If a trail isn’t closed, we’ve hiked it. Biked to it. Taken a tram to it. Pictured it. Blogged about it. Yesterday we were wondering if there was anything else in Zion to see. Anything else to explore. We’ve exhausted all the park gift shops, which don’t have Sheri’s want of a dashboard hoodoo or an 8×10 matted horizontal framed picture of a Zion landmark. So we asked the internet – what’s unmarked in Zion?
“Take the tram to Canyon Junction and walk 1/2 mile to the first switchback leading to the Mt. Carmel tunnel. There you will find a makeshift trail that leads to a 10 foot waterfall. Some areas will be open and obvious, others require stream crossing and bouldering. You may want to bring rope.” Sounds promising …
When a path is made for you it’s easy to keep forging ahead, even when it’s painful, like at Angel’s Landing. When you are charting your own path, it’s easy to stop when roadblocks appear. At the first river crossing, Sheri settled into a boulder while Eric scouted ahead. After watching his maneuvers, Not Today resonated in her brain.
The scout was gone for what seemed like forever, especially when there is no phone service and loud calls – Eric? Eric? Can you hear me? Eric? Where are you? – go unanswered. He appeared with news that he was stopped by a giant rock formation with no get-around. Perhaps we could try another way.
Trampling around among the flowering prickly pears and thorny brush, we tried another crossing to a shale ledge to move upstream chasing waterfalls.
Thwarted again, we abandoned this idea when Eric asked, “what about scaling that rock over there?” And off he went while Sheri settled into a boulder to survey the scene.
The persistent rain made for soft terrain and when Sheri’s calls again went unanswered, she dug her Keen boots into the ground like the Price is Right mountain climber, yodeling her way up to find him.
He must have seen her coming, as he snapped this pic and immediately descended, perhaps sensing impending doom. Meeting up at this cliff side rest-stop for BLT on pumpernickel toast, they watched the tunnel traffic switchback and the rain clouds roll in and contemplated why it’s more fun to scramble than to follow the paved paths. In the end, we decided our inner explorer wants to discover something that hasn’t been discovered, so the road less travelled and the undefined path calls out our curiosity and tricks us into go-for-it mode.
And while it’s scary and exciting and sometimes stupid in the process, it’s the after story that keeps us going.
We waked the paved Pa ‘ Rus trail home. With only 4 days left in Zion we’ll keep exploring and next time, bring rope.