As I reached down to pull another burr off my pants — so that’s what had been painfully pricking my calf for the last half-mile — I recalled a quote that I mentally attribute to Edward Abbey: Everything in the desert wants to kill you. Navigating the multiple-use Sand Bench Trail meant trying to avoid the deep sand churned by horses’ hooves. Those sidesteps took me onto the higher, firmer edges of the trail, where spiny yucca, sticker burrs, and other desert delights waited to find a tender spot on my lower leg to grab.
It didn’t matter, though, because the views up and down Zion Canyon were beyond worth it. Slogging up through the sand brought higher and better viewpoints. Every 90 seconds, I turned around to take another picture.
Down the Grand Staircase
I had joined my parents, my nephew Daniel, and his partner, Michelle, for a few days of exploring. The day before, we’d left Bryce Canyon National Park, where snow dusted the hoodoos. By the time we checked into our cabins at Zion Lodge, the temperature neared 70 degrees. Now the weather was a few degrees cooler, perfect for an afternoon hike. Rockfall had closed several trails, but the 7.6-mile Sand Bench loop was open.
Zion National Park is the middle of what’s known as the Grand Staircase, a series of stepped rock layers that gives southern Utah and northern Arizona their distinctive geologic profile. The foot of the staircase, and the oldest rock, is at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The top, and the newest rock, is at Bryce Canyon. Zion, with its desert-varnished sheer walls, lies in the middle. And the Sand Bench hike, a lollipop that loops around an old landslide under a cliff known as The Sentinel, provided an uninterrupted vista of those walls.
On Sand Bench
I chased the setting sun as it sank behind the western rocks, named by a Methodist missionary for the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Some Mormon who likely couldn’t abide the thought of being beaten to the naming punch added Moroni Peak to the group. It’s the red one on the right, in front of Jacob. Although I get that these places were named by early Euro-American explorers and settlers, and that it was the men who had the agency to do the naming, I am pretty tired of seeing geographic landmarks named after yet more white guys. At least the rock strata that compose these features have names (albeit Anglicized) that suggest indigenous presence: Navajo, Moenave, Chinle, Moenkopi.
The trail traverses an old landslide, and fields of boulders litter the slopes. Juniper and other desert shrubs have filled in the gaps. A jackrabbit skittered across the trail near the top of the loop. I had it all to myself, and reveled in the colors and the quiet and the nonstop views.
On the way back to the lodge, I followed a buck for several hundred yards, until he pulled up to browse the tender greens on the edge of the trail. An amorphous black lump in the middle of the path revealed itself to be a large wild turkey, and as I slowly inched forward I spotted five more. I was going to be later than I expected, and texted my mom: “I’m being held hostage by a buck and six wild turkeys! I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Eventually the animals moved far enough off trail that I could safely pass. A half-hour later I was sitting on the porch cabin, banging copious quantities of fine-grained sand out of my shoes.
Angel’s Landing
It’s endlessly Instagrammed, but Angel’s Landing is more than the famous last half-mile of knife-edge trail. At 5.4 miles round-trip with a 1,500-foot elevation gain, the trail is short, steep, and very, very popular. I decided to catch the first shuttle of the day in order to beat the crowds, so at 6:45am I stood in the dark outside Zion Lodge and listened for the motor of the bus coming up the canyon road. I should have guessed: the bus was full of hikers, about half of whom exited with me at the Angel’s Landing trailhead.
The group quickly spread out on the trail, and I started up. The first part follows the river, then turns uphill and starts climbing. As I tried to match my breath to my pace, I chatted briefly with a man who told me he hikes the trail twice a week. “Wow, you’re lucky to be able to do that, ” I said. “The sister-wives don’t mind,” he replied offhandedly. Before I could wrap my brain around that, he declared that Zion’s rangers “ignored” Angel’s Landing. “They never come up here,” he sneered, adding that he’d worked for the federal government and considered the entire operation to be a corrupt waste of time. How to respond, I wondered. I didn’t want to get into a political discussion, at least on the uphill portion, so I simply slowed down and wished him a good hike. He pounded away.
Hikers new to Angel’s Landing might be surprised to learn that most of the trail is paved. It was created in 1926, a precipitous route that ascends the canyon wall to Refrigerator Canyon, a narrow gap that leads to the bottom of Walter’s Wiggles, a series of 21 short, steep switchbacks named for the park’s first superintendent, Walter Ruesch. In recognition of its remarkable engineering and sweeping views from the top, the trail was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. From the top of the Wiggles it’s a short walk to Scout Lookout and the dramatic finale, the chain-bedecked ridge that leads to the landing proper.
West Rim Trail alternative
When I arrived at Scout Lookout, about 25 people were lined up, waiting to get on the chains. Ugh. This was exactly what I’d hoped to avoid. I loathe hikes where I’m in a line of people trudging to the top. It feels like being on a department store escalator during holiday season, the polar opposite of why I’m outside in the first place. Looking around, I noticed two people coming down another branch of the trail. Retracing my steps, a sign marked the West Rim Trail. The name suggested a good chance of views at the top. And no one was on it. Easy decision. I headed up, and shortly found myself just below the canyon rim, in time to watch the sun crest the far wall.
On the way down, I passed throngs of people coming up, including three park rangers. Apparently the anti-government hiker I’d met earlier was, ahem, mistaken. I later learned the rangers act as traffic cops at the beginning of the chains, monitoring the number of people allowed onto the landing. Another reason I was glad I chose another route. By 10:00 a.m., I was sitting with my parents in the lodge dining room. Nice way to start the day.
An offer I could easily refuse
After lunch, my folks and I headed out on the shuttle. Mom wanted to stop at the Zion Human History Museum for a stamp in her national parks passport, and Dad wanted to take a short hike. On the bus, Mom and I sat together and chatted with a man whom I belatedly recognized as the guy from the Angel’s Landing trail that morning. He introduced himself as John. “Where were you?” he asked me. “I waited at the top for an hour.” I explained my decision to avoid the crowds and head up the West Rim instead, and the three of us made small talk. Then Mom got off the shuttle (the museum is one stop from the main visitor center, where Dad and I planned to hike) and John turned to me. “You’re a lot of fun. You should ditch your husband and be one of my sister-wives,” he said seriously.
Give me a break. I didn’t know whether to laugh outright or respond with equal seriousness, so I opted for the middle ground. “No thanks,” I said lightly. “I’m very, very happily married.” He snorted disbelievingly. “You’d love it. All the sister-wives do.” I thought, yeah, right. At that moment the bus pulled up to the stop and I thankfully escaped.
Archaeology and quiet
Dad and I went off to hike the short and lovely Archaeology Trail, which goes to a prehistoric food preparation site atop a small knob. This little trail is just beyond the visitor center, but it may as well be on another planet. While the line for the shuttle stretched past the 45-minute-wait sign, we had the trail entirely to ourselves except for a couple dozen fence lizards, including one with a forked tail. The shuttle parking lot is just below the knob, and the South Campground is visible nearby. But all that felt surprisingly far away, and the views up the canyon were stupendous.
Wrapping up Zion
Later that afternoon, we all met at The Narrows, another of Zion’s seminal experiences. Despite the relatively late hour, we joined a few hundred people making their way to the entrance to the water trail, many wearing waterproof shoes and pants. Properly prepared, hikers can wade nearly five miles up the river. We had other plans, however.
That evening, we took a guided tram tour of the canyon, an experience I highly recommend. The driver offered insights into life at Zion that only a local can provide. Near Weeping Rock, where the Virgin River goes around what’s known as the Big Bend, a large closed arch dominates the view above the road. Our driver told us to look closely. At one end of the arch is a granary, evidence of the Puebloan peoples who lived here centuries ago.
As I’ve written about before, I am fascinated by these ancient cultures. I’ve read books by Craig Childs and David Roberts, and like so many others am drawn as if by magnets to sites like this. But without the driver pointing it out, I would have missed it entirely. She added that the top layers of the granary had collapsed and were rebuilt by Boy Scouts in the 1930s, so it’s not perfectly authentic. But I didn’t mind. I’d never seen anything like it, and I couldn’t stop staring through my binoculars. Zion has many prehistoric sites and rock art, but most aren’t easily accessible or broadly advertised due to vandalism and looting.
One last walk
Just across the road from the lodge is the trail to Emerald Pools. I vaguely remembered this from my childhood visit — I’ve got a grainy picture in my photo album — and was eager to see it again. A rockslide had closed the trail above Lower Emerald Pools, but I jumped through the water seeping out from the rock overhead and went as far as I could up the trail. On the way back, I leaned on the bridge railing and gazed at up the valley. With the Virgin River dawdling languidly below, it was hard to imagine the geologic time it took for water to carve Zion’s multicolored walls.
The sun was almost gone from the canyon by the time I returned. Tomorrow, we’d make a quick stop at Weeping Rock before heading back to Las Vegas, where my family would fly home and I’d pick up a rental car to start the next leg of my trip on my own.
West Rim is an underappreciated trail; it’s also a pretty glorious way to enter the canyon on a backpack trip, too. Hidden Canyon, across the river from Angel’s Landing and a bit less popular than the Observation Point trail that begins at the same trailhead, is also one of my Zion favorites.
Hidden Canyon was closed, sadly. I’d wanted to hike that one too. Another hiker I met there told me that entering the canyon from West Rim Trail was spectacular–sure would be fun!