OK, southern Utah – really all of Utah, with few exceptions – is fucking beautiful. For all of America’s skeptical fascination with (and underhanded humor about) Mormons, no one can say they don’t have fantastic taste in epic scenery. Not sure about the agricultural viability of the region, but residents enjoy some outrageous landscapes, and a great variety of them too. We spent 5 days in Moab last summer and made it to the La Sal National Forest, and Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. All awesome. So this time through we wanted to get in a couple of the ones we missed.

Once we headed out from the Grand Canyon, we spent the rest of the day driving up around the east side of the Grand Canyon and past the Vermillion Cliffs to get to the Dixie National Forest, where we planned to camp. The goal for our camping was to get up in the mountains between Zion and Bryce, so we’d be accessible to both, but also avoid some of the mid-summer heat. Like last year, our unfortunate timing put us back in Utah in the June/July heat, so we had to suck it up and make some plans for early-in-the-day hikes and high altitude escapes. The drive up to Dixie National Forest was, of course, beautiful, but also stark and dry, and violently orange-y red. Ryan had been saving up the soundtrack from the new Mad Max to play once we made it to this brutally pretty part of our trip. So we barreled through these wild views head banging to the eerie, crunchy, base heavy sounds of Mad Max.

We stopped in Kanab for some supplies and happened to see some definitely polygamous families around in full pioneer regalia. Not unexpected in this region, and also, as many Mormons and other Utah residents will tell you, certainly not “the norm”. Still, jarring.

As we made our way up into the National Forest, a big storm rolled over. At one point we were faced with hail, rain, lightening, and thunder. In high elevation these storms are pretty energetic. By the time we found our ideal campsite along a random forest road, the storm had blown over and the sun was low in the evening sky. Ryan cooked us up a little camp dinner and we made plans for an early morning hike in Zion National Park.

We got up early the next morning, drove the hour to Zion, and into the park. Entering the park was like landing on a different planet. Right away the views began, and we pulled off to take a few pictures of animals and park features before we even made it to the visitor center.

After winding our way in, we headed off to the Angel’s Landing trailhead. In Zion, the main scenic drive can only be experienced via the park shuttle, as they don’t allow other cars. The system makes a ton of sense – traffic in other parks and parking at various trailheads is often a pain and it feels counterintuitive to access these feats of nature by cruising around in an air conditioned car, spewing emissions as you go. But even knowing this system makes sense, reverting to public transportation after weeks of driving along at our own pace is a bit of a bummer. But it was cool to both be able to fully enjoy the scenery with no fear of driving off of a cliff as we made our way to the trailhead.

Once we got to the trail, we started slow and steady up the switchbacks of Angel’s Landing. Even fairly early the trail was busy. We’ve mostly tried to avoid the heavy traffic trails on our trip, but I couldn’t resist choosing to hike this iconic “most popular trail in the park,” so we were definitely in the thick of it. Never fun to be caught up in a tour group, but we persevered!

We made it up to the most severe part of this infamous trail. Signs greet you, warning, “six people have died on this trail since 2004,” and telling you that you should be prepared with good shoes and not push yourself beyond your own comfort level. I figured some of this was just common sense, thinking it couldn’t be that big of a challenge, but was surprised to find the trail was actually pretty tough and not a little scary. This was all made much worse by the unending stream of hikers that made what was basically a one way trail a constant stop-and-go affair. Many times I was stuck in a pretty awkward, not super safe corner of the trail, in order to let people coming the other way pass through. At a certain point, Ryan, who isn’t particularly comfortable with great heights, extreme sports, or idiot tourists rushing along 1,000 foot drop offs, decided the last mile of the narrow, winding trail was not for him. He very patiently made his way partly down the trail to wait in the shade, so that I could push on. It was way less fun to keep going without him, but I kept on. There was a fair amount of semi-climbing/scrambling, and by the time I made it up, the heat of the day was starting to set in, the crowds were really unpleasant, and I definitely starting to feel some exhaustion in my arms and legs. Totally glad I did it, the views were stunning the whole way, but was also very happy to get back down to Ryan. His passionate kiss upon greeting me made me feel like a returning war hero. Would love to attempt this trail again in the offseason, much earlier in the day, but happy I got to give it a shot this summer.

We leisurely hiked back down. On our way we encountered a large group of girls from an Orthodox Jewish girls camp who were hiking up the trail. Was not at all jealous of their long leggings under long skirts, with long sleeved shirts on this hot day in the sun. One 13 yr oldish girl enthusiastically asked me, “Are you Jewish?” I quizzically responded, “Um, no…do I look like it?” She answered, “Yes! Well…sort of…” Still have no clue the meaning of this interaction, what caused her to ask me, unprompted, if I was Jewish, what I meant by “do I look like it?” or what she meant by “yes, well, sort of…”. But the large group of chatty tween-age girls scattered along at various points, huffing up the steep trail were an entertaining bunch to hike past.

By the time we got back down the trail it was early afternoon and we rode back to our car on a hot, sweaty shuttle, with an occasional, blissful breeze blowing in from the shuttle window. Much more time could be spent exploring this park, but we were pretty ready to get out of the crowds and heat, and escape up to the higher altitude of our campsite area.

We watched as storm clouds gathered on our way back up the mountains, and stopped for ice cream in Duck Creek, a small resort “town” on the mountainside.

Rain, thunder, and lightening started again, but Ryan could not be deterred from a little afternoon fishing at a nearby lake. I joined him, and although we weren’t successful, it was a fun way to spend the chilly, rainy afternoon. After several non-showering days, you better believe we did a little scrubbing off in the lake. Not sure if the fishermen in the distance saw me sprinting around, turning purple from cold, in my underwear, in the lake, but it was worth it to get free of the days old sunscreen and dirt combo that was coating my body. Ryan and I were both yelping from the cold water.

That night, back in our tent after a full day, we planned for the next day. Around 9:30 we heard the closest pack of coyotes yet this trip. Their eerie, evening round-up call echoed into the night air for about a minute and a half in the caldera behind our campsite. Perfect end to a wild day.