Day Hiking from Zion Lodge Is Neatokeen!

In this post: Zion National Park, Zion Lodge, hiking, Keen sandals, REI
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Day 1: I don't know how we keep doing it, but once again we've lucked out.  First we got a big discount on our room here at the Zion Lodge, without even asking for it.  Then, we arrived here just in time for a heat wave so it's going to be in the high seventies for the next few days (instead of the low sixties and fifties).  And to top it off, we just happened to plan our trip to coincide with the full moon!

Zion Lodge

We hiked about 6 miles today without ever getting more than a mile from the lodge and our cozy room.  Now that we're warmed up, we plan to get an early start and hike to Angels Landing tomorrow.

Angels Landing

Angel's Landing is a small peak that rises 1,500 feet above the canyon floor.  The hike is supposed to be a big deal here abouts: very steep, narrow trail with a terrific view at the top.  If we make it, we'll post more pics tomorrow.

Day 2: The park service did an amazing job on the spectacular trail to Angels Landing.  We started out from Zion Lodge, crossed the East Fork of the Virgin River on a small bridge and soon found ourselves on a trail that reminded us of the Great Wall of China.  

Eventually the great wall trail led to a narrow ridge that dropped nearly 1,500 feet on either side (you can just make out some tiny cars in the parking lot on the right side of the picture).

An attractive couple on the summit of Angels Landing

Even though most of the exposed areas had chains to hang onto, only a few folks crossed the ridge and scaled the summit.  Since neither of us fell to our death today, we're going to try a longer, more difficult hike tomorrow that climbs to a higher point on the east rim and looks down on today's summit by a thousand feet.

OutDoorGal observing from Observation Point
(Angels Landing in the foreground)

Day 3: We hiked another amazing trail today.  I'm getting the idea there wouldn't be any hiking here in Zion National Park at all, if it wasn't for the incredible amount of work the park service has done to carve beautiful trails into the shear canyon walls.  It's really stunning.  About a quarter of today's 8-mile hike to Observation Point wended through narrow canyons, but the other six miles were perched on south and east facing cliffs on the east side of Zion Canyon.  The narrow canyons gave us our first taste of something they call "Canyoneering" here abouts.

Another view of Angels Landing, taken near the day 3 trailhead.

Our Keen sandals were neatokeen for day hiking in Zion.

Gear Report: We did all of our hiking in Zion (about 20 miles)  in our Keen, Newport H2 sandals.  I wore some thick hiking socks with mine (for warmth).  OutDoorGal went commando in hers.  Neither one of us have any problems to report.  We bought ours at REI and just love the things.