I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack in these slots. Let me start at the beginning.

We chose this route because we would have to approach via Upper Dry Fork Narrows. That was a bonus slot we'd get to go through. Little did we know that there had been flash flooding the day before, and there was still thigh deep mud water through most of this canyon. It was hilarious, and I'm a good sport about stuff like that, the problem was that it was slow going, and we were already starting the hike later in the day than we should have.

This slot was beautiful! Don't let this pretty picture fool you though; it was mostly thigh deep mud!

It was thick muddy water, and our feet would sink at the bottom. Our shoes felt 10 pounds heavier. The mud was up the walls pretty far, so there was nowhere to steady yourself without getting your hands muddy. It was a mess, but I was having a great time through here.

Here's a video of how beautiful the canyon was on the short sections that didn't have water.

Peekaboo & Spooky Slots:

These slots are marked as hard, and the reasons given are because to get into Peekaboo, you have to climb up a 15 foot boulder with no hand or foot holds. To exit Spooky, you have to down climb a 10 foot boulder. I was worried about these two places. Once I saw the entry to Peekaboo I was really worried. The rock was sandy from everyone's shoes so there was no grip. I tried it on my own and couldn't get purchase enough to get up. I had Mark stand behind me and push my butt as I climbed up super fast. I made it half way and there was a place I could stand. I turned around and gave Mark my hand so he could get up to that point. Then we did the same thing to get to the top. It wasn't pretty, but we made it in. Once we were in the canyon I knew I was in trouble. There were so many places that I was way too short to pull myself up or drop myself down. I don't have a lot of upper body strength, and several places you had to 100% rely on that. We learned that there were a lot more obstacles inside the slots and that made it slow going. I started stressing that we wouldn't make it out before dark. My anxiety was rising with the anticipation of what was coming next. I don't mind the tight spaces, I thought those parts were fun. We would take our time on the hard sections, and then bust it through the easy parts to try to make up time. I wouldn't consider myself wimpy or dramatic, but there were at least two places with really big drops that I really couldn't get down. I was almost in tears at one spot knowing that I was stuck. Mark finally told me not to even try to climb down. He said to just sit on my butt, and push myself off the rock and he promised he would catch me. It's hard to even describe how scary that is in such a tight space. I had no choice, so I counted to three and dropped. He caught me, and all was well until the next thing. We were pretty scraped up by the end. I'm making it sound terrible, but it was actually super cool. If we could have eliminated the time crunch we were in, a lot of the stress wouldn't have been there. The 10 foot down climb at the end was way more than 10 feet and would have been impossible for either of us. Luckily there was a way to go under that set of rocks. Once we were out, I breathed a big sigh of relief!

Peekaboo

We liked Peekaboo a lot better than Spooky.

This part was a big drop for me. Notice Mark is standing in thigh deep water. I put my feet on his hands, and he lowered me down on this part.

This is the big boulder. Mark was looking for a way over it, which was impossible. We ended up underneath it, which wasn't easy, but definitely the better option.

There were several spots where we had to take our packs off and shimmy through sideways.

We were a muddy mess when we were done. We were sleeping in the truck, so when we got back, we had to use water bottles to clean off as good as we could. 

We loved Escalante! It's definitely a remote area, but we want to go back and explore the other sections of the park someday.

Super fun weekend trip!