Start: East Fork Virgin River
Finish: ZION!
Daily Mileage: 9.1
Trip Mileage: 952.4
Elevation gain/loss: 2293/1383ft
It was a cold night; definitely my coldest night on this trail. I awoke to a good coating of frost inside my tent, probably because I was camped next to the river. Due to the cold, I was a little more hesitant to get going this morning since I would have to immediately plunge into the river. I fueled myself with leftover steak and potatoes from last night and an egg from Kristi. So much better than my oatmeal, even my homemade oatmeal.
I packed up and even considered wearing my down puffy, which I never do as a rule while hiking. However, since this is the last day of my trip, I can throw some caution to the wind since I do not need to manage my gear for future days. I ultimately decided to just use an upper thermal layer, my shirt, and my hard shell. I could put on the puffy if I needed it.
I hiked over to the river and stood next to it for about a minute, steeling my resolve before and wondering what I was doing out here ready to walk miles down a river in 20 degrees. I worked up the courage to step out into the river. The water was obviously cold but warmer than the air, and I quickly crossed to the other side.
I followed a series of game trails down the river where I could. The trails were often good and led to decent shallow crossing points for the river. The river would wind back and forth between the walls of its canyon, causing me to have to cross it often.
As expected, the crossings left me cold, and I moved as quickly as I could between them to stay warm enough. My fingers and toes were the coldest, but I knew my body well enough to know that I would be able to keep this up for the time being.
The canyon was beautiful, and there were lots of side canyons with slots and petroglyphs and such to explore, but I rushed past all of that to stay warm and in the drive of my last day.
About halfway through the river, I entered some narrow sections where I even had to just wade straight down the river for a few hundred yards to add to the cold. When I took out my water bottle for a drink, it was slushy and starting to freeze up while I was wading through the water. I slept next to the water bottle, so the ice had definitely formed during the day. Proof that I’m serious that it was cold out. Let me repeat, my water bottle was turning to ice while I was constantly wading down a flowing river.
There were a couple of obstacles in the river. I came to some falls at a boulder jam and managed to work my way over the boulders and drop down after some time scoping it out. The grip on my shoes is already shot after 24 days, so I just had to be careful. Immediately after that was a bigger log jam and waterfall that consumed the width of the canyon. I had read that this could be down climbed, but definitely not with the amount of water that was flowing. There was an alternate to go around the falls by scrambling through some boulders, so that’s definitely what I had to do.
I scrambled up a bit, then had to take off my pack to squeeze through and down a crack into a void below a big slab of rock. Then I had to downclimb a vertical drop, which turned into an overhang, but thankfully there was a rope there to help with that. Then just a little more scrambling down before I got back to the river.
As I went downstream, more side streams came in to join the flow of the river. I got as much as knee-deep in it by choosing my path carefully, and it ranged from calm to whitewater crossings. Shortly after the waterfalls, I reached the Hayduke exit of the canyon. There was supposed to be an easier exit a little further downstream, but it looked like I could manage the Hayduke exit, so I opted for that to get out of the water as quickly as possible.
The scramble up from the river was a good Hayduke-style scramble, being steep, rocky, and brushy. It went through, but I definitely had to study a few spots for how to continue up. I made it to a saddle at the top of the climb with a campsite and took a well-deserved break in the sun to warm up and wolf down some more food. The sun never hit me in the canyon, which is half the reason I didn’t just wait till later in the day to go into the river. It was much warmer on top, and I was able to take off my layers and quickly warm up.
There were a fair amount of footprints now, and I was able to follow a cairned way trail for the rest of the day. It was fairly sandy, which made climbing a bit harder, but there were also stretches of slickrock to break it up. I shortly entered Zion National Park proper and was presented with the famous mesas of mostly white rock that towered above me. The mesas were fantastic and amazing scenery. I climbed up to the base of them, then circled around to come up the narrow gully next to Checkerboard Mesa, the icon of Zion.
I powered towards the end of the trail until I could see cars passing on the road. This was it! I waited for some cars to pass then stepped out onto the road to complete the trail! I got a bit emotional since this was a very tough trail and I had just successfully completed it. I wandered over to a road pullout and sat on a rock to process my thoughts. After a few minutes, a woman who was there with some children asked how far I hiked. Boy, did I have an answer for her! She then told one of her kids to go get me a beer! She apologized that it was water beer (Keystone Light), but I still gladly accepted. She and her kids were amazed at what I had done and asked me a bunch of questions before they left.
After I had collected myself, I went to the road and stuck out my thumb. It took about 20 minutes before a couple picked me up and took me to the visitor center where I caught a bus to Springdale. I mailed as much home as I could fit in a large flat rate box, the stuff I can’t carry on, and had shrimp tacos and a margarita to celebrate. I was killing some time before a bus was scheduled to St. George. I went to the visitor center and asked about the bus, and they said it was no longer running. Apparently Google and the bus website were wrong. That left me a bit stranded. All I could do was stick out my thumb again and hope for the best.
After about 15 minutes, Rob stopped and said he lived in St. George and could take me right there! We had a great conversation in the car, and he dropped me off right at the hotel I reserved. An amazing person, and much better than a bus ride! I strategically finished today to make it to Salt Lake City tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, in time to have dinner with family, so everything worked out.