Folks, I need help! I’ll be taking a last minute work-trip to Las Vegas and can manage about 5 days off to go play starting April 19th. I’ll have a rental car, so can drive anywhere reasonable. Never been to southern Utah/Arizona, and GCNP/Zion seem to be the obvious choices. Basically, if you had access to snow camping gear, a mountain bike, a road bike, a packraft, how would you spend 5 days in southern Utah? The kicker is getting permits/dealing with crowd-rage to do the first time tourist things like the GC corridor trails, Angel’s landing, narrows, etc. I would rather spend my time seeing some cool out-of-the-way places. Here are some guidelines:
- <= 5 days, 15-25 trail miles/day.
- Big day hikes also O.K., but for example, not in shape for R3 or trans zion, but could easily do either as an overnight in summer conditions.
- Off trail navigation, snowshoe, light scrambling, packrafting class II+, mtbing, bike-raft-packing all options
- Moderate technical risk. I’ll be solo, so short cruxy scrambling fine, hours of talus/scree/4th classing on shitty rock not so much. Same with paddling, canyon exploration, and steep snow travel.
Some current Ideas (may or may not be possible due to snow/melt conditions/ permits):
Grand Canyon – 3 day – Royal Arch route. Can I get to the trailhead in a rental?
Grand Canyon – 5 day – Bright angel/N kiabob > N. rim > nankoweap > Hayduke Trail section 11 > to S. Kiabob > South Rim. This would be one sweet trip if I could swing it.
Zion – Take a 3 day canyoneering course, dayhike the touristy stuff. looks like subway/narrows will be out due to runnoff.
Looking forward to some ideas. Whatcha got BPL?
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