Zion Traverse – Zion National Park – Utah

[John “Jay” Menna]

Companion forum thread to: Zion Traverse – Zion National Park – Utah

We traveled the “Zion Traverse” from Lees Ferry, in the far Northwest corner of Zion National Park to the Grotto. 4 days 3 nights. Map:https://caltopo

[obx hiker]

Check your PM

[John B]

what a timely post–thinking of doing this exact same route in two weeks.

[Kevin Babione]

Thanks for posting – it was really fun to watch a couple together on a trip.  I was hoping to see some of the “circus” at the end of your hike, but you either didn’t film it or edited it out.

I’m surprised that your clothing got wet even though it was in dry bags – can you elaborate a little more on that?  I don’t use dry bags for anything.  My raingear is The Packa and I’ll put it on in “pack cover” mode if it looks like it might rain so my pack really stays completely dry.  A couple of my buddies use dry bags for their clothing and sleeping bags and haven’t had any issues.

[John “Jay” Menna]

We use Outdoor Research  Ultralight Dry bags.     They are only about 7 or 8 trips old.    I have had good results with them in the past, so I did not use a pack liner at all.  My wife even fall on her back into a creek once and the bag held….

Anyway,  the damn thing leaked like hell.  For some reason I decided to “Double bag”  my EE Accomplice quilt and it was dry.     But the water did get thru the first dry bag but not the second.

Looking at OR’s website I no longer see these particular bags for sale.

As for the Circus at angles landing….  I just wanted to get away from the crowd.    It nice how you slow down after 3 says out.   But my patience was really thin so I just put my head down and blasted thru the final section.  No film.

I’m sure the super trendy California girls thought I was anti-social when they jumped in my face with thumbs up and yelled “great job keep gong”.  She did it to about 50 people.   I guess I was the first one to look at her with a really mean stare.   She told “Buffy” who was “hiking” with her,  “I don’t think that man likes me very much”

[obx hiker]

My younger daughter went up to Angels Landing with a friend back in late August. She said it was past insane. Maybe couple hundred people on the little flat plateau above Walter’s Wiggles where Jay’s route joined the Angels Landing trail. Like a steady stream, scores, hundreds? on the cabled stretch. People getting sketched out and turning back all along the cable part. Her friend hadn’t been there so they persevered but it was really crowded and therefore somewhat dangerous.

My older daughter did the cable stretch when she was @ 8. She had a short bob, and wore a ballcap. A real tomboy. Anyway a couple commented as she was passing them going out to the landing; ” My goodness young man you sure are brave” She answered: “I was born to climb rock!

And after hesitating for a second added: “And by the way; I’m a girrll”

[jscott]

Really beautiful looking hike! Glad that your bags stayed dry. It looks like a fairly level trail? Can you guestimate elevation gain, or how much up there was on any typical up section? It looks like you didn’t carry water?

[Don H]

Jay,

Great video and information, thanks for sharing.  Would you mind sharing your gear list?  Did you have any trouble with campsite reservations?

Thanks,
Don

[John “Jay” Menna]

Most of the springs were dry. I would suggest cashing water.  It was about a two hour maybe an hour and a half round-trip to drive to the lava point trail head and the other place – – the name escapes me at the moment.  We did follow the off trail route to a couple of the mark Springs and they were completely dry.

[John “Jay” Menna]

The reservation system for Zion is rather competitive.   I actually made some reservations for some dates I didn’t need and then canceled it just a practice getting through the forms with speed. On the day the reservation was made I went into my office and commandeered three separate PCs so I could do three separate reservations on the first minute.

[Don H]

Jay – thanks much, heard it was competitive but didn’t realize how much so.  Great technique on the multiple computers, I’ll give that a shot.  Much appreciated.

[Tad Englund]

Not to beat a dead horse but…. It is pronounced “Zi-un”  not “zi-On”,  regardless of what the “out of the area” people say.  The locals found it. named it and that is the way they say it.

[David U]

Did this back in 2013.  Coming from the Rockies where water is plentiful, it was quite the adjustment.

[obx hiker]

Tad^^ re; name pronunciation. The town and river not too far away is also Es Ka LANT. locally.

Not Es Ka lahn tey. Though the Jesuit priest to whom the names refer is Es Ka lahn tey.

Scratches head in puzzlement….

[jscott]

Locals love it when we come in and correct their mispronunciation of their own home town. Just give a little lecture–“that’s Es Ka Lant tey. Say it after me…” as a local makes your latte. (“that’s lah tay”. I’m from Berkeley. I know.) Hey, my car window’s broken…!

[obx hiker]

?

[obx hiker]

^ Zactly. Trying to help where I can. There’s latte in Escalante?

4.7 stars. The Esca-Latte restaurant. Not making it up.

I was figuring you’d have to go to Boulder for a latte.

[jscott]

Obx, sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that YOU do this! Just the opposite, you are spot on, the locals know what’s what. I was being ironic and trying to joke about snooty out of towners lecturing the locals. I don’t actually do this! it’s a joke at my own expense.

[obx hiker]

That’s the way I took it JS. But like a dog with a bone I googled Latte in Escalante, Utah and darned if there isn’t a restaurant name Esca-Latte with 4.7 stars! Unless you have been to Escalante you will have a hard time appreciating how amazing that is!

Hat tip to Jay and Karen for a great video and trip report. Great scenery from Kolob over to the ‘main’ canyons of Zion. Loved seeing the color in the Gambel oaks. You guys were lucky to get a day of mist and rain in the high desert in October though I’m sure it didn’t seem that way at the time. In the video you can see how that light intensified the colors.

Jay I’ve been to Bryce once and Zion I don’t know how many times. Wait’ll you get over to the Needles and Bears Ears areas! Lots of great scenery in the entire SE quarter of Utah! Pretty much anywhere east of I-15 and south of I-70 from Zion to Capitol Reef, The Maze, Arches and back down the east side of the Colorado all the way deep into AZ to I-40 and beyond. Hard to go wrong.

[Curtis Carmack]

Next April it will be 40 years since I did that hike (in late April). Even then it seemed crowded once we got to Angel’s Landing. I can’t imagine what it must be like now. Before that point we did not see a single soul.

[Carlo]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hey, do you have any idea of the temp differentials btwn your backcountry camping sites and what the Park service reports for the valley?</p>

[obx hiker]

This is a difficult question to answer because there are many factors and not a lot of data. Hopefully what follows will be helpful to someone. For one thing I guess there’s the assumption that the park service is reporting temps in the main ‘drive-in’ canyon. There’s also the consideration that the route taken by Jay varies considerably in elevation. There is also some consideration to the effect of various  exposures on temps. Finally there seems to be some added differences in deep southwestern US canyons that goes way beyond the difference typically allocated or calculated based on differences in elevation. In places like the Grand Canyon there is a remarkable difference in the temperature between the rims and the floor down by the river.

1. Here are a couple of links to mesowest reporting stations that might be relevant. I recommend that anyone coast to coast interested in data of this type for trip planning bookmark Mesowest.  Lava Point and Zion Canyon.  The Zion Canyon location is outside the gate on the edge of Springdale adjacent to what appears to be park service housing  across the river from the South Campground. The Lava Point station is close to the west rim trailhead and at slightly higher elevation than most of the route. These 2 will be the bookmarks or extremes with Lava Point being the coolest and Zion River the warmest and most of the route being well in between though probably closer to Lava Point.

Mesowest doesn’t have stations sprinkled just everywhere but you can usually find a reasonably good representative location. You can access data for 7 days and get a really good idea of the trends/extremes.

The change in elevation has a fairly reliable result: “If there’s no snow (or rain) falling from the sky and you’re not in a cloud, then the temperature decreases by about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet up you go in elevation. That is 9.8°Celsius per 1,000 meters in mathematical speak.”

Finally the impact of deep canyons is a littler trickier and I may be going out on a limb but here are some factors.

1. There’s the change in elevation to consider, around 3000 feet in Zion from absolute highest to lowest; though for the majority of the hike and campsite locations probably not more than 1000 to 1500?

2. the compression of air in a deep canyon: As air sinks down into a lower elevation, it gets compressed, compressed air releases heat as energy. This caused the air mass to become even warmer. “This is why you can see temperatures in the 90’s at the top of the Grand Canyon but temperatures 20-30 degrees hotter at the bottom of the canyon,”

3. I suspect that the solar radiation on those deep walls acts like a trombe wall and absorbs quite a bit of  radiation adding to the effect of the first 2 factors. At any rate deep canyons can be quite a bit warmer.

OTOH canyons so deep and close they don’t get sun can be significantly cooler, think lower Buckskin Gulch. Cooler air tends to pool in lower spots, and canyons can possibly funnel cooler air down? So it’s possible or even likely that this ‘warmer at the bottom’ effect doesn’t necessarily hold true for all canyon situations.

Long overly detailed answer but hopefully useful to someone.

[Author]

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