We arrived through the remainder of the snowstorm to Red Cliffs Campground north of St. George. It was a harrowing drive over a winding, snow-packed mountain highway but Zach handled it like a champ. The campground’s notice sign said it was full, but since it was a Monday we decided to give it a circle to see if anyone had recently departed. Fortunately, that plan panned out for us! We scored a great site (A plan “b” hadn’t been formulated so we were feeling quite fortunate) and decided on a longer stay so we could split our time between Zion NP and getting resupplied in St. George.

Day one in Zion was epic. We hiked up to Angel’s Landing (but skipped the chain climb because it was super crowded), and went for awhile longer up on the West Rim Trail. After our legs were good and tired we trekked back down and hopped on the shuttle to the Riverwalk Trail at the end of the line. Overall, we got in about 10 miles before returning to our car and taking a drive up the Zion – Mount Carmel Highway. This drive was reminiscent of Going to the Sun Road in Montana with huge rock walls, amazing vistas, a tunnel from 1930, and endless views. Once day one was complete, ice cream was quickly consumed and we all together skipped dinner on account of being too tired to cook.

The following day we took off from hiking and exploring to get our laundry done errands run in a suburb of Saint George. These days are always a little stressful because you’re going back into civilization and with covid numbers on the rise we are really trying hard to avoid places where people congregate. A mask mandate was only just imposed in Utah last weekend and people around this area are still not wearing masks. We decided to sit in the car and wait for the laundry there but in the course of lots of getting in and out, listening to the radio, etc. we drained the car battery and (Zach) had to walk down the road to a Walmart for a replacement. (In hindsight, we’re glad this happened in a bustling town vs. in the middle of nowhere). Overall this stop was a pricey one for the car with wipers and a windshield also needing replacement but in the grand scheme of things Lafawnda the Lexus has had very low maintenance costs, especially considering all the hard miles we’ve put on her this year.

The next day we were back to our exploring selves, this time driving to the northwest side of Zion and hiking in the wilderness area. There was a lot of snow still on the ground from the system that had hit us in Bryce, so our 4 mile hike was a wet and muddy one but still lots of fun. The view at the end was the most rewarding. And seeing only a handful of people on the trail was even better vs. the busy main part of the park we had explored the other day. We only spent two days in Zion but we felt like that was a good taste of the area. Perhaps we’ll return here for some more technical activity after winter, there’s lots more to explore but it was once again time to move on to warmer climes.