Labor Day Plan B: West Rim Trail

So we'd been planning a Labor Day backpacking trip through Buckskin Gulch forever. I told Michelle it was the only thing I wanted for my birthday. We got permits in June, roped our friends Mike and Stephanie into going with us, and burned through basically all the social capital I've built up over the years to get my mom to watch the kids overnight (since she also agreed to watch them during our October trip to Boston; but they're angel children so what's the big deal?)

It was a rainy summer, and I watched the weather around Kanab religiously all that week. I had five or six weather stations plugged into my Weather Channel app and there were periods when I was checking it every 15 minutes or so. Once you're in Buckskin, there's basically no place to get to higher ground for 8 or 10 miles, so you don't want anything like a flash flood. The chance of rain stayed at about 20-30%, so I was feeling OK about it. Dad picked up our permits and and I called the Kanab office, which said they'd heard it was wet in there but that we'd want to check in at the contact station at the Paria trailhead the day of the hike. No phone at the contact station.

So we drove down Thursday night and kissed the kids goodbye a little before 6 on Friday morning. We met Mike and Steph in Kanab and drove over to the contact station. Where they basically told us we'd be nuts to try Buckskin. I know how backcountry desks work - their job is to always convince people they aren't up to a hike, and these guys were talking about ridiculous things like bacteria in the water that would give us a rash. But they also said no one had been through in over a month, that there were several swims, and it dawned on us that we'd be miserable if we tried it.

I was despondent. We called the Cannonville office to see if any of the slots up that way were passable, but they were all full of water too. So we decided to drive over Zion and try for a camping permit for West Rim. I was also fuming, because they hadn't given us the information about Buckskin in all the interactions I'd had with them over the weeks. I figured the chances of getting a permit for West Rim on Labor Day weekend were zilch, and I imagined doing a lame day hike somewhere. Not a happy hour and a half ride to Zion.

We walked up to the backcountry desk and I said, "You're going to think I'm an idiot to ask this, but do you have any camping permits for West Rim Trail?" and lo and behold, they did! It was a birthday miracle! I could have hugged that ranger.

So not many hours later we were on the trail from Lava Point. And it was an amazing 15 miles.

Starting out. Mike must have had 100 lbs of stuff. Me and Michelle borrowed packs from two guys at work. They were great.

Starts out up in the pine trees, not very dramatic scenery but still nice.

Several miles in, you get your first view of the North Guardian Angel and the Left Fork of North Creek (the Subway). You spend all the first day on this west side, looking down on the Great West Canyon.

We some lizards and other wildlife, but this buck in Potato Hollow was the highlight. We also had a deer hanging around our campsite.

Right in here it rained on us a bit, but that was the only non-perfect weather we hit. It was a little cold at night though.

Looking down into the head of Imlay Canyon, one of the two biggest technical slots in Zion.

Views like this were almost constant after the first couple hours.

A rare uphill. It was a killer.

Our campsite was up on a ridge, with views on either side. This is looking west, down into the Right Fork of North Creek. The light was beautiful.

Michelle and I brought pool floaties for sleeping pads. They worked great.

Without a doubt, one of the best birthdays of my life, with my girl.

We ate dehydrated dinners, and they were actually quite tasty. It was awfully windy that night, and our Walmart special of a tent has a missing rain fly tie-down, so we almost lost it. I ended up taking it off, but then had to put it back on when it was threatening rain. Not a bad night's sleep though, overall.

Sunrise. 

After an hour or two of hiking the next morning, we finally came in view of Zion Canyon proper.

We'd already descended quite a ways by this point, I'd say at least a thousand feet, but we're still above the top of West Temple.

Day 2 was down, down, down.

We filtered some water from a spring. This deer is getting some water too. There's a thousand-foot drop two steps ahead of it.

Told you. You can see the trail winding around way down there.

Looking back up where we'd gotten water and had lunch. The black streak on the left is where the spring comes out.

And then, after that massive elevation loss, we round the corner and there's the top of Angels Landing, still below us. All told, it's about 3400 feet of elevation loss.

Up to this point, we'd seen four or five people since the trailhead, but now that we're in the vicinity of Angels Landing we remember that it's Labor Day weekend. But at least there's someone to take a group photo of us.

We did not go up Angels Landing.

After a shuttle ride, ice cream in Springdale, and a long ride back up to Lava Point, we took the after photo.

In the end, a grand adventure and memorable trip. We love spending time with Mike and Stephanie - the conversation is good, we laugh a lot and share young parent woes. And Steph is a writer for the Ogden Standard-Examiner, so we even got our story in the newspaper!