Zion National Park is special, there’s nothing else quite like it. While I’ve been many times before, it never ceases to impress me.
We began our early freezing morning with a drive through the Mt Carmel-Zion Tunnel to Canyon Overlook Trail. It’s a fun trail with expansive views at the end, but the freezing wind was fierce and we didn’t linger. We did see a few bighorn sheep on the way back, which was a bonus.
We decided to hike up the West Rim Trail to Scout Lookout, where the Angel’s Landing cables begin. I’ve been part way up Angel’s Landing before, and decided that I have no desire to do that again. Unfortunately, the 3 miles of trail from car park to Scout Lookout are steep and paved, not a good combination for my knees. Going uphill is a great workout, slow and steady up up up …. Walter’s Wiggles always amazes me, what a feat of imagination and engineering to build this part of the trail! Well worth a minute to do an Internet search to see what it looks like from above.
After availing ourselves of the facilities at Scout Lookout, we decided to continue up the West Rim Trail from there, thankfully not paved from this point on. Pausing to turn around look behind from this point offers a great view of Angel’s Landing. After about 1/2 mile we noticed a little side trail that took us out onto an incredible rock ledge with far-off views into deep canyons. It took us a few minutes to realize that we were actually looking across and down at the Temple of Sinawava and the beginning of the Zion Narrows.
From there we chose to head back down, knowing it would be slow with my knees. It’s fine for most people, but my knees are already screwed up – 3 miles of steep downhill hard pavement on day 2 of our trip set me up for daily severe knee and foot pain for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness the views going back down are incredible, because my knees and feet were screaming at me and otherwise I would have sat down in the middle of the trail and refused to go any further. Again, that’s just my personal cross to bear, this hike is very well worth the effort!
