Zion Traverse – Zion National Park – Utah

Check your PM

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.

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”

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

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.

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….

?

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.

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.

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.