Got copies of my cousin Ken’s photos from the Zion Subway, since he was smart and had a waterproof camera 🙂 I had my not-at-all-waterproof camera tucked away in a dry bag for the middle part of the trip including the rappelling and swimming. Thanks Ken for sharing! (All photos in this post are credited to Ken Barnes)
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A few months ago I got a message from my cousin asking if I’d be interested in hiking the Zion Subway with them… it took me about 3 seconds to say “Yes!!!” I’m a Washington girl… I’m used to forests and huge trees and mountains and snow, etc. Going to Zion NP was like stepping onto another planet for me… one that I definitely want to see more of!
The Zion Subway is a hike I’d never attempt on my own, I didn’t know how to rappel, in many places there is no trail and you have to find your own way, etc. My cousin and his son were excellent guides and teachers, and I’m counting myself as one extremely lucky person to be able to go on this hike with them.
It’s 9.5 miles of some of the most incredible scenery on the planet (and I’ve been all over the world…). The hike starts out innocently enough, through some wooded area, over a gorgeous downslope of slickrock with great views… then you come to a point where you can see a small black crack in the huge wall ahead and realize THAT’S where you’re headed. There’s a lot of steep rock scrambling to get down toward the canyon opening.
Once in the canyon, it’s like stepping into a different world. My first time rappelling was a bit nerve-racking, but oh-so-much fun!!! From the first rappel on we spent quite a bit of time hiking through the river, scrambling over rocks and boulders, and a few spots of swimming through pools of cold water. A good dry bag and waterproof camera/case are a necessity on this hike. After several short rappels and going through a series of surreal “rooms” and sections, we came into the Subway itself. Gorgeous!!!
Upon leaving the Subway, we hiked several miles down river… in the river itself, with some incredible waterfalls (that make good water slides). Spent quite a bit of time just playing and hanging out in the water, soaking wet, and it felt great in the heat.
The climb up and out of the canyon to the ending trailhead is a big rock scramble up up up… with some jaw-dropping views down into the canyon that we had just come through.
All in all… by far the best hike I’ve ever been on in my life. DO NOT attempt to do this hike if you’ve never rappelled before, if you don’t have the proper gear, and if you have any problems with route finding. Go with someone who already knows the way and who knows the “ropes” literally. I can’t say a big enough THANK YOU to my cousins for this once in a lifetime opportunity 🙂  I’m one lucky girl….
(p.s. there are a ton of photos for this hike… there’s no way to condense it all into a dozen shots)
I’ve wanted to hike the Zion Narrows for a while, finally had my chance 🙂 DH and I ended up renting 5.10 Canyoneer boots for the hike, and glad we did, though we would have been fine in trail runners. The Zion shuttle dropped us off at the last stop down the valley, the Temple of Sinawava. There is a 1-mile paved path that ends at the point where you have to start hiking up the river itself.
Considering it had been over 110 degrees the day before, stepping into the water in a shaded canyon felt wonderful, and the temperature was perfect the entire day for us. Walking up the Narrows is like walking several miles over wet bowling balls, constantly crossing rocks and weaving from side to side of the canyon, sometimes walking on dry land depending on the water level, but mostly being in the water itself. It’s amazing being in this narrow canyon looking up at 800-foot walls to see a small crack of sunshine coming through from the top. Photos just can’t do it justice, it’s a must-see-in-person kind of thing.
We got as far as the Orderville Canyon fork and decided to go up that instead of continuing on the main Narrows canyon. Glad we did, it was smaller, much less crowded, and the perfect lunch spot on some big rocks near a log jam/waterfall.
One more hike I can now check off my bucket list….  one word of advice: GO!!!
We had a most incredible 2.5 days at Zion National Park… not enough time to see it all, but enough to make me very happy that I’ll be heading back for more exploring in October. When we flew into Vegas it was a balmy 113 degrees, which is quite a shock coming from somewhere were 75 is considered a nice hot day 🙂 We didn’t have much time that afternoon, so we took the short Weeping Rock trail to ease into the heat and take in some of the jaw-dropping views throughout the park. The Zion shuttle system is wonderful, so glad that it’s in place to keep the park unclogged from thousands of passenger vehicles and big RVs.
Weeping Rock is a little oasis up a short paved trail, and a perfect spot to get wet and refreshed in the heat, plus some pretty amazing views down into the Zion valley. The water constantly drips out of the rock face above, so plants have an easier time here with a continuous water supply.
Having been sick for almost 3 weeks, I was going to implode if I didn’t get out and hike, just something simple but beautiful to ease back into the swing of things. Greenwater Lakes is the perfect spot for that! Not too far up Hwy 410, several miles down a paved forest service road, is a little slice of heaven. The trail was fairly muddy, but to be expected after the rain we’ve had this past week. The river was flowing beautifully, and we did get rained on but, hey, that’s Western Washington State for you…
The bridges along this trail are beautiful. And we hit the blooming of the Calypso orchids at just the right time, they were showing off. Still hard to think that there are native terrestrial orchids that grow wild here in this climate – I look forward to seeing them every year.
After our wonderful night at Hoh River Valley and hiking back out 5.3 miles early that morning, we spent the night at the Kalaloch car campground. Quite a bit of difference in solitude with all the RVs and generators, but such a gorgeous place on the beach! We wandered Beach 3 at low tide, poked around in the rocks to see the tide pools, watched bald eagles flying, walked in the sand and enjoyed the sun and the incredible scenery.
Back to Kalaloch beach for the afternoon, where I walked some more on the beach. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t more crowded with the incredible warm, sunny weather. The trees along this section of the Washington Olympic coastline amaze me in how they can survive the brutal winter storms that come through here every year. These are some tough, tough creatures.
Spent that evening at our campsite watching a gorgeous sunset from the bluff, having a cold beer, and enjoying being mellow. Wonderful place, I’ve driven by before but never stayed. I’ll definitely be doing more time here in the future 🙂
Incredible weather for the beginning of May, so Janelle and I decided we’d better use it! We drove to the Hoh Rainforest visitor center, got our overnight permit, and hiked out to Five-Mile campground on the Hoh River. Less than 50 yards down the trail we were stopped by an elk right in the trail who was simply not interested in letting us pass, and actually got aggressive toward Janelle when she tried to sneak past him. Took about 10-15 minutes for him to wander off the trail far enough that we could get through. I thought Hoh elk were generally nice, my opinion has now changed…
I decided to bring along my new bear canister, gotta practice lugging it around for this summer at Yosemite and Ansel Adams Wilderness. There are bear wires at the campgrounds, which would have been much easier. End result: I hate the thing. Pain in the rear to fit into a backpack, pain in the rear to haul 3 extra pounds, pain in the rear to get food in and out of it… but it’s necessary, so we’re beginning to develop a love/hate relationship with each other. On the other hand, I’m madly in love with my new Nemo Obi 1P tent, love it, love it, love it, and am looking forward to spending a lot more time with it 🙂
Just after getting to camp, another person there told us we’d missed seeing a bear crossing the river by about 5 minutes. We wandered around looking for signs of it, but never saw it.
After setting up camp at Five-Mile, we wandered a bit further up the trail to Happy 4 campground for an evening stroll and to see the shelter there. I think I’ll stick with Five Mile. I slept well, after putting on every single layer of clothing I had and crawling into my down sleeping bag with hand warmers and a wool hat. I passed the test of sleeping outside in what otherwise would be too cold for me. I’m a chicken in the cold, ‘nuf said.
Next morning we broke camp early and headed back to the car, heading for Klaloch and the Olympic coastline…
Last week Frani and I headed back up Rainier to Paradise – can’t get enough of the beauty up there! We headed up the Skyline trail, up and over Panorama Point, and up a bit further from there before starting our glissades down toward Mazama. It was another tank-top day on the mountain, and 5 days later I’m peeling from sunburn like a snake loses it’s skin. Note to self—- next time, RE-apply sunscreen several times, and use at least SPF 1,000!!!
We had a hard time finding the trail down from Mazama Ridge to the road, so ended up doing a few crazy short glissades down a nice and steep embankment before finally getting down. All in all, another wonderful day in Paradise 🙂
I’ll let the photos speak to the beauty of Mt. Rainier in wintertime.
Time to get “The Beast” backpack (Gregory Deva) out and start training for summer hiking. Fortunately, I get to condition on Mt. Peak in Enumclaw twice week while the kiddo is in class, which makes for a great conditioning hike. It’s 1000 feet to the top, and you can either take the steep trail up (1 mile/1000 feet), or the not-so-steep side up (1.5+ miles/1000 feet). Or, better yet, park one one side, go up to the top and down the other side, then turn around and back to the top and back down to the car. That gets you about 4.5+ miles with 2000 feet of elevation gain and 2000 feet of loss. The only problem is that you get some pretty strange looks when hauling a fully loaded backpack, while most people do this carrying a single water bottle, if that. Oh, well…
As John Muir, a brilliant man, said… “The mountains are calling, and I must go… “
Fran and had a most glorious, wonderful, fantastic, warm, sun-burning day on Easter snow-shoeing up and over Panorama Point from Paradise at Mt. Rainier. I’ll admit, I had tried snow-shoeing up to the top of Panorama Point a few weeks ago and chickened out, turning around and sliding/clawing my way back down, vowing that I WOULD get up there some day. I finally I got to the top and it was amazing.
We got to the parking lot at Paradise just before 8 a.m. and started the nice hike up Skyline Trail, then followed a bunch of others up the Panorama hill. We were very very blessed to have nice long, sharp fangs on our snow-shoes, because it was basically a 45-degree ice slope and others without snow shoes or micro-spikes were having a hard time. Hard to describe the view from the top, other than to say it’s incredible !!
Coming down the other side of Panorama, we got into a kind of sketchy traverse and ended up doing our first fun glissade to get out of it, then of course, since we were already wet and snow-covered, we just had to glissade down every nice hill we could find between Panorama and Mazama Ridge 🙂 Too much fun, think of it as an analogy between surfing vs. body-surfing and sledding vs. free-butt-sliding.
We stopped and had a picnic with incredible views of the Tatoosh Range, Goat Rocks, Mts. Adams, Hood, and St. Helens, then wound our way down Mazama Ridge and back to the Lodge. All in a a most glorious way to spend Easter, and one more check off of the ole’ Bucket List.
