We saw our friends, Brandon & Tamsin Prince, at church on Sunday (same building, different ward. Only in Utah, haha), and we both shared that we weren't doing anything on Memorial Day. We said we should do something together. That night, Brandon calls us up and invites us to go to Zions National Park to do some hiking and picnicking. We decided that would be better than anything we would do on a day off (sitting an playing video-games) and started getting ready for our adventure.
We left at about 6:45am the next morning and carpooled with the Prince's and Stacy (Brandon's sister). Not much of the car trip on the way up is remembered. James and I stayed up until almost 1AM the night/morning before and then woke up at 5AM. Unsurprisingly (only if you know me) I fell asleep . . . in the middle seat. Now that takes talent ;)
Before we left, Brandon said that some of the hike would include wading. He said it would be up to about our knees. Which we were fine with.
After a quick stop at the local Smith's to buy some hamburgers, (*side note: Brandon had this awesome portable grill kit that only weighed like 2 lbs, and had it's own charcoal with it. So we decided to take it up with us and have a BBQ up on the trail) and a gas fill up, we arrived at Zions Park. It was actually not as crowded as I thought it would be for a Memorial Day.
We took a shuttle to the start of a trail that when ended, was the beginning of The Narrows, the trail Brandon wanted to hike. At this point, I should clarify. The Narrows isn't a trail. It's a river. And the wading in water? Yeah that was more like walking through water, the whole time. But it was a lot of fun. Definitely not expected, but exciting and an adventure.
So here is Zions! Lots of rocks. But very beautiful
This is some scenery . . . haha
On our shuttle, the tour guide said something about finding a snail the size of a pencil head. So we tried to find it
Some of us were more interested than others :-D
Some more scenery . . .
More Rocks!
James was excited to be there
I think the green thing may have been some sort of life form, prolly not though
This is kinda when I first realized that the "wading" would not be temporary.
This spot was really funny, especially on the way back. We tried to find a shallow part, but ended up wading in to about chest level (we actually were following the path of people who were coming back). Our our way back, we went down the other side of the river, and it only got to out knees. Fun times!
It was this deep about 50% of the time
A nice shot of the river + Brandon
We fond a nice little cave. I decided to rest :)
This led up to a cave. James wanted to go in it, but unfortunately (I say luckily), the opening was too small for him to get in
This is Brandon's super sweet BBQ grill that he brought with us. It was only about a pound and a half, and came with it's own charcoal.
Lunch time!
Right before we stopped for lunch, I tripped and fell in pretty much all the way. This is me drying out
We forgot to bring any kind of spatula or utensils. So Brandon used pocket knives to flip the burgers. We're so resourceful!
Yum Yum Yum!
I did so well on our hike! :D
Stacy decided to go swimming in one of the deeper parts of the river
And here's the sign that warns everyone going down the Narrows about flash flood potentials. As you can see from dome of the pictures, the Narrows are just that: narrow. Many different moments on our hike I thought about this sign and prayed it wouldn't happen ;)
And that concludes our awesome trip to Zions! Thanks Brandon, Tamsin and Stacy for inviting us! It was a lot of fun.
1 comment:
Yeah for pictures!
Post a Comment