Backpacking in Zion National Park, Utah

Recently some friends and I met in Arizona and traveled to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park for a short backpacking trip and lots of hiking. I took along my not so new digital camera and made it my goal to figure the thing out on the trip. I left it on "manual" the whole time. I gained a lot of confidence in using it on this trip. I ran this image through PhotoShop and made it "arty". It looks great full screen, but not so sure how it will look in this blog format. I halved the pixels/sq.in. and it still took forever to load.

My late husband, Xavier, and I hiked in Zion in our early marriage and I remember then that it was a tough hiking experience and I was in pretty good shape 25 years ago! One of the "feel goods" about this hiking experience was that I could still do it AND still enjoy it!

More Backpacking

Here I am almost on top of Angel's Landing in Zion. It was quite a climb, but very rewarding. At times the trail was only 3 foot wide with vertical drops on both sides of probably 800 feet. I took a video on the way down that would make anyone dizzy!

We did lots of other kinds of hikes. We "walked" (struggled?) our way upstream in the Virgin River (46 degrees) for several miles before floating back down stream. We wore wet suits, which made it quite pleasant and easy to float downstream when the water was deep enough. I took both my video and still camera, putting them in a ziplock and then in a dry bag whenever I was moving. I have a quite interesting 20 minute video of the inside of the dry bag. You can hear things (the sound of the water, my musings, laughter) but the video is rather dull as the only thing that changes is the light on the bag...

More Backpacking

I'm having a few problems putting everything in order on this blog (it's a learning curve and I'm thrown off the edge), but this photo is of Kathy ascending Angel's Landing, which I figured out was an ascent of 1400 feet from the trailhead at the Canyon's floor. I love it!

These are the great friends ("the over-fifty group")I went with on this trip. Kathy is on the left. She's a friend of 20 years who I've played volleyball with, and to whom I taught photography, and from whom I learned sewing, and who is a chiropractor that somehow by God's grace and her great skill manages to keep me functionable and able to hike. Next is Pat (in the middle) who is a friend of 10 years, who laughs with me and cries with me and does my taxes (not necessarily all at once). Next to her is her daughter, Colleen, (not "over-fifty" but we let her come) who is a doctor and who always has a different viewpoint to spice up our conversations and the energy to keep us moving. We made a great team this year, but we missed our hiking partner of previous years, Paige, who kept us laughing and climbing great heights to pinnacles undreamed of... Missed you, Paige!

This is a photo of Kathy & Pat forging their way upstream on the Virgin River through The Narrows, a section of Zion Canyon.
It was beautiful, awe-inspiring, and at times I just couldn't believe I was really there! I was always at the back of our group because I just couldn't help stopping every once in awhile and taking my camera out of the dry bag, and then out of the ziplock, to take a photo, then putting it back in the ziplock and back in the dry bag to walk a couple more feet and do it all over again! Thank goodness they stopped every once in awhile to let me catch up!

You can't imagine how small you feel in a canyon like this.

Here's Colleen ascending the last part of Angel's Landing. I'm not sure any photograph could convey the steepness of the situation....

There was an incredible view of Zion Canyon from the top, as Kathy and Colleen are observing.

Please note, we never did feed the wildlife on top of Angel's Landing (which would be a $100 fine). Now, we may have dropped a bit of trail mix here and there, but those things happen, right? However, the numerous chipmunks on top of Angel's Landing were there for some reason....

Here, one looks like it is thinking about taking a bigger chunk out of Kathy's......

These are all photos of The Narrows, a section of Zion Canyon where we hiked upsteam. It is much like a slot canyon which houses the north fork of the Virgin River. I often found myself thinking, "I am here. I am really here. This is so incredibly beautiful and I am really here." My 20 minute video of the inside of my dry sack (!) includes musings like "I wish I was brave enough to take this camera out of the sac and photograph this right now. Right now as I'm floating on my back and looking up at these incredibly high canyons and the delicate leaves of trees with sunlight filtering through them, and the music of the water beneath me as I float on my back..."

These are all miscellaneous photos of our trip. I am so blessed to have seen such fantastic God- created places with such wonderful friends.

Maybe when you're in your early 30's you are a little braver than when you are in your 50's. Just taking this photo made me dizzy....

This was a fun hike although most of the woods had been burned recently. Kathy used one of these rocks to give me a spinal adjustment later (I was having sciatic nerve issues). I couldn't have made it through this trip without her...

These are all just various nature shots that I took while on the trip. We arrived at a good time; a lot of the plants were blooming.

Flowers, flowers everywhere....

While we were hiking and backpacking, I kept hearing this noise in the trees and bushes which sounded like insects feasting on the trees to me. I finally had to track it down and it was only a bunch of cicadas. The cicadas at home are MUCH louder, so it surprised me. But I was relieved to find out that the trees were not being eaten up, but rather it was just the noise of cicadas rubbing their wings together.

Backpacking is a lot of fun, but it is also tiring at times. I found that taking photographs was a great break for me. Here's a photo of the other three finding their own methods of relief (and waiting on me!)....

We also

found

water to

be quite

invigo-

rating...

And when it was all said and done,

Kathy and I visited a spa. She got

a facial and I got a pedicure

and foot

massage. It would have been unkind to take a photo of her getting a facial...

Well, that's about all. These are just some leftover photos to end with, AND a thought:
"Praise YHVH!
Priase God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
Let everything that has breath praise YHVH!"
Psalm 150