Window to the heavens
ZION CANYON, UTAH Utah’s oldest national park offers visitors a sublime moment in the clouds, if your legs don’t give out on you first ‘It’s a place you might call life-affirming . . . or ending’
Zion seems like an audacious name for a national park, but when you arrive you understand: God himself would feel at home here. Approaching from the east, your first experience of Utah’s most popular park is likely to be a traffic jam. Not just heavy traffic, but total gridlock as the twolane road narrows to a single lane to pass through the 1.7- kilometre Zion- Mt. Carmel Tunnel dynamited through a mountain. Anywhere else, such idle time would be a source of stress; here the scenery is so stunning — and strange — it’s impossible to be annoyed. A rolling landscape of sandstone hills dotted with stunted trees looks exactly like what it is: a petrified desert. Hundreds of millions of years ago it was all sand; now it’s a mountainous arid setting. But the smoothness of the steep, rocky hills — locally known as slickrock — is interrupted by long, horizontal cracks in the stone that make the mountains resemble topographical maps. In some areas the cracks are both vertical and horizontal, giving a checkerboard appearance. One hill is even known as Checkerboard Mesa. Note to visitors: while you’re waiting in traffic, take a few pictures, because you may not see landscape quite like this anywhere else — even inside the park. The ranger signals that it’s our turn to go. My girlfriend and I get back in our rented Jeep and enter the tunnel; the darkness is sparsely interrupted by thin shafts of sunlight flowing through “ windows” in the mountain, providing a glimpse of the majesty we’re about to experience.
Suddenly we’re out and descending upon Zion Canyon, the most heavily visited section of the park. And no wonder: the mountains are stunning — biblical even. It feels like dramatic music should be playing as we roll toward the visitor centre along this epic backdrop.
Zion National Park is no secret. It is Utah’s oldest national park, established in 1919, and it’s starting to experience some of the problems of tourist volume
faced by America’s most popular parks, such as Yellowstone and Yosemite. Last year alone, Zion hosted more than 2.5 million visitors, a record. It has become so congested, in fact, that every year from April to October, guests must now park at the visitor centre and take a shuttle bus into the canyon itself. But don’t let the crowds deter you.
“ You will read that Zion gets more visitors than all other Utah parks combined, but in my opinion that figure is a bit misleading,” says Sessel Sagorin of Bryce Canyon Tours based in Las Vegas, which runs one- day bus trips to Zion and nearby Bryce. He says accessibility over other parks is what makes it so popular.
“ Zion is very close to Interstate 15, which extends from Mexico all the way up to Canada,” he notes, adding that many visitors take a short detour from the highway to admire Zion. Usually these travellers stay for only a few hours and they aren’t equipped for serious hiking. To beat the crowds and lessen the chances of ducking around a sea of heads to glimpse the panoramic views, avoid the easiest trails and go early in the morning. We arrive on a sunny Tuesday around 11 a. m. at one of two first- come, firstserve campgrounds near the visitor centre and pitch our tent. The site isn’t secluded, but we figured the adjacent rushing river would drown out any nighttime noise — and we’d have a fine view of the cliffs. After packing a few necessities, we hop aboard the shuttle bus that takes us to the base of Zion’s most famous hiking trail, Angel’s Landing. The round trip is 8.6 kilometres long. Be warned this isn’t an easy trek, especially for anyone with a fear of heights, but if you’re in moderately good shape it’s well worth the effort. The hike begins with a series of switchbacks winding slowly up a steep incline to reach a flat spot. Once you pass through a gorge, there’s a series of narrower, cobblestone switchbacks zigzagging up the mountain. Give yourself a pat on the back after you’ve gone this far, about one hour up. Take a moment to catch your breath, because here’s where it gets scary. From this point the uphill climb is straighter but more treacherous. One wrong step to the right and you’ll find the quickest route back to the bottom. Luckily, in the steepest spots, there’s a metal chain to grab onto for physical and psychological support.
Along the path, we meet a man on crutches daring to climb with a broken foot,. Another woman is noticeably euphoric as she makes the climb — she’s celebrating a year since overcoming cancer and wants to prove the extent of her own recovery to herself.
This is one of those places you might call life- affirming. Or ending. One hiker informs us that a 14- year- old Boy Scout died after a 300- metre plunge from Angel’s Landing last year.
In fact, it’s surprising there aren’t more accidents, considering how many climbers, wearing loose sneakers or sandals, scurry up and literally run down the mountain without bothering to use the chains for support. We’re not so brave ( or stupid), white- knuckling the chain the whole way. The climb is deceptively long. Every time we think we’ve made it to the top we find plenty more trail ahead of us. We make it up to a peak and the feeling is exhilarating, with a superb view into the canyon. Our bubble bursts when another hiker points out that we haven’t reached Angel’s Landing quite yet. “ You’ve got another 35, 40 minutes to go,” she informs us, pointing to a higher tower, approached via a narrow path along the mountain’s spine — one false move in either direction and you’re a statistic. Many hikers don’t attempt the home stretch.
Finally we reach the summit, the air is crisp, the sun is shining and we have a sublime 360- degree view of the entire canyon. We lie down on the rocks, where several other climbers are basking in the sun, resting before the 90minute trek back down. The unique geology of this slot canyon was carved over millions of years by the Virgin River — there is no shortage of biblical references here in the park, nor in the Mormon state in general — of which now a relative trickle remains. One tight section of the river, known as The Narrows, is the other famed hike at Zion. Trekkers must wade waistdeep at times to experience some of the canyon’s most dramatic views. At certain times of year — when we visited, for instance — a swelling river, caused by runoff, makes the trail impassable. At other times, there’s a regular danger of flash flooding, which can fill the Narrows and sweep away hikers in seconds.
In Zion’s worst accident in 1961, 26 hikers were caught in a flash flood in The Narrows and five died.
Needless to say, before attempting the trail, pay attention to the weather forecast and inquire at the visitor centre about potential dangers. Flash flooding has been known to occur under clear skies, when there’s heavy rainfall farther upstream. Post-hike, we arrive back at the campsite ravenous. Thinking we’d walk into Springdale and forage for food, we instead encounter a neighbour from Colorado, a dedicated explorer spending weeks on his own living out of his Scamp trailer. While cooking up a dinner of pork and beans washed down with Wasatch beer, he confirms that Zion is just one small part of the adventures Utah has to offer.
Zion’s smaller sister park, Bryce Canyon, for instance, is famous for its bizarre “ hoodoo” formations, poking out of the ground like giant bowling pins and made predominantly of limestone. Arches National Park has North America’s largest assortment of natural arches. We would definitely return to Utah soon for more than just 24 hours. And if that’s all the time you have, it’s worth the drive from Las Vegas.
Zipped into sleeping bags in our tent, next to ancient cliffs, beneath a nearfull moon, enveloped in the calming sound of a rushing river, our muscles pleasantly aching after a strenuous hike, we drift into our best night’s sleep in recent memory. Ariel Teplitsky is Saturday Entertainment editor at the Star.