B-E-A-UTAH!

So as you may or may not know, I just went on a trip with some friends to Utah to explore a few National Parks and hike in some of the best places in the United States. I got back a little over a week ago and I have to say I'm having the worst vacation withdrawals ever....everything about the trip was awesome, from the sights, to the hikes (fuggen phenomenal), to the food, to getting to spend time with great people. It feels as though something is missing now, like that trip was home and being back here is foreign to me. It's an odd feeling but I guess it stands as proof that it truly was a great trip.
But enough with the deep meaning stuff and on to the hiking. It. Was. Fucken. Awesome. Every part of it, from the first steps when I was convinced that a rattle snake was under every rock and a cougar was going to throw me off of a cliff Lion King style, to the very end when I felt like I had been roaming in the desert for ever and every little canyon or rock formation was still as bad ass to me as the first one I had ever seen. We did a lot on this trip, and I mean a lot. My delusions that we could see and do everything actually became reality, and it never (OK maybe once) felt like it was too much. The hiking here was great and while I can babble on about the whole trip like a kid that just got back from Summer Camp, scratch that, Space Camp, I'm going to have to break up the experience into each hike and save some of the stories for later.
The first hike that we went on was in Zion National Park, named by the Mormons blah blah blah, but honestly a completely incredible place. It is like Yosemite in the desert; the main portion of the park is in Zion Canyon and is surrounded by huge Navajo sandstone cliffs shaped by the Virgin River, which flows through it. There is plenty of spectacular hiking here, and because we only had two full days to spend it was hard to choose which hikes to go on. For out first hike we choose the Zion Narrows, which follows the path of the Virgin River upstream through a quite narrow canyon, meaning as wide as the river with huge walls of stone on either side hundreds of feet high. In some places its no more that 20 feet wide, and even further upstream it can get to less than a few feet causing you to have to squeeze your way through.
The hike starts at the last stop on the parks bus system, a inconvenient but environmentally necessary tram system that is the only means of transportation allowed in the park, save for the rich people that can afford to stay at the Zion lodge (prob all from Connecticut). The first section starts at the Temple of Sinawava using the Riverside Walk Trail which hugs the river for about a mile before you get to the entrance of the narrows. From here on out it is all hiking in the river which was pretty challenging but completely unlike any hiking I'd ever done before. You need to rock your boots even thought they are going to get soaked and use a hiking pole (thanks Mike) for balance. The scenery was awesome, there were a few short waterfalls flowing down the sandstone cliffs and in some sections the sun lit up the canyon walls to a glowing orange color. Every section of the hike I had to contain myself not to stop and take my camera out of the dry bag and take a million pictures of literally everything. Once we had enough of walking in water we stopped for a snack and headed back the way we came, since being a narrow crack in the rocks that's the only option. On our way back we saw a couple people repelling into the Narrows via the waterfall we had previously passed by and there was a number of people that found deeper areas of water to cliff jump into. It's worth noting that the farther you hike in, the less people there is, by about .25 miles in anyone rocking flip flops or wearing babies as a scarf had already turned around. We got out of the river and headed the final mile back to the buses soaking wet and pumped as shit. Such a good hike, easily ranked in my top three of all time. If you are ever even anywhere near this National Park, just go, seriously go....and do this hike, I'll even go back and do it with you... just buy my plane ticket. There is Waaaaay more to come folks, so stay tuned. And for those of you who only come here for the pictures, well here you go:

Mileage: About 6 miles.

Orange Glow.

River Hiking.

Beasts.

Chomping Deer.

The Route back.

Colorful Water.

Waterfall.

Hikers.