A couple hours later we all woke up and decided to pack up camp and hit the trail to log a few miles before we stopped for breakfast. After taking down the tents, re-packing the packs and some unsuccessful attempts at warming our hands (it was 37 degrees when we woke up), we set off on our second leg of the trip at about 7:15am. We had about 12-13 miles to hike that day, so we knew an early start would allow us to enjoy the scenery and go at an easy pace all day. As we hiked the last bit of the Wildcat Canyon Trail, the temperature raised quite dramatically in a small amount of time. By the time we reached the top of our first short climb of the morning, we were already shedding layers as we noted the temperature had raised about 20-25 degrees. It was going to be another beautiful day!
Launching early on the Wildcat Canyon Trail
After finishing the final two miles of Wildcat Canyon, we reached the Lava Point/West Rim junction, where we decided to enjoy our morning feast. We busted out the granola bars, yogurt-covered raisins, fruit leather (kind of like a fruit roll-up) and sat on the trail enjoying the scenery. It was at this point that we realized how few people we had seen thus far on the trip. Considering it was Memorial Day Weekend, and great weather in Zion, we assumed we'd be seeing a lot of people. But as we soon realized, the West Rim (our route) was much less inhabited/popular than the eastern areas of Zion, namely Angel's Landing and The Narrows. On Day #1, we passed a total of two people all day. On Day #2, the busiest stretch of the West Rim, we probably saw 8-10 people all day. And let me tell you, no one in our group was complaining about having one of nature's most beautiful settings all to ourselves.
Lava Point Junction
The West Rim trail is roughly a 10-mile stretch that offered up some of the most gorgeous views of the entire trip. Similar to the day before, we seemed to walk through different ecosystems every mile, from dense trees to desert to meadows. We stopped a couple times for snacks (Julie's favorite part was the "walking buffet") throughout the morning, and then around lunch time we came to Potato Hollow.
Views from the West Rim
On our maps, Potato Hollow was designated as the second area of our trip where we would find "flowing" water. After our previous day's experience, we were slightly concerned about what this next watering hole had to offer. We dove down into a meadow and found some standing, incredibly boggy, ugly water. We knew we couldn't pull from this, but were optimistic that a water source had to be nearby. But before we could take another step, a guttural scream emerged from my wife...
"SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE!"
We turned around to see Julie and Jennifer backpedaling, looking for the nearest high ground, but the whole time Julie's eyes stayed transfixed on something in the meadow grass. We followed her gaze to see a decent size garter snake laying in the grass, with its head and neck up and poised. Branden, the snake expert of the group, guessed that it had probably been laying on the trail in the sun, felt us coming, then slithered to the tree and was smelling us. That did nothing to calm the nerves of our ladies, and it was at that moment that Branden and I realized that today, we would be finding water on our own.
The meadow right before we saw the snake
Before I go into what happened next, I want to acknowledge something very odd that happened during that snake sequence. I am not embarrassed to admit that I do not like snakes. I might even go as far as to say that I am scared of them. I never had one as a pet, never tried to chase them as a kid, and other than needles, there is nothing I dislike more. But here's the odd part. As soon as Julie freaked and saw the snake, something about her and Jenn shaking in their boots must have flipped a switch inside me, because before I knew it, I was saying "It's fine. It's just a garter snake. He's not gonna hurt you." I honestly had zero fear of that thing...and I think it was because I had two people ten times more afraid of it than I was.
After the girls politely bowed out from the water search for fear of more serpent sightings, Branden and I did a bit of off-trail bushwhacking with hopes of hearing the sound of flowing water. Well, at first we didn't hear anything, but as we dove deeper into the trees, we came to a huge clearing with an impressive gorge going across the middle of it. As we hiked around it and took some fun photos, we looked down and at the very bottom we saw a pool of water being filled by water funneling down a completely vertical cliff wall. Considering the basin was probably a good 80-100 feet down a sheer gorge, we once again realized we were in for a water challenge.
The gorge we found while searching for water
We hiked to the far side near some trees where the water seemed to be leading up to that sheer wall, and with the help of some marshy ground and buzzing bugs, we found what seemed to be the slowest moving "stream" we'd ever seen. It was probably eight inches wide, two inches deep, and was laying at an angle that barely allowed for a water bottle to event fit. Oh, and did I mention that we were on the very edge of the cliff, overlooking that 100ft gorge? At one point, Branden held on to the one tree sitting on the edge of the canyon, and leaned his whole body over the cliff to look down. His wife would have had a panic attack had she seen it, but it goes to show how crazy close to the edge we were seated as we went through this ordeal. After a few lame attempts to find a way to fill the bottles by me, Branden found a small area where we could get about half of a water bottle filled up, which we would then pass through a filter on another bottle, then do it again, then use the purifier on that bottle. Considering we were trying to fill a 4-liter camelback and two 1-liter bottles, suffice to say it took us longer than we would have liked, especially since we were standing on the edge of a cliff.
See that water? Yeah, that's the cliff we stood on (top left)
"Flowing" water? Thanks Zion.
After about an hour of hiking the canyon and filtering water, we finally were ready to make our way back to the women-folk. I imagine by that point they had either assumed we were eaten by snakes, or they had eaten all of our food, or both. As we made our trek back, Branden and I hoped that during this long break, the girls had prepared us a chicken pot-pie or something delicious for our efforts. We finally found the girls resting in a shady area, just then breaking out the food for lunch. Alas, there were no pot-pies.
Goofing around at lunch
After we explained our water adventure to the unimpressed wives (they were hungry), we all sat around in the shade and enjoyed our lunch. During the course of the trip we had discussed how Julie can't handle spicy food, and how she as missing out on one of the best snacks of the trip - soy and wasabi almonds. Well, apparently Branden felt that Julie was really missing out, so at a random moment of distraction, he dove his hand into the bag of wasabi almonds, walked toward Julie, and rubbed his wasabi-covered fingers on her lips. At first we didn't know why he had touched her lips, then he explained, and her face was one of sheer terror as she exclaimed, "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" Branden smiled, Julie maniacally wiped her lips off, and Jenn and I rolled on the floor laughing. It was awesome.
Yum!
Another odd moment that came during our lunch break was when a group of people passed by, with a very small Asian woman wearing a pink mask to cover her nose and mouth (like a dentist's mask), a handful of plants in her hand, and dragging her trekking poles behind her. First off, it is illegal to pick plants in a national park, and she had enough in her hand to start her own botanical garden. Secondly, her unused trekking poles left such a distinct drag mark on the trail that we could see exactly where she went once we got back on the trail. She was most certainly out-of-place in the wilderness, and we were very curious what convinced this group of people that backpacking was the activity for them. But I digress.
With our batteries recharged from lunch and our water bottles full, we set off again on the second half of the West Rim. We were immediately faced with the steepest climb of the weekend. Considering we didn't exactly have a full head of steam leading up to this point (on the contrary, we had full stomachs), this climb seemed even more intense than it probably needed to be. But the climb was a great one, with a very steep incline that led us to a viewpoint with some beautiful scenery below us.
At the top of the post-lunch climb
We continued our trek and easy pace all afternoon, stopping at some incredible canyons and bluffs looking out at the red cliffs and canyons of Zion. A couple more decent climbs broke up the hike very nicely, and throughout the whole time we were able to follow the trekking pole drag marks of our masked friend from before. As we made our climbs, Jennifer entertained us with her fully memorized rendition of the hilarious AT&T commercials featuring the four kids at a small table talking to the male facilitator. Her imitation of the young girl talking about being a werewolf was spot on, and equally hilarious material for a long hike.
Jenn's rendition of this girl is classic
At the top of our last climb, we came to the junction leading us off the main West Rim Trail and onto the Scenic Rim where we would find our campsite for the evening. We were even more pleased when we found that the site was only about 50 yards away from the junction, arriving there at 2:30pm. We had made it! With multiple breaks for breakfast, lunch, snacks, water filtering and photos, we hiked 12.5 miles in seven hours. A pretty solid days work!
The awesome relief that comes with finishing a long hike was enhanced even more when we came to our campsite. It was a beautiful clearing, with a perfect area for cooking, another flat area for our tents, and since our hike ended at the top of a huge climb, we were set up atop the canyon overlooking all the surrounding areas. It was absolutely perfect.
Our amazing campground
With some tired feet and tired bodies, we set up the tents, and like clockwork, the girls dove into the tents for their 3:00pm nap-time. I seriously think the clock struck 3pm and they fell asleep. And this time, they slept for 2.5 hours, leaving Branden and I some quality time overlooking the canyon's edge, talking about anything and everything, all while taking in all the sights and sounds Zion had to offer. Easily one of the best moments of the trip (no offense to the wives).
With our stomachs starting to rumble, we woke up the girls and told them we were going to start dinner soon. Julie and Jenn took over cooking duties for the second straight night, and like the night before, we were going to experiment with another dehydrated meal courtesy of Branden and Jenn. This time we had a pesto pasta that was excellent, and we followed it up with a chocolate mousse and graham cracker dessert, as well as a couple dehydrated ice cream bars (aka "Astronaut Ice Cream"). After 12.5 miles of hiking, it's easy to say that anything tastes good, but let me tell you...this meal was the real deal.
Dinner time!
After some dish cleaning and changing into some warmer clothes, the four of us headed to the bluff to enjoy the sunset, with the sun casting beautiful orange and red colors onto the canyon backdrop. It was much warmer on this night, and we stayed up until long after the sun had set before we made our way to the tents to crash for the night. There was a collective sigh as our four heads hit our pillows simultaneously, and other than a few stray Frito-sounds, we were done.
Taking in the sunset
NEXT UP - We finish our 27-mile trek, find all the day hikers, "do the wiggle", strip off our clothes, and oh yeah - have a hell of a time finding water.
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