Zion National Park June 10-12, 2010

First of all the Scouts want to thank Bryan Winn and Jim Willmott for driving us to Zion and shuttling the cars from the trailhead back to Zion Canyon where we met them at the end of our hike. Bryan and his son Jared are fairly new to Scouts so it’s great that Jared could go and his dad was willing to help. Jim has been in Scouting for 300 years and helps all the time but we still think it’s great that he will do it at his age. He’s so old he even gets into the National Parks for free!

We left Thursday morning at 6:00am and headed to Zion National Park. We had planned to hike the Zion Narrows slot canyon, but the water was too high and they wouldn’t let us. Something about thunder storms and flash floods and too much water and we might be swept away and killed, but we’re not sure exactly what it was. Anyway, we ended up doing an awesome 16 mile backpack trip on the West Rim Trail from Lava Point into Zion canyon with a side trip up Angels Landing.


When we got to Zion on Thursday we had an afternoon to burn since the hike started on Friday morning. So we headed up the Canyon on the shuttle and hiked up to see the Emerald Pools. As you can imagine, with a name like that, they were pretty cool. The last one was really deep and we had a nice swim dunking each other and stuff. And really, we didn’t see the no swimming sign until on the way out. Then we hiked down and the only problem we had was that Brigham left his camera and had to go back and get it.


Then we got back on the shuttle and headed to the end of the canyon where we would have come out if they had let us hike the Narrows. The trail looked fine to us... it was right there under the water!

We hiked up the canyon a little and swam in the water and it was great. Cold, but great. The adults were standing on the shore watching to make sure everything was OK when Fischer decided to go down the rapids face down and backwards. When he finally came up gasping for air he seemed ok, so the leaders shouted to all the other Scouts to try what he had done. Most of us tried it and turned out it was a pretty good run when you did it on purpose.

We had a lot of fun and the only problem we had was that Logan had left Brigham’s camera at the Emerald Pool bus stop and they had to go back to see if they could get it.

Friday Morning we went to the trailhead and started the 10 miles we did the first day. It was a beautiful hike and we had a great camp in the forest. We even saw a bunch of deer right by our camp.

We had to go down the trail a little to filter drinking water and there was a great cliff to throw rocks off of. We didn’t get too close to the edge on purpose but when Brad Quinn tripped he came pretty close by accident. But there was a bush for him to grab onto so it ended up alright.

Then it rained on us at night so the air smelled really clean and most of us stayed dry. Jerry was the only one with a tent, so the rest of us had tarps over us. Except Jeff Howe… he scooted the bottom half of his sleeping bag into a trash bag and had a little piece of plastic over the top. Then he put his straw hat over his face and he said it was ok because the straw hat smelled good in the rain. But we thought that was pretty weird so we didn’t talk much more about it.

View from the trail

Protected from the rain

Breakfast in the early morning light

Then in the morning on the way out we threw some more rocks over that cliff and how could we know that there were people hiking down there? When the guy got to us he wanted to know who was throwing the rocks and Jake took all the blame. We were grateful that he did because that guy wanted to pick a fight with someone! When he found out Jake was only 15 he just stomped away kind of mad. But we learned not to throw rocks off a cliff when the trail is right below.


When we got to Angels Landing we dropped our packs and headed up to see the view. The trail is pretty narrow and they have chains to hold onto because there are cliffs on both sides that go down hundreds of feet. But if you don’t look down you don’t get very dizzy so we pretty much concentrated on staying on the trail. On the way down Ken Quinn slipped a little and said something in Spanish… we don’t know what it was, but we don’t think it was swearing because he used to be a Bishop.

After we got down from the hike we stopped at the river to take another swim. Jerry said no one could ride in the cars on the way home unless they washed off. I guess we were pretty smelly. Maybe that’s why everyone on the bus was staring at us. Then the thunder storm started and the ranger ran us off because of that flash flood thing again.

On the way home we stopped at the Chuck-A-Rama all-you-can-eat buffet in St. George and had dinner. We definitely got our money’s worth as most of us went back for 4 or 5 servings. We were all ready to pop so we headed home and it was a whole hour before the Barnes boys announced that they were hungry again. Lucky Jerry had some caramel popcorn in the car or we would have had to stop for more food!

We finally made it home safely and are looking forward to Scout Camp next month. We hope Brigham finds his camera by then because we would sure like some pictures of that.

The Scouts of Troop 159

(No animals were hurt during the photographing of this adventure to Zion!)

OK, Not the Narrows...

Looks like the water level in the Narrows is way to high. So we will go with plan B and backpack thru some beautiful country (click here to see more pics). There are several trails to choose from but I think it would be nice to end in Zion Canyon. So my vote is for the West Rim Trail, starting at Lava Point. The trail is 14.4 miles and should be easily done in 2 days. Angels Landing is along this trail and is a place I have always wanted to go. The best part is, we will be going down hill!!! Click here for pics. Details and itinerary to come...

I'll see all you Scout leaders at training this weekend. And this campout is NEXT weekend!


Lava Point: The trail begins by a meander through Horse Pasture Plateau. The hard dirt packed trail is lined with flora and a lush forest is seen in all directions. Ponderosa Pine fill the senses gradually replaced by juniper and pinon pines as altitude is lost throughout the first six miles of the hike. Coming out of the forested section are nice views of the South and North Guardian Angel, as well as Das Boot to Zion's Subway.

Mountain scenery bursts into view as the trail rims Phantom Valley and Heaps Canyon. 7200'

Little Siberia and Mount Majestic: Little Siberia is an open valley that gradually ascends into a small canyon north of Mount Majestic and eventually reaches the saddle between the West Rim and Mount Majestic. The saddle separates Little Siberia to the east and Behunin Canyon to the west. The dense vegetation that thrives in this cool valley includes bigtooth maple, Douglas fir, spruce and gambel oak.

The lower section of the West Rim Trail descends a series of switchbacks that hug the side of a sun baked mountain.

Trailend: The hike ends at the trailhead for Angels Landing and the Kayenta Trail. Across the road is the Grotto Picnic area.