West Rim Hike Part II

As you all know from our previous post requesting friends and family to go with us, we hiked the West Rim Trail in Zion National park last Saturday.

We’re not totally hated by all of our friends and family because my brother and sister-in-law came with us and it was a great time.

As it turns out, my memory didn’t serve me well, as Sydney can attest, because it wasn’t all downhill, it was mostly though. There were many spectacular views of white sand stone cliffs, huge monoliths, deep slot canyons...

and tourists hiking in colored bras (Sorry boys, no pictures).

One of the highlights of the trip is the long switch backs that are carved right into the side of this huge sandstone cliff where it is just you and the edge. From this point you can hear an echo of a whole phrase like, “Shellie is scared!”

Another part that is also cool is being able to see Angels Landing from up above instead of from down below, and believe it or not it looks scarier from up above. After the 13.5 miles we were a little sore but what really hurts your pride is that we were passed by this, “old broad” as I called her, who must have started at the bottom and passed us heading up the trail when we weren’t even half way, then passed us again when she was coming back down and we still had 2-3 miles to go. All she had with her was 2 liters of water strapped to her fanny pack.

And so you know it couldn’t have been that bad, because Sydney said and I quote,

“I’m even thinking I want to do it again sometime!”