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| UTAH: ZION, BRYCE & DIXIE |
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Russ Stein
Not every hostel trip has to be a lenghty overseas backpacking voyage. I've been living in Salt Lake City, UT for the ski season, and my friend and I were looking for a quick and cheap weekend trip to Utah's National Parks to do some hiking. Looking on hostels.com (my favorite site!) under Find Hostels, I saw several hostels listed in southern Utah close to the parks.
Of course there's Moab's world renowned Lazy Lizard, which is close to Arches and Canyonland's National Parks, but I've already taken several great trips to Moab. Also listed was the Kanab Backpackers hostel, but a call to the 800 number was picked up at the front desk of the Las Vegas Backpackers Hostel. An Aussie girl - who's voice sounded familiar from when I stayed there on my way to Utah - says that Kanab hasn't opened yet this season because of permit problems. She recommends the Dixie Hostel in Hurricane instead, which is also on the list. I check my Rand McNally USA Road Atlas (the world's best book!) and see that Hurricane is a town about 20 miles east of St. George, UT, and about 20 miles west of Zion National Park, with Bryce another 100 or so miles to the northeast. Perfect.
My friend April and I decide to drive down to Hurricane on Friday night. I don't call ahead for reservations, thinking that since it's still March there will be plenty of space. My theory is that hostel trips shouldn't be too carefully planned or else they lose their sense of adventure. Friday afternoon April calls and informs me that for reasons that are still unclear, we can't leave until early Saturday morning. Geez.
So very early Saturday morning we hit the road, grabbing Sausage McMuffins and coffee at a rest stop. What's better than road food early in the morning? We drove directly to Zion National Park, arriving about 11 a.m.
It cost us 20 bucks to drive the car into Zion, which bothered me a bit. It also costs 10 bucks per person to walk or bike in. Of course you get a 7 day pass for 20 bucks, but give me a break. Let me buy a day pass for three bucks please! Has anyone else besides me noticed that the Park Service has transformed itself over the years from friendly teacher and guide to scolding environmental police force? They seem to focus mostly on guarding the parks against people and cars, and less on park education and appreciation. Last summer an Arches Park ranger spoke sharply to me during a nature walk when I inadvertently stepped on some cryptobiotic crust, which ruined the walk for me.
Anyhow, we paid the steep 20 dollar gate fee and drove into Zion. So much for a cheap weekend. Once inside Zion, things improved dramatically. A friendly ranger at the Visitor's Center suggested the West Rim Trail to the Angel's Landing Trail, for a 4 hour hike. This turned out to be a perfect afternoon hike.
We parked at the Zion Lodge and followed the trail along the Virgin River. The trail left the river and we followed it up what appeared to be a sheer cliff, ascending via about 15 switchbacks, the top one cutting right through the cliff rock. As we gained elevation the view became more and more spectacular, looking back down the Zion Valley. After more switchbacks we turned onto the Angel's Landing Trail, which follows the spine of a steep and narrow summit, topping out at 5990 ft. The trail essentially became a rock and boulder ladder from that point on, and we made use of the chains drilled into the rock marking the trail.
We were pretty impressed by our own efforts until we saw a team of climbers working their way straight up the sheer cliff on the north side of Angel's Landing. The cliff drops at least 1,000 feet to the valley floor, and we watched the climbers hauling tents and gear to their position halfway up the cliff. They could have simply asked a ranger if there was a trail, right?
We made the summit and rested a bit while we took in the views of the valley's weirdly eroded rock, and then headed back down. It was a perfect day, capped off with a woodpecker sighting at the Visitor's Center on the way out. Just outside the park gate we watched a bat hunt bugs over a dirt lot. Bats are cool.
The Park Service has a good web site with Zion information and great Acrobat maps of the park. Click here to check it out.
For grub we pounded burgers and shakes at Kent's in La Verkin on our way into Hurricane. Why does food always taste much better after a hike? We ate outside watching the sun set, and it dawned on me that paradise is basically southern Utah in the early spring. At dusk the weather was a perfect mid-60's, there were no insects, hardly any traffic, and the heat and crowds of the summer tourist season are still a few months off. We could see the red, white and blue lights of the Chevron sign down the street, and all around us were the shadows of big slate canyon walls. Weird!
We drove into Hurricane to the Dixie hostel. It was beautiful. I have stayed in a lot of hostels in the USA, from near homeless shelters all the way up to HI's luxury restored Victorian in downtown Sacramento, but I've never stayed in such a pleasant, clean, friendly and generally excellent hostel as the Dixie hostel in Hurricane, UT. It was just perfect and there was plenty of space. After settling in we talked for a while with our fellow travelers in the hostel's comfortable dining/social room. One guy had just left L.A. (smart move) and was going to work at Zion for the summer.
Another man said he had quit his professional job with enough money to road trip around for a while. He had just arrived from skiing in Western Colorado, and was a bit vague on his timetable and final destination. Very cool. We talked for a while and then hit the sack, exhausted.
The Dixie has several rooms on the second floor, each with four very comfortable bunks. My roommate turns out to be the retired professional, who is very nice about the light and doesn't snore at all. A perfect roommate! In the morning we found a plate of sliced grapefruit and coffee in the dining room, so we ate a bit before heading out. The Dixie hostel also has a neat and spacious kitchen for cooking if you bring your own food, but we weren't ambitious enough to cook. Maybe next time.
The quickest way to Bryce from Hurricane is Highway 9, which takes us right back into Zion Canyon and then out over the Park's east rim. The road hairpins back and forth as it climbs out of the canyon and there are more spectacular views of Zion from the top. Then we pass through several very impressive tunnels which go under massive rock formations, and finally we are out of the Park.
About an hour later we pulled into Bryce Nat'l Park. We choose a hike which takes us on a loop down into the canyon, through the spectacular rock formations. The Park is basically high ground to the west, and a cliff that drops off to the east, except the rock on the east eroded at different rates, leaving hundreds of tall rock towers, called hatrocks, standing on the cliff and down in the valley. The elevation at Bryce is quite high, the high ground rising to about 7000 feet, and it was still quite cool in the middle of the day. In a few spots the trail was still covered over with snow which hadn't melted yet, and our shoes became caked with red mud. The late morning and afternoon sun is also quite intense at that elevation, and we got a bit burned. Bring sunscreen!
After hiking we had a very late lunch at a forgettable restaurant outside the park gate, and then drove out to Bryce's most southern overlook to watch the sun go down over the hatrocks. They look unnatural at sunset, like rows of marching aliens. Weird!
Driving back to Salt Lake we nearly hit a deer, but April was somehow able to stop right before impact. That would have spoiled what had been a perfect hostel weekend in southern Utah, but it didn't.
Russ Stein
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