The question at hand was whether Ranger Joe (our made up name for him) would have been as incredulous if I had picked up the permit instead of Mama Bear.
It was brisk and the canyon was in the shade when Kathleen’s mom dropped us in Kolob Canyon about a half mile below the trailhead. The recent landslide had the road closed so we had to hoof it up some pavement to get to the actual starting point of our trip. After a couple of last attempts to shit, the group was in good spirits and moving up the road. It didn’t take us long to hit the trailhead and our spirits lifted even more as we stepped off the tarmac and onto the well-groomed trail that would lead us from this side of Zion National Park to the other.
There was no one else around. The only sounds were the canyon as it breathed life into the summer day. The birds began to sing chirping to life the symphony that exists above our heads. After a couple of miles, we began crossing the small creek as it burbled along under foot or just to one side or the other of us. We followed this brook until it flowed into La Verkin Creek as it dropped out of the canyon. At this point, the quiet was gone replaced with the low rumble of the creek as it flowed above its normal summer levels.
As we turned to follow the creek, we angled into the morning sun. The Cottonwoods glowed in the light. The greens and yellows were popping bordered by the red sandstone that soared around us. The trail paralleled the creek. We stopped at the spring and topped off our water before continuing to move up the canyon. Then we saw our first people. A pair of women on the opposite side of the stream who were removing their pants. The trail continued so we didn’t think too much of them being on the other side and we weren’t in the mood to interrupt someone taking their pants off.
We continued for another 1/4 of a mile or so and then the trail jutted into the creek. We crossed. Couldn’t find anything of significance on the other side. We backtracked and crossed again before beginning to examine the map with a much more exacting eye. Soon we realized the trail had in fact spun off at the pant removal spot but we were committed to where we were at. We bushwacked up through 50 yards of tangled mess to rejoin with the trail above us and then pushed on moving up the climb to Lee’s Pass.
For someone who grew up both in this area and backpacking, the fact that the Zion Traverse wasn’t even on my radar wasn’t surprising until I did the Zion Traverse.
It’s a testament to how oblivious I can be, but I hadn’t even heard it called the Zion Traverse. It was the West Rim, that’s even what Mama Bear referred it as until a few days before we went. This was one of those trips that I agreed to because Kathleen was pretty passionate about it. She planned the whole thing, getting the permit, planning out our campsites, how long it would take and even went to get the permit the day before as I was working.
This is when she met Ranger Joe. Now we have to give him a bit of a break. As a National Park Service Ranger, I’m sure he deals almost constantly with people who are overreaching, unaware and quite probably unable to do what they have planned. If we give him this leeway, the mansplaining might have seemed a bit less ridiculous, but mansplaining is mansplaining and he did plenty of it. He balked at her campsite plan, only one at Wildcat Canyon, questioning if she had any idea how far that was from the initial trailhead and then how long it would take to drop back into the Grotto. She did know and had a pretty detailed plan on how it was going to happen. After a bit of back and forth, he had no choice but to hand over the permit and also handing us something to talk about on the entire trip.
The only excuse I have for the Traverse being off my radar is solely due to its location.
This might sound strange, but I grew up with Zion as a background to my childhood. My pops grew up in Glendale just on the other side of the canyon. I can remember racing through its depths at all hours of the day after being waved through by the rangers simply because we had family that lived on the other side. I can remember when this stopped being a thing and we then raced through the “Sand” to cut around the park. I spent a lot of time there during high school hiking Angel’s and every other trail on the map until slowly, the hoards discovered this small piece of canyon and the crowds became too much to bear. Then I would go in the winter until that was also not much of an option. Now, I rarely even think of Zion as a place to recreate or consider visiting.
Add that to the fact that the Zion Backcountry has always felt tragically small to me. Having bounced around the boundaries of its limits for most of my life, the part that I couldn’t see didn’t seem that important. A small gap in the map that couldn’t be much different than what I could already see. Of course, you can’t ever know until you walk a place.
We disturbed them by showing up.
And I don’t mean to make that sound like we annoyed them or they were in any way rude as we approached. It was just clearly obvious that they were having a great time and we simply walked into it. They engaged us in conversation asking where we were from and where we had come from. They were from South Carolina and were thoroughly enthralled in their surroundings. Their energy was infectious.
We were at Hop Valley where the trail kisses the road. My sister and brother-in-law had dropped our dromedary for a water refill. We used the water to cook lunch and refill. It was early afternoon and the high sun was intense. We could see that there were not a lot of trees where we were headed, but mostly open meadow. It was going to be a hotter part of the hike and we were already 15 miles into the day. I was feeling the miles in my legs, but another 6 or 7 wasn’t out of reason.
The trail parallels the road for a bit and as we suspected the heat was amplified by the open terrain. We began to climb up toward Lava Point. This put us back into the trees providing some respite from the midday sun. Catching back up to the ladies, we greeted them as we passed and their enthusiasm hadn’t waned.
As these things went, either Pete or I had to pee about every three minutes. After passing them, one of our Tinkle Times arrived and we stopped for a quick break. Just as we were getting ready to go, we heard a yell and saw one of them coming up quick behind us. She explained that one of them had blown through their water surprised by how much she had drank and that she was now out. Did we have some to spare? Yes, we did.
Mostly out of habit from being full on desert rats, we were all still pretty much full. We had used the 10 liters from the dromedary to cook and then topped off all of our reservoirs. Pete had 4 liters he was carrying, because, you know, we were in the desert. He gladly unloaded a couple of liters and they were very appreciative of it.
Our feet were tired when we finally hit Wildcat and found a flat spot where we could flop down our bed rolls.
All three of us were rolling incredibly light. Pete had a tent, but one that weighed nothing. Mama Bear and I were carrying our normal kit consisting of a tarp we could use if a little rain came down but mostly a place to put said bed rolls so they don’t get dirty. Seeing that we were pushing through this whole thing in two days, we had scant food, very little extra clothing (Pete had no extra clothes) and our luxury items were left at home. We were asked a couple of times by other backpackers if we were on a day hike. They were confused by our distance from trailheads and what appeared to be a lack of gear.
Regardless of our small packs, we had done over 20 miles. Our feet were tired, we were sweaty and gross and we had one last task for the day.
The camp at Wildcat is dry.
And by dry, I mean there is no water right at hand. We knew this going in and knew that about 3/4 of a mile down trail there was a stream. After dropping all our shit, we loaded up what we would need to filter and cart water back to camp for the night. Mama Bear grabbed the filter and I grabbed the dromedary. We made our way down to the spring and then chored our way through filtering 10 liters of water. Then we reversed our journey heading back uphill toward our resting spot.
At this point, we had begun to worry about the ladies. We knew they were planning to camp at Wildcat as well and we had only passed them a few miles ago but it had now been a couple of hours.
A few minutes after making a plan to go find them if they weren’t at the camping area, they appeared. We greeted them and there was a discussion of the campsite and where the spring was and we headed on. They unfortunately had passed the campsite and were doing the end of day chore of getting water fully loaded. All of the other campsites on the Traverse are marked with Carsonite signs. The brown fiberglass looking ones that you see everywhere. Wildcat is basically dispersed camping. There’s a ridge and a bunch of flat spots that people have used for years to lay out tents, but no sign. They had walked past assuming there would be a sign like there had been everywhere else.
We made it back to camp and that was pretty much the end of our day. At was at this point that we learned that Pete had not seen the ladies removing their pants and had thought the whole thing was a joke we were rolling with all day. Maybe they weren’t there and Mama Bear and I had a collective hallucination. Conversations rolled for a bit, but once we laid down it was pretty much over. I don’t even remember stars.
The Traverse takes you from one canyon to the next. The two pieces of Zion National Park, these two canyons, while similar have some stark differences. The sandstone is distinct to each side and both canyons have a unique vibe. Going over the top, you get to see the blending of these two sides of the park. It opens up the middle section. The section of transition that is unseen in a car. In an automobile, you have two pieces and a blank slate in the mental map in the middle. This gives the canyons a disjointed and dissimilar feel. Walking from one side to the other, you are afforded entry into that blank space seeing the canyons not as separate, but two pieces of a continuous network of canyons that slowly change and meld the two distinct characteristics into one.
We were up early as is our custom and on the trail shortly after.
Day One was up meaning that most of Day Two was down. We had a short climb to get back out of Wildcat Canyon then the trail skirted the tops of countless fingers making the transition described above.
You can always feel the transition from the inside to the outside. People with small packs on smelling of perfumes hiding their human scents start to appear. A trail runner comes through still looking somewhat fresh. A couple holding hands and walking quickly giggling and whispering to each other. The masses started to appear.
There’s one last spring, a trickle of water before one drops off the West Rim toward Angel’s Landing. There’s a big Ponderosa Tree right at the edge that has been situated to have several logs around it. We sat down and enjoyed the rest, shade and some lunch. As we sat, a ranger walked up. We were all a bit haggard and Pete spat out what we were all thinking, “Do you want to see our permit?” The ranger replied in the affirmative and Mama Bear went about extracting it from its safe place in her pack. She hands him the permit and he asks us about our trip. When we tell him we came from Wildcat the night before and had started in Kolob the morning prior, he kind of gave us a double take, eyed our packs, nodded and gave us kudos for our endeavor. He then asked about the springs we had used and the water flow at each, information we freely gave grateful that others had done the same so we had beta going into this thing.
And then we dropped.
If you missed it, as I mentioned above, this Ponderosa sits above Angel’s Landing, like a thousand feet above the way too popular spot. The descent into the canyon was long and intense. Switchbacks were blasted into the side of the cliff to assist in certain locations. The exposure was there, but as national parks go, it was pretty tame. The blasted area was 6-8 feet wide and fairly flat giving us plenty of space and walking area to be away from the edge. The most dramatic piece was as the apex of the switchbacks where you could see how tightly the trail had to be built do make the downhill run into the canyon.
We can see them from a ways away. They are about a half mile above Angel’s Landing on a flat spot of sandstone that uses the Landing as its backdrop. There were three of them. One had a phone in her hand and the other two were acting strangely or at least that’s what I thought until I got close enough to see what they were doing. One was acting as photographer and the other two were getting their ‘Gram on. Jumping in the air, making hand gestures, workin’ it, if you will. I smile and walk past. We had clearly left the backcountry.
Down. Down. Down. Past the Landing, Past Walter’s Wiggles, Past Refrigerator Canyon. Past thousands of people. Down. Down. Down.
And then we hit the road. There’s a shuttle about to pull out. All three of us run to make it as if there wouldn’t be another shuttle. Truth be told, we were done and didn’t want to wait.
Light and fast. I’ve made the argument before, but there isn’t quite anything like it. Backpacking is great regardless of your speed, but the things I love it about are its simplicity and the ability to see terrain you can’t see otherwise. If you take those two things to their logical conclusion, it’s fast and light. Light is just stripping everything you don’t need out of the pack and keeping it strictly minimal. Fast is using that light pack to move quickly and all day. Most people’s hiking speed is pretty close, somewhere between 2.5-4 mph depending on terrain and the person. Light and Fast doesn’t change that, it just changes how long you are planning to walk.
The truly magical piece is the immersive experience that it gives you. By the time you drop your pack and yard sale for dinner, the morning feels like a distant memory. After the end of your second day, you remember the previous as a beautiful dream that you know happened but sits in a strange place in your memory because you’ve past through so many places that your brain is struggling to absorb it all.
Of course, all of that comes at the cost of being mansplained that your plan probably won’t work. Thanks Ranger Joe, but we did it.
Embrace Chaos. Seek Discomfort.
