Hiking the Zion Traverse (or most of it...)

Around mid-September, Papa and I hiked most of the Zion Traverse. The last section called the East Rim trail was inaccessible due to a rock slide. Despite the abbreviated trail, it still proved a substantial hike with us covering 37 miles across 3 days. It was the first long hike we had done together, and it went really well!

Mama dropped us off at the trailhead and picked is up at the other end three days later.

We saw a snake-friend near our campsite on the first day.

It was only 6 miles to the first campsite, so we get in early and took a dip in the river. 

The stream near our campsite was our water source for the first day. 

After cooling off in the river, we ventured up to Kolob Arch.

We were both eager to try our freeze-dried dinners, and they were actually pretty good, especially considering all we needed to do was add hot water. I was told by a friend that this brand was actually the worst tasting, so perhaps we can look forward to the tastier brands on our next trip.

We got an early start the second day, and... lost the trail. 

A view of the trail down the canyon.

Half of the second day was spent hiking through the Hop Valley, which had steep canyon walls on either side and cows.

A view up the valley. 

Hop valley again from higher up.

We climbed onto the plateau above hop valley to find – a wheat field!

Trekking through the sand.

After walking through many open views of exposed rock, the last section of the second day was through a meadow.

A canyon right next to our second campsite. The picture doesn't do justice to the peace of this moment.

Our second water source was a bit more limited. Wildcat spring was a trickle of water out of the rocks, but it worked all the same!

We started getting really pretty views on the third day as we hiked towards the main canyon of Zion NP.

It's amazing that erosion did all of this.

This would have been our third (and prettiest) campsite, but we had been getting so bored in the afternoons that we decided to finish the last 5 miles on the third day.

Going down!

The canyons are so deep. You can see the walking path up to Angel's landing at the end of the video.

The shuttle road at the bottom of the canyon.

The main Zion canyon. We were nearly there.

And by the end of it, we were pretty excited to sleep in a bed, though we would have happily trekked along another few days.

We grabbed a beer at a nearby bar while waiting for mama, and rejoiced in a trip well-done. It all went off without a hitch and was a lot of fun!