Thanks to the Park Record for mentioning both HikeUtah and Utah High Points. Happy trails, Park Record readers!
Talking Rockies
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A Rolling Barrel of Good Times
For the last 2 weeks I’ve made it out to Barrel Roll, a popular mountain biking and hiking trail in the Santa Clara Desert Reserve. The views are great, the rolling terrain is studded with barrel cactuses , the wildflowers are in bloom, the prickly pears are on the verge of flowering, and all of the scrub is fresh with verdant spring foliage.
The most exciting thing about each ride, however, is that each has yielded a venomous reptile. Last week it was a thick, angry rattlesnake, and this week it was a gila monster.
I stopped for a father and son duo of riders coming down the opposite direction on the trail, and as we passed each other, the father said, “I just saw a really big lizard, and it’s in that crevice now.” I peered in there, and found the beady lizard in its redoubt.
Besides exotic venomous reptiles and the desert foliage, this trail also offers sweeping views of the area’s rugged terrain, a tableau in vivid reds, calming tan, and deep blue.
Over the next few weeks the prickly pears will be in full bloom, and the desert tortoises should be out. It’s a great time to go.
Barrel Roll Trail, along with several other great routes for cyclists and desert lovers, takes off from the Cove Wash Trailhead in the Santa Clara Desert Reserve. To get there, take the intersection of Bluff and Sunset in Saint George, follow it for about 6 miles to a spot just before the Jacob Hamblin home in Santa Clara. To the west there’s a small bridge over the Santa Clara River. Take this bridge and follow the dirt road for a couple of rough miles to the trailhead.
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Great App Review in The Spectrum Newspaper
Thanks to The Spectrum for a thorough review of all 4 hiking guides. It’s easy to see that Brian Passey, their reporter on this beat, is a backcountry trails sort of guy. The sort of thing I love to hear is “I was amazed at how much each app offered.” Check out the review here.
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Something New on Mine Camp Peak
Mine Camp Peak is the highest point in Utah’s Millard County (10,108′ 3081 m), in the Pahvant (puh-VANT) Mountains, and is the 20th highest in the state if you go by counties. The Pahvant a range, and Mine Camp aren’t a frequent topic of conversation, but there’s lots of great solitude up there and the views of Utah’s high, dry valleys and surrounding mountain ranges is fantastic. It’s worth checking out.
On the verge of the autumnal equinox, a fine, summery day in September 2009, I set out from the Chalk Creek trailhead ( 39.9216 -112.2415), following said stream up to Paradise Canyon, then up to the top of the range. No deer, elk, bears or other charismatic megafauna were to be seen along the way — just lots of cattle staring at me with the usual bovine suspicion. I lost the path for a stretch, but met with it again, now graduated to a two-track ATV trail, near the top. There were groves of firs, dark green, and quakies in tones of green and brilliant yellow.
About a mile (1.6) from the goal, the ATV trail connects up with a dirt road, FS-103, which starts on the west side of the range, near Fillmore, crosses over, and comes out at Richfield. If you want to get to this summit quickly, you can drive a Jeep or an ATV up and just walk the last mile. If you feel like walking a dozen miles (almost 20 k) then the Chalk Creek route is for you! As the dirt road tops out, there’s a cattle guard and a fence. This is where you leave the road, drop into a saddle, then climb back up to the peak just west of you.
Near the cattle guard I ran into a solitary rider of an ATV, who stopped to chat me up. He said he had come out from Kansas just to ride around in the Pavant Mountains, and was staying in Richfield. That morning, a rally of 3,000 riders had ridden their putt-putts in a parade through town. I could imagine the sound of Richfield hoteliers and restaurateurs rejoicing.
On the peak, as I sat there taking in the sort of tableau that inspired 19th-century landscape painters — the parched Pahvant Valley, the Tushar Mountains to the south, the Wasatch Plateau east, and the stretch of ranges and basins to the west (the House Range, Nevada’s Snake Range and others), cottony clouds floating across the sky — while munching on trail grub, I noticed that a flock of ravens, at least a couple dozen of them, were riding an updraft as if it were an amusement park ride. The whoosh of air shot them up, wings spread, as if sitting on a geyser. At the apex, each corvid let out a loud, croaking “caw,” folded its wings, and dropped back down to catch the draft again.
I’m sure they were just goofing off, each caw betraying the exhilaration of the stunt. I’d never seen anything like that. No big wild critters on this hike, but ravens goofing off. The Saturday used up was worth it.
Back near the cattle guard, I stood under a huge pinyon, about about 30 feet tall (9 m), watching blue and white birds picking the nuts out of cones, shelling them and eating the meat. As I stood there, they dropped the shells on me. I don’t know what kind of bird it is, and assume they were just passing through, but again, I had never seen birds feasting on pine nuts.
Pine Nut Feast
On the way back down, going back through the stretch of trail I had missed on the way up, the ATV trail through Paradise Valley led the through the tallest, straightest stand of aspen I’ve ever seen. Although it was just a dry forest of deciduous trees, it made me think of the majesty of the rain forests on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Another great find for the day.
If you happen to be cruising down I-15 and come to Fillmore, if you feel like taking a detour, run up to Chalk Creek and check out this great, lonely mountain range for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.
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6 Reasons to Go to Joshua Tree National Park
There has to be something noteworthy about an area to make the cut as a national park: geologic features, an expanse of wilderness worth protecting, wildlife, plants — something. Besides the fact that this area along the San Andreas Fault seems to grow its namesake trees larger than anywhere else in the Mohave, what was it about these 1,234 square miles (3,196 square k) of desert straddling the San Andreas make this place remarkable? There has to be something to make you point your car east from Hesperia or San Bernardino besides all those golf courses down in the Coachella Valley.
For some, it’s the chance to see the interstice of three regions: the Little San Bernardino Mountains, the Colorado Desert (part of the Sonoran), and the Mohave. The lower valleys on the south and west have Sonoran plants, like the Ocotillo. The higher spots north are pure Mohave, and the west part of the park has mountains. It’s a fascinating place with lots to do, so check out one of these 6 ideas and see if a few of them are for you.
The Views
If you’re a Big Picture sort of person, Keys View is for you. In winter and spring you get the bonus of snow-capped San Jacinto and San Bernardino mountains. The dun-colored Coachella Valley seems to start just below your feet on its northwest end, then runs southwest to the glimmer of the expansive Salton Sea. On clear days you can see past the sea and Imperial Valley over the border to Mexico.
From the Visitor Center take Park Boulevard southwest to Hidden Valley, then south to the viewpoint. It’s about 21 miles (33.6 k). On the drive there you’ll see some of the largest Joshua Trees (Yucca brevifolia) you’ll see anywhere — unlike their scrubbier cousins in other parts of the Mohave, these specimens tower above the landscape, supported by thick trunks you’d normally expect to see on middling Doug Firs. Stacks of rounded, tawny monzogranite globs make the exotic scenery even more so, taxing the attention of drivers who need to pay attention to the curves in the road. Mohave Yuccas (Yucca schidigera) finish out the tableau with their long, fleshy spines.
In the winter it can be blustery there, so take some warm things along.
Old West History
No need to don period attire — park personnel do that for you at the Keys Ranch, named after the focal settler, William F. Keys and his family, who made their lives there. The Keys spent 60 years ranching this dry land. Visitors are encouraged to ask the rangers-in-costume questions about what their life is like as they walk around the ranch house, school house, store and replanted orchard.
The old spread has old vehicles and mining equipment as well.
Call 760-367-5555 to make reservations for one of the tours held twice daily (10:00 am and 1:00 pm) from October to May. Cost is $5 per adult. The ranch is near the Hidden Valley turnoff, and visitors meet the rangers at the locked gate nearby.
History buffs can also check out the Lost Horse Mine, just off a loop trail a few miles north of the Keys View.
Geology
The park sits on a layer of very old, precambrian granitic rock, worn down over time into broad alluvial plains. Rounded, sandpaper-rough outcrops punctuate the high parts of the park, a great showcase for rockhounds and a playground for rock climbers. Although mostly worn away now, remnants of a layer of banded gneiss, an attractive combination of quartz and feldspar, can be found around the park.
The park is hashed up and down with faults, including the grandaddy of faults, the San Andreas, a split that goes down to the North American and Pacific Plates below and defines the southern border of the park and the northern edge of the Coachella Valley. The park is moving over the Pacific Plate at about 2 inches per year.
Spiky Desert Plants
The park is a desert plant lover’s dream with flora from three regions jammed together. Giant Joshuas thrive in the middle regions of the park that belong to the Mohave, as well as Pinyons and junipers. Look for Desert Willows (Chilopsis linearis) in the washes.
Shrubby zones have many of the usual suspects: creosote (Larrea tridentata), Mormon Tea (Ephedra sp.), Mohave Yucca, bur-sage, brittlebush and the rest of the shrubby Mohave lineup.
Down in Pinto Basin a thick patch of Teddy Bear Chollas (Cylindropuntia bigelovii) is an uncommon display. Not far from there is a patch of Octotillos (Fouquieria splendens). You can also find large Claret Cups (Echinocereus sp) and Red Barrel Cactuses (Ferocactus cylindraceus) in the canyons.
In addition to keeping grazers from eating them, spiny plants cool faster in the hot desert.
Late spring is an especially good time to go, when the wildflowers and cacti begin to bloom.
Oases
North America has 158 Fan Palm (Washingtonia filifera) oases, and the park personnel claim 5 of them. After going there and looking at the map, however, I could only come up with 4: Oasis of Mara, 49 Palms, Lost Palms Oasis and Cottonwood Spring. The latter 2 are near the south entrance and visitor center.
These palms live for 80-90 years and provide a fruit, purple berries smaller than dates, that Native Americans gathered. The thin outer fruit was edible, and they also ground the pits into a powder to eat. The large fronds were good for making shelters. Cahuilas set the undergrowth on fire to clear the area and to increase fruit production.
Mara isn’t worth bothering with — it’s a sad holdover of something that in the past was really neat (and the didactic signs along the trail reinforce this spot’s decline). Fortunately, 49 Palms is excellent. I don’t know about the other 2, but it’s worth checking them out.
The 49 Palms 3-mile (4.8 k) round-trip hike is a fine one, up over a Barrel Cactus-studded ridge and down into the wash where the patch of palms resides. You can see the oasis when you’re halfway there, as you crest the ridge and work your way down into the wash.
To get to the trailhead, From the Visitor Center, head east 11.2 miles on Highway 62, and turn right on Canyon Road and then go south up the canyon. The trailhead is a large parking area at the end of the road. When it’s warm, take plenty of water along — at least 2 liters.
Coyotes and Bighorn Sheep like to come to these oases, but it’s against the rules to visit these places between sunrise and sunset, so your chances of seeing wildlife are not very good.
Bird Watching
There are 250 different kinds of birds to see here, with 78 species as permanent residents. The others pass through on their way to or from the Salton Sea, or come from the surrounding mountains to winter in a warmer spot. There are many springs and seeps they can drink from, and they find seeds and fruits to eat. Birds are easier to spot here than other places because there aren’t leaves for them to hide in — they have to perch on spikes, between spines, or on fronds.
Even a novice has a chance of seeing roadrunners, Gambel Quail and the ubiquitous ravens, but more assiduous birdwatchers come here to tick off long lists of specimens.
Rock Climbing
The granite outcroppings here make “JT” a rock climbers mecca, with 400 climbing formations and 8,000 routes. Check at the Visitor Center for guides.
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Learn Your Layers
Zion National Park can give you a crick in the neck from gaping up at the thick layers for red stone piled on top of each other. The curious — OK, I admit, the nerdy — among us want to know more about all of this stone, and then spout our newly-acquired knowledge to anyone within earshot. What’s it called, we wonder. How did it get there?
You’ve probably heard something about the Grand Staircase, and maybe how Zion fits in to that story somehow.
Geologists love to talk about the stratigraphy of a location, that is, the sequence of layers, and said layers in Zion are in the diagram on the right.
In Zion Canyon, the thick, red, smooth-walled stone is Navajo Sandstone, deposited during the Jurassic period as red sand dunes piled onto more sand dunes, in an area larger than today’s Sahara. The grains are mostly quartz, and the red coloring is from a pervasive spread of iron. This layer is almost 2 thousand feet (600 m) thick. You can get up close to all of this by hiking up through Refrigerator Canyon on the West Rim Trail, or Echo Canyon on the East Rim trail.
Water seeps into the stone, and the Navajo Layer behaves as a large sponge, holding water, but when saturated, letting the excess seep out the bottom. The black stains on the cliff walls are Desert Varnish, which gets its black color from manganese. The latest consensus is that there are living organisms in the varnish.
If you look carefully in this layer, sometimes you can find flaws in the stone, like a thin layer of embedded limestone. Sand dunes have oases, and a long-standing body of water leaves limestone deposits from accretions of carbon.
Down in the bottom of the canyon there’s as much soil as stone, and the walls slope instead of dropping down as sheer cliffs. This is the Kayenta formation, itself a collection of discrete layers. This group is made from river deposits when the area was lower and wetter, a vast riverine plain. These flows left layers of mudstone, shale and in the river beds, sandstone. As you look, you can see lens-shaped cross sections of river beds.
Kayenta layers block the flow of water, providing a barrier and preventing the flows from going deeper. This means that at the bottom of the canyon water flows out from the higher Navajo Layer. If you hike in the Zion Narrows, you can see many springs there, including the largest of them all, Big Spring, a few miles (about 5 k) up-canyon from the Temple of Sinawava.
On the park’s east entrance, the highest part of the park, you can see the Carmel layers, deposited when the area dropped and was submerged with sea water. Calcium carbonate from that water seeped down over time, cementing all of those red sand dunes in the Navajo Layer, turning them into sandstone.
On top of some Carmel formations are caps of limestone, the Dakota formation.
How long ago did all of this stuff happen? If your inner nerd is still not satisfied, memorize some of these periods. This shows you that the late Permian, the lowest level in Zion, goes back 251 million years, and that the newest layers at the top of the park, are from the early Cretaceous, putting them back 145 million years.
What happened to all the layers above that? Blown away in the wind. If you’d like to see some of these higher layers, you can find them at Bryce National Park.
How about older layers? Head to Grand Canyon National Park. The Kaibab Limestone at the top of the park is Permian, taking off about where Zion stops. If you hike to the bottom, you can see Vishnu Schist and Zoroaster Granite, about 2 billion years old.
Find out more about the geology in our National Parks here, brought to us by the United States Geologic Survey. Spend a little time with these diagrams and images and you can start tossing out words like “stratigraphy” as if you knew what you were talking about. You might even satisfy a little of the nerdy curiosity.
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Trekking for Meaning
In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” writer and “Logotherapist” Viktor Frankl talks of his experience in the brutal Nazi prison camps, and how he was able to transcend the daily squalor, banality and brutality there. One day, on yet another forced march to a day of hard labor, he thought of his wife. He said,
I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.”
He goes on to explain in his book that finding meaning in the pure passions heals the sick soul in almost any condition. Frankl went through some of the worst suffering ever known in the whole human experience, and spent the rest of his life treating patients with “Logotherapy,” or treatment by finding meaning.
Logotherapy has made its way into tourism. Even when living conditions are good, people yearn for meaning in their lives. Carla Santos, a professor of Sports and Tourism at the University if Illinois, talks of “Genealogical Tourism” and “Cultural Tourism.” She says that many travelers are looking for the charm of antiquity or a peek into ancestors’ lives. She’s onto something, and although it would do her a world of good to read a Strunk & White 4 or 5 times, and maybe never pick up J.P. Sartre again, she has a point in all of her tortured academic syntax: “Genealogical tourism provides an irreplaceable dimension of material reality that’s missing from our postmodern society.” Translation: “in a confusing world, people are looking for authenticity and meaning.” Given the few dreadful quotes attributed to her, I think save myself the irritation of parsing her orotund syntax and skip her article in the Journal of Travel Research, but I’ll run with the ideas.
Here are a few notions of what a trek for meaning might be
- Hiking or driving to pictographs, petroglyphs, and pre-Columbian ruins to look into another age. See a different facet of the human experience, and enjoy their art. Talk about the “Charms of Antiquity.”
- Visting ancestral villages and cemeteries. Someday I’ll travel to the Isle of Man just to see where some of my ancestors walked.
- Walk along a stretch of the Old Spanish Trail.
- Revisit the Muley Twist in Canyonlands. I don’t have any ancestors that I know of that used that route to go from west to east across southern Utay, but I’m taken by the story.
- Spend a few days and nights in Canyonlands Salt Creek to see the wall paintings and Ancient Puebloan ruins.
You get the idea.
I hope that the apps I have out so far for Utah’s peaks and national parks help some people find meaning, and I’m just getting started!
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A New Mobile Guide Intended to Cause Upheaval (Dome)
Together with Utah hiking writer David Day, TalkingRockies has another mobile hiking guide in the iTunes App Store: ArchesCanyonlands. As I worked on adapting Dave’s great content to work in a mobile guide, it took extra concentration to stay on the task, and not start rounding up gear, jumping in the car and pointing to to Moab, Utah. There are things out there I just want to see! This sun-baked redoubt has an arrangement of terrain like nowhere in the world, with the snow-capped La Sal mountains on the east, presiding over rolling expanses of sunbaked terrain.
To make it easier for the first movers, the app is out at an introductory price of just $3.99. This offer is only good until the end of March, and then the price goes back up to the normal range for great content of this quality.
The purpose of this guide is to get you out into the backcountry, away from the masses, and take in the amazing sights back there.
Arches is a small park, with lots of really short hikes, and there just isn’t as much backcountry back there. However, there are a few longer hikes we want you to know about (and we put Delicate Arch in there just because it’s sui generis). So, here it is
- Devils Garden and the primitive trail. A varied loop hike with 10 natural arches in their different stages of development, from nascent to mature (Landscape, vying for world's longest) collapsed (Wall Arch). A fin-top walk to Double O and the Dark Angel, and a primitive hike back through Fin Canyon.
- Delicate Arch. A short hike up a slickrock wedge to Utah’s talismanic geologic feature. Pleasant winter weather makes this hike a great cure for the winter blahs or any form of Cabin Fever. Be ready to share the trail with throngs of fellow wanderers.
- Lower Courthouse Wash. A pleasant riparian walk down a pretty wash carved into Navajo Sandstone. Start inside the park and finish just short of the Colorado River. There’s usually water, so there are cottonwoods and tamarisks all along it. Some people go barefoot in the sand.
The Moab area has some great hikes, and we wanted to tell you about 3 of the best:
- Mount Tukunikivatz. Saying the Ute name is fun (too-koo-NIH-ki-vahts), but hiking it is much better. Walk in Edward Abbey’s footsteps on this steep route-finding route to the top of one of the La Sal Mountains’ most famous 12,000-footers, and a stunning alpine contrast to the sunburned red rock all around. Earn vistas of “a sea of burnt rock, arid tablelands, barren and desolate canyons.” This is a challenging, exposed hike on loose talus.
- Fisher Towers. A short hike to geologic features that look like petrified skyscrapers, with branching arroyos as streets. Pass a half-dozen towers and end at The Titan. Climbers love these brick-red towers, adding to the interest of this hike. A breathtaking sunset promenade.
- Negro Bill Canyon. Named after William Granstaff, an African-American rancher, this gash in the Navajo Sandstone provides a verdant streamside stroll in a Wilderness Study Area, ending with a stunning natural bridge carved by a waterfall instead of a stream. The mouth of the canyon was the scene of a fracas when the locals bulldozed a newly-erected barrier as a protest, kicking off the “Sagebrush Rebellion” (which enjoyed a shorter life than Disco).
The hikes in Canyonlands are pure magic, with candy-striped hoodoos lined up in tantalizing rows, a huge impact crater, riparian pathways through parched terrain, a stunning confluence of two mighty rivers, and an abundance of Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) pictographs and dwellings.
- Alcove Spring Trail, Island in the Sky. A there-and-back stroll down to an oasis under a sandstone alcove, then a canyon walk to a spur of the White Rim Trail. Visit a formation that resembles Moses talking to Zeus. Possible as a day hike, or a nice overnighter.
- Big Spring Canyon-Elephant Canyon Loop, Needles. A good, long loop hike through three different washes with a fine traverse of undulating sandstone between whimsical formations on the final stretch. The traverses between the washes add to the interest of the hike. Lots of variety, and the best of many great loop hikes from here.
- Chesler Park, Needles. A loop walk through canyons and pinnacles, across Elephant Canyon, over slickrock and to an uncharacteristic broad, flat meadow in the middle of craggy sandstone terrain. A tight squeeze through the Joint Trail from the Chesler Park Trailhead, the best part.
- Confluence Overlook, Needles. A rigorous stroll on an up-and-down, wind-around trail across broken terrain takes you to the spot where John W. Powell first took in this magnificent view of the mighty Green and Colorado Rivers flowing together in the sun-baked rocks.
- Druid Arch, Needles. A jaw-dropping, there-and-back stroll along the bottom of Elephant Canyon to an arch that looks like an inspiration for Stonehenge. Small springs and pools along the bottom of the canyon. A nonstop show of varied formations in a rainbow of colors.
- Lost Canyon Loop, Needles. A loop hike through a canyon that’s deeper and greener than the nearby Squaw Canyon, making this spot dear to cattle and cowboys in the first half of the 20th Century. Check out the side trip to the Cowboy Camp if you want more adventure.
- Murphy Trail Loop, Island in the Sky. This loop hike lets you enjoy Canyonlands's wild beauty and expansive vistas on an historic cattle trail and a segment of the White Rim Trail. The bends of the Green River come into view with glances of The Needles and other exotic formations all around.
- Peekaboo Trail, Needles. A through-hike over broken terrain, from the Squaw Flat Trailhead to the Peekaboo Camp on the Salt Wash Trail. Either a long there-and-back trek or a one-way with shuttle cars at the end. Exquisite Fremont pictographs at Peekaboo.
- Salt Creek, Needles, 4 days, 3 nights. A 4-day backcountry reek in the Salt Creek area. Arches and Ancient Puebloan ruins and petroglyphs, as well as the remains of old ranching operations abound. The star pictograph is All American Man. Since traffic was closed here, bears have come back, so keep it clean.
- Upheaval Dome, Island in the Sky. Start from the edge a massive and ancient impact crater about 3 times as old as the Colorado Plateau itself, and visible from space. Skirt this fascinating blemish on the Syncline Loop Trail, and optionally work your way to its center. One of the most popular hikes in Canyonlands.
Try this app out, and no matter what you do, find some time to get out on these great trails! Get it in March only for $3.99 on 
.
*The photo of Delicate Arch is by John Ross. The photos of Tukuhnikivatz and Canyonlands are by David Day.
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For Wilderness and Solitude, Get Thee Into the Zion Backcountry!
In 2009 almost 2.7 million people showed up to see Zion National Park.Imagine everyone in the city of Houston, Texas, along with the good people of Cleveland, Ohio coming out to get a little Chinle grit on their shoes. Things get busy in March, with the peak month in August; last year almost 375 thousand came to see the park in the Dog Days, say, all of Minneapolis — You Betcha! – with adequate supplies of “haht dish.”
Things taper down quickly in November, say all of Pasadena, but there’s a reason for that. It gets cold.
During the peak season, how’s a nature lover to find a little solitude with so many cargo shorts-wearing, Nikon-packing compatriots eyeing the same scenery? Simple: go where the hoi polloi aren’t (which doesn’t take much more than about half a mile of walking to do, but you’ll want to keep going after clearing the crowds.) The park has 229,000 square miles (59,711 hec), so there’s room out there. You just need to hit the trails.
Here are 6 great backcountry fixes that don’t even take technical skill (well OK, The Subway takes a little):
- East Rim
- West Rim
- Hop Valley and Kolob Arch
- Zion Narrows
- The North Fork (Subway)
- Taylor Creek Middle Fork
I’ll cover these hikes more on subsequent posts, but here’s a summary. These are some of the favorites of David Day, Utah’s most prolific hiking guide writer.
East Rim and Cable Mountain
| Distance: | 17.9 miles |
| Time: | 8.5 – 11 hours |
| Difficulty: | Difficult |
A 2-day through-trek from the east entrance, with a side trip to Cable Mountain. Starts at the East Entrance Trailhead (5,720 feet/1,744 m) and ends at the Weeping Rock Trailhead. Rolling Navajo Sandstone studded with pinyons and junipers and groves of Ponderosa pines. An awe-inspiring descent through Echo Canyon and then out to the switchbacks to the main canyon. If your wanderlust isn’t sated by the end, take a side trip to Observation Point, or Hidden Canyon, or both.
Great late spring through mid-fall. The high parts are covered with snow mid-November to May.
West Rim
| Distance: | 16.4 miles |
| Time: | 8 – 10 hours |
| Difficulty: | Difficult |
You might need a strap to keep your jaw shut on this meandering path that runs through a kaleidoscope of landscapes, from the scrublands on the Kolob Plateau into Zion Canyon slickrock. Start at Lava Point, cross Horse Pasture Plateau, and bring it home through Walter’s Wiggles and Refrigerator Canyon. Angels Landing is optional.
Hop Valley and Kolob Arch
| Distance: | 14.3 miles |
| Time: | 11 – 13 hours |
| Difficulty: | Difficult |
A long day or a great 2-day trek from Hop Valley Trailhead to Lees Pass at the Kolob entrance to the park. Hop Valley is a highlight, as is Kolob Arch, one of the largest in the world. In summer, it’s a hot trudge out. Stunning scenery without the crowds.
Zion Narrows
| Distance: | 17.3 miles |
| Time: | 10.5 – 13 hours |
| Difficulty: | Extreme |
A long, wet trudge along the Virgin River starting from the North Fork at Chamberlain Ranch and ending at the Temple of Sinawava. A spectacular main slot canyon and many tempting side canyons. Be ready to get your feet, knees, and more wet. Take walking sticks for support. If you’re really tough you can do it in a day, but it’s better as an overnighter at one of the primitive campsites near Kolob Creek. There are lots of side canyons to check out.
Permits required. Don’t go when it rains.
The North Fork (Subway)
| Distance: | 9 miles |
| Time: | 8-10 hours |
| Difficulty: | Extreme |
The technical route is an all-day varied trek through one of Utah’s favorite slot canyons. Start at the Wildcat Canyon trailhead and drop into the canyon. Several rappels, often into icy pools, are required. One spot requires a brisk swim. Take at least a 60-foot (18 m) rope, slings and harnesses. Only 50 people per day are allowed in the drainage, so one of the hardest parts of this hike is getting a hall pass. You need multiple cars, with a drop-off at the North Fork Trailhead.
There’s also a down-and-back, non-technical route with no car shuttling required. Take the Left Fork trailhead, hike down into the canyon, and then upstream to this popular geologic feature. A permit is still required.
Taylor Creek Middle Fork
| Distance: | 5.4 miles |
| Time: | 3 – 4 hours |
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
A great way to spend a fine morning or an afternoon in Zion. A moderate stream-hopper hike with the remains of 2 old cabins along the way, high pink sandstone walls and a huge Navajo Sandstone alcove at the end. No crowds. Worth a stop when traveling along I-15.
Conclusion
Break out those hiking boots and the backpack and get your wilderness fix. If you’d like to take detailed hiking information along with you, get “Utah’s Incredible Backcountry: Zion, Bryce and Capitol Reef” from App Store for $9.99 .
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Tips and Gear for Bear Safety in the Backcountry
For most of my life I’ve camped and hiked in Utah, and never gave bears much thought. None of us bothered with about keeping a clean camp. A few years ago, on a trip to the Olympic Peninsula, the rangers harangued us straight on the ursine issue, and we toed the line. We put our chow in bags, clipped them to pulleys and hoisted them up on systems rigged up at each campsite. In California, on the trails to Mount Whitney, same thing. We got all kinds of “scared straight” talk about bears. They’ll rip your car open. They’ll sniff bar soap and if it’s in your car, rip it open. Of course, after all the stern warnings, we never saw any.
Back in Utah, we let our guard down again. Sure, on long treks I didn’t break open the sardine tins, not wanting to be a walking infomercial for convenient snacking products, and I didn’t take anything into the tent, but I didn’t do much else. At least I didn’t rub myself down with bacon grease before turning in for the night, but my diligence didn’t go much beyond that.
For the last 2 years here in Utah, either my number is up, or there are more bars out thar than there used to be. A couple of summers ago, my brother Tom went with some scouts to the Uintas and they came across a young bear in Painter Basin. Tom said they tried to throw the bear a scout to pacify it, but it just turned up its nose at the offering, wanting something with more meat. A bear that doesn’t want to mess with people is exactly the sort you want. And you don’t want them to figure out, like their California cousins have, that campers are meals on two feet, or that minivans have better eats inside than Corollas.
In Utah there have been a few nasty incidents over the years, including the 2009 attack in Desolation Canyon, when Louis Downard, 78, was attacked by an aggressive bear while sleeping in a cot in a remote campsite. Downer fils plugged the bear with a .45, and the bear didn’t get more than half a football field away before dropping dead. (Mr. Downard is doing all right now, stitched up and apparently no worse for the gnawing.) As a young man Downard had spent spent 17 years of his life at the Rock Creek Ranch, but now in his golden years, he discovered that something had changed.
Late last summer, Tom was riding his mountain bike on a trail near the Alpine Loop, and almost ran his fat tires across the back of an ursine in repose. The bear was not happy about almost getting tread marks up its back, and voiced its vigorous disapproval. Tom, for his part, could only manage to scream like Sponge Bob, at least for a few minutes. His riding buddy soon arrived at the scene and made the screaming a duet. The bear stomped off, turning its head back towards the human interlopers to voice his disapproval a few more times.
A few months later, on a day hike back from Mount Waas (Utah High Point #4, the highest in Grand County, and one of the La Sal’s 12,000-footers), Tom looked up at a talus slope and picked out a black shape moving about there. We all stood there and looked at the critter above us, and guessed that maybe it had been flipping rocks, looking for bugs or rodents underneath. I had never seen a bear in the wild before. It was a thrill.
The bear didn’t act menacing, but just sat there and looked at us, and we just stood there and looked back at it. My brother Bill got out his bear spray, just in case it decided to come down and rumble. Tom unholstered his 357 Magnum lead-based bear repellent dispenser, a recent acquisition since the previous encounter, as a precaution. There was no fracas, just a little mutual ogling between the quadruped and the bipeds. It was a great way to end a fine October day. I’d hate to be sleeping up there with a bag full of food in my tent though, and even if the grub is outside, I don’t want the bear to get it.
I decided then that if I ever camp in the backcountry in the La Sals, I’m going to take something to keep Señor Oso away from camp. What about the old Boy Scout idea of tying your chow bag up in a tree? Too much bother, and I think most of these improvisations won’t work anyway. Bears can climb trees and yank on cords.
So, what piece of gear will I pick up for the next trip? There’s a great article in Wired about bear gear, and the testers devised an excellent test: fill the products full of tasty grub and throw them in the bear enclosure at the local zoo. All four products they tested survived both attacks from bears, and for good measure, an enclosure full of rowdy orangutans. None of these critters, even the ones with opposable thumbs, could break into the chow.
The thing I think I want to add to my gear collection is the BearVault BV500 Food Container, shown below. 700 cubic inches makes for enough room for the chow. Bears can’t get it open, and tire of trying. It’s tough, and they can’t smash the contents while they’re trying. I think a con is that it will take up lots of room in the backpack, but it still seems the best choice.
Honorary Mention, for backpackers at least, goes to the Ursack S29, a tough sack that critters can’t tear open. Sacks are nice because they’re easier to deal with inside the pack. The problem with it is that you have to stake it down or the bear will just take it away. If it is staked, the bear can still chomp on the bag and turn the contents into a blob of goo.
What about car camping? There’s something for that as well: the Yeti Tundra 45-quart cooler.
So, besides the usual bear safety rules, what’s the best extra thing to do? I’m going to add the BearVault to my gear checklist.
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