Oh Zion,

Oh Zion, you plush and wonderful boudoir,

If I slept in the warmth of your bed for one-thousand years,

And awoke still before your gleaming dawn,

I would wait one-thousand years more for the morning light,

Just to see the flickers of the day drift in,

Oh Zion, how beautiful you make the turning of the very Earth!

Friends, for a long time, Spencer and I have mused over whether Angel’s Landing in Zion, Lake Solitude in Grand Teton, or some obscure French mountain near the Swiss border is the most beautiful place in the world. Well, now I’ve finally gotten to see Zion National Park for myself and, friends, Wyoming has stiff completion (and France is on the back burner, for want of travel funds).

After futzing around in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona for some time (including a bizzare stay at a hostel in Kanab, Utah), I finally reached Springdale, UT and Zion National Park. I managed to snag tickets to hike the famous Angel’s Landing trail way back in January (yes, that is how early you have to put in for tickets to hike in May) and stayed at an extremely overpriced RV park in town the night before so I could guarantee I wouldn’t miss my timed-entry window to do the hike. It was hard to get up at 5:30 AM in order to get to the park and shuttle to the trailhead by 6:00 AM (all for a 10:00 AM hike) but it was absolutely worth it to get to see Zion just as the sun was rising. I got to the trailhead at 7:30 AM and spent easily 15 minutes just waiting and watching the shadows creep down the canyon wall; I’m not exaggerating when I say it was truly wonderful to just watch the shadows slink away, to watch the very Earth turning before me.

And the rest of the hike? Well, that speaks for itself:

Here are some of the legendary chains installed in the steepest and narrowest parts of the hike:

As well as an illustrative example of the terrain you’ll find them in:

@Matt, you’re gonna want to add this to your “hike before you die” list, and I recommend you put it above Grandfather Mountain 🙂

The hike wasn’t too difficult to be honest, just very technical in some areas due to the chains, but all around it was an extremely fun hike. For those reading who know me from LMH, I would say it’s about half again as difficult as Old Rag. But along the way and at the top, the views just beat the pants off of anything I’ve ever seen before:

I’m not, like, saying that I’M a reason why the views are so spectacular, oh my God I wish I could look half as good as this canyon!

For those who have never visited (outside of Fallout New Vegas anyways), Zion National Park is a deep, box canyon in southern Utah where the walls in many areas are nearly vertical, and all are colored in this amazing sherbet+clementine+pink lemonade+lemon pop melange. My camera has failed to do justice to how beautiful these walls are, and how much they change color in all the different kinds of light.

In addition to Angel’s Landing, one of the most famous hikes in Zion is the Narrows, in which you hike literally IN the Virgin River for miles as it flows through a deep and narrow slot canyon. But there were, uh, *ahem* various reasons why I couldn’t do that hike:

The start of The Narrows hike

Yeah, the Virgin River is howling fast and heavily flooded right now! This eliminated any chance of hiking the Narrows for me, but all that water did come with an unexpected and astonishing benefit:

The canyon floor is positively LITTERED with wildflowers right now!!!

Of all the wildflowers, cactus blooms are by far my favorite. Their petals are so light and delicate that you could mistake them for tissue paper, or even sugar wafers! What a strange and wonderful thing to be growing out of a cactus, huh? I mean, just look at these things:

These of course are in addition to the regular Zion plant fair, where so-called “hanging gardens” grow up and down from tiny seeps of water coming from the canyon walls:

Despite being a desert, water leaks out here and there in astounding and beautiful ways:

The falls at Upper Emerald Pool.

The falls descend through three pools and two waterfalls, this being the uppermost pool

And the lower falls and pool! You can walk right underneath them!

I don’t have narrative stucture for this picture other than that I thought these reeds and sedges were really pretty.

Less pretty that a field of reeds and sedges 😉

The Court of the Patriarchs.

For someone who has spent most of their adult life sucking wind and lipping off like their life depended on it, I really do find myself speechless when I try to describe the beauty of Zion. But here is my best take: imagine the feeling of warmth and protection and safety you feel when you wake up on a morning in late spring (mid-June for the folks reading in Michigan), with the sun streaming in through the windows and gently nudging you to wake. Imagine that subtle daze you find yourself if when you don’t know exactly where you are, or what time it is, or what you have to do for the day, because none of that matters; all that matters is the warmth of the sun through the window, on your face, in the warmth of a place you have learned to find familiar. That is one tenth of the feeling of repose I experienced in Zion National Park.

But eventually it was time to move on and, barring the Narrows, I really had seen just about everything in the park in a couple of days. My next stop was Bryce Canyon and you know what? It just didn’t compare ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ . Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty:

VERY pretty, especially at sunset:

And I even think little Mr. Snowman (Thurgood to his friends) would agree:

But frankly, how do you compare to Zion? How could you possibly hope to measure up against a park named after the promised land, and which fulfils all those promises of milk and honey and freedom from fear and want and anxiety? You tied Bryce, you tried, but alas 🙂

You know who doesn’t have to try to be so wonderful? These lovely people:

From left to right: my cousin Marieka, her husband Sam, and my niece Poppy. Yes I know she’s technically a second cousin but you know what? “Uncle Evan” is easier for a two-and-a-half year old to say 😉. And I love being a fun uncle (a funcle, or as my friend Kim said one time, a guncle).

Marieka and Sam and Poppy all live up around SLC, so I went to visit them after seeing Bryce! What a charming time we had going to the park and hanging out and doing my laundry shooting the breeze, thank you so much Marieka and Sam for putting me up!

Now being a Lee, I couldn’t possibly come over to someone’s home without making them some kind of food. So I made a chocolate cream pie for everyone while they were out, and I think it paid my way 😉

Marieka post-pie; she didn’t want me to put this on the blog but uh, well, it’s my blog ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ and I wanted to brag about how good the pie was, as evidenced here!

Author’s note: sorry Marieka I’ll take down this crowning picture of post-pie euphoria if you want, love you 💙💙💙

Poppy also liked the pie, but she did a much better job that me burning those calories off at the nearby park!

Thank you guys so so sooooo much for putting me up for a couple of days! Spending time with the far-flung people I care about, those are some of the best days I’ve ever had on this trip. I love you guys! 💙

Here is one more present: the world’s tiniest ladybug, and with backwards coloring too!

But inevitably, it was time to move on. I will miss Zion, and I will miss Marieka and Sam and Poppy, but I promise you all: I will see you again some day. I love you all too much to not to 💙💙💙

…

Alright I don’t want the rest of the folks at home feeling too sickly sweet after ending on that note, so here are two bonus pictures that didn’t fit the rest of the narrative:

So they have this statue of a CCC worker in Zion National Park, right? Well, fun fact, it’s an exact copy of the one they have in Shenandoah National park back home. Except this one has had his titties mercilessly twisted by far too many passersby.

And also, I have made it a point not to eat any fast food on this trip because 1) it’s unhealthy, 2) it’s expensive, and 3) it’s usually not even that good. Buuuuut now that we’re in western territory, there’s one greasy spoon I’ll make an exception for:

Yes I am wearing pants in this photo! I may be eating in my car but I still have standards, standards which include cute-as-hell shorts with a 4″ inseam!

Stay well everyone,

Evan 💙