Hiking the West Rim Trail

    My family LOVES to back pack. Every year we try to go on at least one back packing trip. Most of the time they have been in Wyoming or Montana because my Aunt drives down from Montana with some of her kids to hike so we try to meet her half way. Well this year, she had to bring a few kids to EFY in Provo, so we did a hike in Southern Utah.
     I have hiked around in Zions before, but I have never hiked the West Rim Trail. That is what my Pops decided would be a good hike. This hike takes you out and behind the major Zion's canyons. You are up above most of them and can look down into the park. You end up hiking down into Angels Landing. Thinking about that seems weird because you hike up  A LOT to get to Angels Landing. Crazy as it is, the elevation we were at was WAY higher than Angels Landing, so yes, we did hike down into Angels Landing.
     We left from Cedar City late Sunday night just to camp at the trailhead. We got to our camp spot when it was dark, so we attempted to set up the tents in the dark and just sleep. In the AM we packed up and had some breakfast. After a rather uneventful few hours, my dad and aunt returned from getting permits and leaving a vehicle at the bottom of the hike so we could get home.  We loaded up the other car and
drove to the actual trail head and started our hike.
     The weather was kind of hot, but we were blessed with clouds along the way and a little bit of sprinkles to cool us down. We saw LOTS of lizards and even a few horny toads. We were supposed to cross a spring around lunch time to refill our water, but somehow we missed it completely. We were a few miles away before we noticed we had passed it. I guess it was a good thing that we backed in a little bit of extra water for such situations.
    Just when we thought all was lost because we were running low on water, we came to our campsite! It was a pretty decent looking sight. The only bad thing about it was that the water was located 1.5 miles down the trail from us. 1.5 miles doesn't seem like a lot, but when you have to carry enough water for dinner, the rest of the night, and for breakfast, that is kind of a lot of water to haul UP hill for a mile and a half. Lucky for me, the strong men of the group, (minus Paul, he stayed to protect the women ;) hee hee), volunteer to get water for us so the rest of us girls and Paul, could rest our wary legs.
     While the boys were gone, I took a sneaky little nap on my dad's air mattress then spent the rest of the waiting time with Paul, Lincey, and Aunt Leanna talking and trying to catch a lizard. We never caught a lizard, but eventually the boys came back with water so we could cook our dinners.
     After dinner we pretended to not light a fire, (because there are fire restrictions), and we burned our garbage so we would have less to pack out. By this time the sun was setting and it was AMAZING! The smoke from all the forest fires must have affected it because it was
beautiful. The sun was hot pink and the clouds were yellows and oranges. It was really neat.

    In the morning, we packed up camp and hiked down to the spring to refill our water. The goal for today was to hike out. We were only doing a short hike this year because of time constraints. So we hiked down, and down, and down, and down some more until we were looking up at the 1,000 foot cliff wall we had just hiked down. It was pretty impressive. By about 10 we got to the start of the chains for Angels Landing. Not everyone wanted to go on the hike to the top of that, so we left our packs with them and everyone but my mom and aunt hiked to the top.
     Of course, I had to take my frisbee to the top and play catch with Paul on Angels Landing. It was pretty scary actually because it was crazy windy. Paul and I both love to dive after the frisbee, and if we would have tried such a thing, we would probably be dead. So we controlled our urges to throw long passes and kept with the short ones. When we had had our fun atop the Landing, we met up with the ladies at the bottom. My mom and aunt had gathered all of the back packs into a little circle and they were standing guard with their hiking poles. Apparently squirrels were getting into the food in our packs and they had to bat them off wit their sticks! A squirrel got into my trail mix and ate half of it! good thing it was in an outside pocket so I didn't end up with a hole chewed through my new pack!
     When we finally got down Walters Wiggles and all of the rest of the trail it was REALLY hot outside. Probably around 102. That doesn't seem too terribly hot, but we had heavy packs on and were tired already from yesterday, so it seemed like it was ridiculously hot! So we did the only logical thing to do at that point, we stripped off our packs and shoes and jumped in the river. It was cold, but it felt so great to not be deliriously hot.
    Once we had cooled down we caught the shuttle to the car at the bottom of the hike, jammed 10 people and 10 backpacks into the suburban and drove back up to the top of the trail head to get our other car.
    When we got home, the plan was to get some Tikki Shack, but my little brother Tallus was insistent on making us a pineapple upside down cake so we decided to save the shack for tomorrows adventures. We cooked some amazing lasagna in the dutch oven and Tallus attempted to make us a cake. Sadly, his cake didn't really turn out. I don't know why, but it was like a carmel sauce instead of a cake. I felt real bad because he was really bummed about it. So we attempted to eat some to show our support. And then we went to bed. He will get better at it with practice I think. Anyway, tomorrow the plan is to take the family to Kanarraville Falls so that should be fun.