Hike 2016.041 -- Wildcat Canyon and Northgate Peaks Trails, Kolob Terrace Road, Zion National Park, UT

Hiked Friday, September 9. Four miles. This turned out to be the first of three hikes I managed that weekend. That's good, because the next weekend turned out to be a zero hike weekend.

All three hikes were relatively short, however. This one was to be expected, as I needed to drive up from the Los Angeles area, and I rarely get as early a start as I'd like.

The trailhead is located off of Kolob Terrace Road. From I-15, Take Exit 16, on to UT-9. UT-9 passes through the towns of Hurricane and La Verkin, on the way to Zion. There are plenty of restaurants, motels, and gas stations in Hurricane. A bit later, in La Verkin, the highway makes a 90 degree turn at a light. There's a Maverick gas station/truck stop at this corner, so if you're due for a pitstop, you can pull in just before the light, while you're northbound, do your business, then pull out heading eastbound, after the light.

Up until now, you've been able to follow the signs to Zion National Park. Continue about 6.3 miles, until the sign for Kolob Reservoir. There is no signal here, so you'll have to keep an eye out for the sign, which will be on the right side of the road. Turn left, and continue up Kolob Terrace Road about 16 miles.

The road is somewhat winding, and the speed limit is 35mph through most of it. I saw at least two sheriff's vehicles on my drive, and one person getting a ticket, so keep that in mind during your drive.

You're looking for the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead. It'll be on the left, after the road has made a series of tight switchbacks to gain altitude, then briefly straightening out. At a sharp hairpin turn to the left, among the arrow signs telling you to how to stay on the road, there's also a sign for Wildcat Canyon trailhead, practically between the arrow signs. Following the sign for the trailhead will take you down a short dirt road, to a small parking area. There's a pit toilet there, but no running water.

The drive itself is quite scenic. The first three shots in this post are from the drive. The first was overlooking "Sunset Canyon Ranch, one of many inholdings or "adjacent-holdings" of private or state land among the National Park and National Forest land up here.

The second shot was down Hop Valley, which I once saw from the other side (down near La Verkin Creek, when I backpacked to Kolob Arch and Beartrap Canyon -- That was cool, but long before commercially available digital photography, so I have no shots I can share of that, for now). The third was of just a pretty rock outcropping above a meadow--don't know the name.

From the parking area, you start off walking through a place that alternates between ponderosa pine forests and open meadow.

The trail is wide and easy to follow. It's also relatively flat, so the going can be pretty quick. Lots of colorful outcroppings around you, but especially near the end, when you overlook "The Great West Canyon," before you, and the Western Rim parts of Zion Canyon, in the distance. It's not as impressive as the view from the actual Zion Canyon, but it is still, in my opinion, pretty amazing.

It's also a lot less crowded than the more developed portions of the park. I'm not even sure if I saw any other hikers, once I left the parking lot.

Four miles gets you to the overlook. You don't actually go up any peaks. Not sure if any are safe to climb without technical equipment.

You pass only two trail junctions along the way. At the first one, you basically go straight, or leftish (right is the Connector Trail, towards Hop Valley trail). At the second, you turn a sharp right (left would take you down the "Subway" trail, which requires a permit and careful planning).

By contrast, the Northgate Peaks trail requires only minimal planning. It's relatively flat, and does not drop into the actual canyon, so flash floods are not an issue. It's a nice little hike if you want something non-strenuous, perhaps to break up the drive along Kolob Terrace Road. (Or, in my case, if you only have time for a short hike after driving up from Los Angeles, and don't want to risk running out of time catching shuttles to a short hike in Zion Canyon). I've read that (presumably, more further up, towards the reservoir), fall foliage can be quite impressive up there.

I stumbled across this hike here. That seems like a really comprehensive repository of Zion hiking information.

As noted previously, this was my "Friday" hike last week. The next day, I did the Angels Landing trail, then the Pa'Rus trail. It was a pretty decent overnight to Cedar City trip.

Hike 2016.042A -- Angels Landing via West Rim Trail, Zion National Park, UT

Hiked Saturday, September 10. 5 miles. The previous day, I hiked the trail to Northgate Peaks, then I spent the night in St. George. On this morning, I aimed to get to the main canyon by 9am, figuring that would be early enough to be able to park at the visitor center. However, I was apparently already too late.

As I approached the entrance, the cars were lined up, and appeared not to be moving. So I pulled a U-turn, and parked on the west side of UT-9. I figured, this way, if there was still a line of cars entering when I left, at least I would not be trapped by the cars.

Walked into the park via the pedestrian entrance (top photo), then caught the canyon shuttle. During most of the year, access to the main canyon is limited to via the free shuttle, unless you're staying at the Lodge at Zion. If the lot at the visitor center is full, you park along UT-9, in the town of Springdale. There's a separate, free shuttle that runs through Springdale to the visitor center, so if you need to park further away, you can catch that shuttle to the visitor center.

From the visitor center, it's just four stops or so to The Grotto stop, which is the closest one to Angels Landing.

I had some trepidation about this hike. Not for the hike, itself, but because I know it's one of the more popular hikes in the park. Since there are many spots along this trail where it's not wide enough for two hikers to safely pass each other, there can be bottlenecks.

On that matter, I was correct. It was a very crowded trail. But I wanted to hike it.

In fact, I had hiked it, before. That was some twenty years ago. Since then, I had seen this hike on many hiking shows. And the funny thing was, it looked much scarier on tv than it seemed in real life when I hiked it. So what gives?

Well, the narrowness and large drop-offs are real. No way around that. But the chain running along places with large drop-offs meant you weren't nearly as exposed as you would be without the safety chain.

In fact, with the chain there, I noticed that I concentrated on the chain and on where my feet were going. I paid relatively little attention to the potential for falling 1500 feet to my death. And that's as it should be. Technically (and, especially, with the chain), this hike isn't any more difficult than many other hikes I've done, before. Yes, it's "Class 3." At least for me, there are places where my feet were both off the earth at the same time. Indeed, that night, my arms were pretty tired. But it was a good tired.

Because of the need for free hands, I took most of my DSLR shots when I was stopped. In some places (like at the start of this hike, for the second and third shots, above), I took shots both with my dslr and my Samsung S5 phone. Kind of fun to have the contrast. My phone gives a view pretty similar to my zoom at 18mm on my dslr.

The roundtrip distance is just five miles, which makes it even shorter than Echo Mountain. The altitude gain is also somewhat similar, although Angels Landing starts at a much higher altitude, to begin with. Also, the potential drop-offs are much greater, the trail is narrower, and, at least on a Saturday, Angels Landing is even busier than Echo Mountain.

I suppose the upshot of this is that I wasn't all that tired when I finished this hike,which is why I went ahead and tacked the Pa'Rus hike on to the end of my day (which ended by 1pm, as I was driving down to Las Vegas that afternoon).

The view from atop Angels Landing is indisputably outstanding. Of course, the view from pretty much anywhere in Zion Canyon is pretty amazing, so that's a given. Unfortunately, photos don't often do this justice. You don't get a real sense of the scale, unless you're able to focus on the road on the valley floor and realize that the little ribbon you see down there is 30 or 40 feet wide or more.

Also, because it's a north-south trending canyon, there will be harsh shadows on one or both side of the canyon when ever the sun is up. Still, getting good pictures isn't necessarily the point of the hike, is it?

At any rate, it was nice to return to this hike. I hope to do both a few oldies and a few new ones in the next few months. My hiking plans haven't always gone as intended, however, so no promises, I'm afraid.

Hike 2016.042B -- Pa 'Rus Trail, Zion Canyon, Zion National Park, UT

Hiked Saturday, September 10. 1.7 miles. The signs on the ground give the distance for this trail as 1.5 miles, but the National Geographic / Trails Illustrated map for Zion National Park gives the distance as 1.7 miles.

This trail runs from the Visitor Center to Canyon Junction, along (and crossing) the Virgin River, and parallel to highway UT-9. It's wide and paved, and intended for both bikes and hikers. It's also mostly unshaded, which makes it more of an afternoon or morning hike, or a spring or fall hike. If hiked in the middle of a summer day, it's hot, and the shadows make photographing the canyon difficult.

Nonetheless, having taken the short hike to Northgate Peaks the day before, then the still relatively short (though, admittedly, steep) trail to Angels Landing earlier, and intending to return towards Las Vegas later in the day, but still not having met my fitbit step total, I wanted a short additional hike, so this was it.

Once back at the visitor center, I observed the lines for the canyon shuttle bus was pretty long, possibly more than could fit in one shuttle. That would mean a longer wait. Moot point for me, as I was already back to near my car.

As I headed through the visitor center area and towards my car, I passed a statue of a ringtailed cat. I have a soft spot for them, having seen a whole lot of them in my long-ago backpacking trip down along La Verkin Creek, way back when.

My car was just outside the national park boundary. When I arrived that morning, the line entering the park was slow, and the parking was reported to be full. So I walked the additional 1/2 mile or so to my car, then headed back towards I-15.

It was still only early afternoon, and plenty of daylight remained. But it was also a hot summer day, and I didn't want to be getting into Las Vegas too late, so I called it a day.

Hike 2016.043 -- Mount Hollywood via Charlie Turner Trail

Hiked Sunday, September 11. 3 miles.

This was an extremely rare three-hike weekend. Well, four, but one was only about 1.7 miles, so it counted as a "B" hike.

Nonetheless, all four hikes combined added up to fewer miles to some single hikes of years gone by. I'm not having nearly as much time to squeeze hikes in. It's also possible I have some depression going on, because on a lot of weekend days when I do have the time, I lack the motivation to get out of the house.

That's part of what's getting me to plan these out of town trips: Once I put money down for a room, I'm certain to get going. That makes the plan certain enough that I'll get something done that day.

So, last weekend, I drove to Utah. I hiked the Northgate Peaks trail, out of Kolob Terrace Road on Friday, then hiked Angels Landing on Saturday morning, then added the short Pa 'Rus hike after that. Then I hopped in my car and drove back to Las Vegas.

On Sunday, I drove back to the LA area. I had to work that night at the Observatory, so I got there early so as to have time to hike on up to Mount Hollywood, via the Charlie Turner Trail, which begins at the north end of the parking lot that's in front of the Observatory. That made it a "three" hike weekend.

A very large flag was waving in a brisk breeze. Took some camera shots along the way. Then came back down and worked my shift on the front lawn. Fog rolled in and limited our viewing for part of the night. It was sort of a harbinger of the cooler weather that arrived this week.

Still have many hikes to blog, of course. Getting three in over the weekend increased that backlog, but it was still a productive weekend of hiking. Hope to get those blogged over the next week or so.

Hike 2016.036 -- Mel Canyon, Angeles National Forest, CA

Hiked Sunday, July 24. 3 miles. This was a day I wanted a short hike and had no real idea as to where I might go. The fire in Santa Clarita was still going strong, so I was not likely to want to exert myself too much.

Wound up here, near the corner of Melcanyon Road and Brookridge Road, in Duarte. It's the next canyon west from Fish Canyon.

I have hiked here many times before. In fact, I hiked from here during my first 100 hike year, but it had been a while since my last visit.

(For some reason, some of the shots I posted on that hike aren't displaying on my computer. I will have to see about fixing that, later.)

The big change since my previous visits was that this entire area had burned, just about a month before my visit. That was the "Fish Fire." It burned right down to the neighborhoods of Duarte. In some cases, even the trees right across the driveway from a home had burned, but the homes appeared undamaged.

I hadn't realized how far down the fire had come. I also wasn't sure if a closure order was in effect, as is often the case after a fire. But no signs were posted, so I started up the hill. The smell of ash was strong. And much of the soil looked sterilized. It was ash or dirt.

The bleak nature of the land around me gave me some pause. But I pushed on to the first flat area, where this steep trail met up with the large dirt road, which I believe is, "Van Tassel Motorway." Follow this road long enough, and it links up with the road that heads up and east from Monrovia Canyon, near White Saddle. A write-up of that hike is here. A picture of White Saddle was here.

Looking over some of those hikes makes me long for those days of multi-hike weeks, and covering all that new ground. It's a shame I don't have that kind of time, any more.

During this short hike, I noticed some riders going between the horse stables down on Encanto Parkway and further up Van Tassel Motorway. I asked one of the riders if he was aware of any closure order in this area, and he said he was not. So I'm assuming there is no closure order, though I can imagine bulldozers, working to keep the access to the power lines of the Tehatchapi Renewable Project maintained. Clearly, the road had been bulldozed, since the fire. It was the only thing white in a sea of grey.

After having gone far enought that I was sure I would have my three mile minimum surpassed, I returned to my car. Too dusty to really want to walk around here for too long, anyway.

Still very far behind in my hike blogging, but at least I managed to catch up some on my links, recently. Should be having some new hikes to thing about this weekend, too.

Hike 2016.038B -- Taylor Creek Trail to Double Arch Alcove, and Timber Creek Overlook Trail, Kolob Canyon Section, Zion National Park, UT

Hiked Saturday, July 30. 5 miles.

After leaving Parowan Gap, I headed south on I-15, to the Kolob Canyons Section of Zion National Park. I had been to this section numerous times before, but usually just to enjoy the view from the Timber Creek overlook, before continuing on to Las Vegas. I had also once backpacked down into Timber Creek, to see Kolob Arch, Hop Valley, and Beartrap Valley. But I had never been on the Taylor Creek trail.

Taylor Creek Trail is given as 2.5 miles each way, with a 450 foot gain. The NPS handout gives a hiking time of 3-4 hours. This seemed excessively long, yet, in practice, the hike did seem to take longer than the distance would have suggested. I assume it's the uneven nature of the trail, and the often sandy surface. In my case, it was 20-30 minutes after I said to myself, "This *has* to have been 2.5 miles" before I reached the sign pointing me to Double Arch Alcove.

It's an easy trail to follow, because you've mostly just going up a canyon. Not a lot of opportunities for wrong turns.

I passed two cabins along the way. They were nestled under red rocks and tree cover.

This whole trail had a fair amount of shade, though it still felt pretty hot. Also, being relatively late season, the water was low. There was a smattering of flowers, and, obviously, some butterflies.

There was also the biggest, freakiest looking caterpillar I had ever seen. Must have been four inches long, at least, so I can only imagine how large of a butterfly it must turn in to. Green, with those colored balls at the end of the many stalks attached to its body.

I turned around at the Alcove. Not sure how much further one could continue up, but I was, as I noted, far more tired than I would have expected 2.5 miles to make me. Also, I had to drive down to Las Vegas, still, and that was going to be about two hours.

I did enjoy the Alcove for a bit. The canyon overall was not that narrow, and the Alcove was quite large. Yet, because of the shape, the light down there did get the weird red that you only get (or, at least, I have only seen) in a slot canyon.

The walk back to the car passed quickly, much more of the pace I would have expected, for the distance. That's why I'm assuming it's the incline that makes the pace so much slower on the way in. Although the total altitude gain is slight, there is a fairly steep initial descent from the road to the canyon bottom and trail, near the start of the trail. That means the gross altitude gain heading up to the alcove is quite a bit more than the net gain would have you believe.

Nearing the last climb back up to the car, there was a young kid, holding a small snake. He wanted to show his dad, who was somewhere behind. Drove me crazy, but I didn't want to get into it with his parents. His mom did ask him several times to release the snake, and I think she knew people around her were thinking that.

The kid eventually relented.

I wanted to tell him why it was so important to leave the snake alone, but, again, don't want to be the weird guy who talks to stranger's kids.

The key for a lot of these wildlife encounters is, even if you think you're letting them go in the end, all that energy you make them expend while they're being handled can be the difference between life and death, later.

There's a reason why you rarely see actual wildlife being fat-- they're in balance Enough calories to survive, but no extra weight that's going to slow them down in the pursuit or while being pursued. Push them just a little bit, and that balance is disturbed, and the creature may not win the next race.

In any event, that was the Double Arch Alcove Hike.

After returning to the car, I still felt well enough to take the short walk to the Timber Creek overlook.

It's given as 1/2 mile, each way. Slight altitude gain. Not too different of a view there than just from the parking lot, but, you know, I'm there for the hiking as much as the views, right?

So all the shots after the Alcove, further down below, were from that little jaunt at the end of the five-mile Kolob Canyons Scenic Drive.

This used to be one of the parts of Zion National Park that was free. Several times while driving between Provo and Las Vegas, I'd buy a take out dinner in Cedar City, then drive up and take the short walk to the overlook to enjoy my dinner in the "wild." Great place to watch a sunset.

The only easily accessible "free" section of the park I know of now is along the road to Kolob Reservoir. I may try to hit some of that area. Not because it's free, since I already have the pass and can visit anywhere I want for free, but because it's got no shuttle bus. I can come and go as I please, and explore on my own schedule.

It's also a lot emptier, which is why they don't need to use a shuttle system. So I'm undecided on where to visit, next. I hiked Angel's Landing a number of years ago (a pretty large number!), and, oddly, did not remember it as being that scary. On the other hand, being older and with lousier balance, maybe I shouldn't be doing that?

Of course, the other drawback is, it's wall-to-wall people. If I need to take a bathroom break along the hike, I'm not sure if there'll be anywhere I can go!

Either way, I'm going to try for another Zion trip later this month. Might try to get something else later in the month, too. Still trying to decide where I can get in the days off I have this fall.