Day Two of the National Parks trip started bright and early with a breakfast at the hotel. We then met up with our tour guide and headed off to Zion National Park. Our first stop when arriving in Zion was the Checkerboard Mesa. It was a short stop but breathtaking nonetheless. We then went to a longer stop and our first hike of the day: the Narrows. The Narrows are a long hike, stretching 8-10 miles. The first leg of the trip was not difficult, consisting of a one mile walk on flat road. However, the challenge began when we came face to face with the second part — hiking through a river. The water was below 40 degrees and came up to our waists. Without any proper gear, the trip was quite cold. However, the views along the way were more than worth the numb feet.
After hiking the narrows, we walked to the Grotto Trail of Zion National Park. The hike was about 3 hours long and consisted of many twists, turns and steep trails. While we walked, groups would venture off and crawl into the naturally occurring nooks and crannies of the mountain, each formed by thousands of years of ice, rain, and wind. Chipmunks, squirrels, and lizards darted back and forth across our path as we made our way up the mountain. Nathaniel ran ahead as the rest of us trudged along the beaten path. Our guide, Ryan, tricked us into continuing our journey by saying we were “two-thirds of the way up” when we most definitely were not. Nonetheless, the views were spectacular and made it worth the tough hike.
After a long day of hiking up 1500 feet of steep rock, we spent our evening at a cowboy dinner located on the boarder of Utah into Arizona. Cowboy John directed our group to a herd of longhorns in the field, just outside of our dining place. Hosted by Cowboy John and his friends, our group got to experience a warm firepit and a barbeque dinner in the middle of the desert. As the sun started to set, we gathered around the campfire and Cowboy John told us ghost stories … some fake, and some supposedly real. We ate dinner, made some s’mores, and stargazed, seeing spectacular views of the Milky Way due to a lack of light pollution out in the desert. As the fire died out, we gathered our things, hopped back on the bus, and made the journey back to the hotel.
Happy Trails y’all and rock on!!!