Zion National Park

Another national park! And a short ride day! I had never been to Zion before today and, in hindsight, I wish we had a lot more time there. Everything was amazing! The whole ride there was pretty difficult and the anxiousness that I had felt to get there made the ride seem that much longer. I rode in that day with Colleen and we went veeeeeryyyy slowly. I think it was because I was so sore from hiking two days earlier in the Grand Canyon. After a long ride to the park entrance, we finally got there and then had a huge descent to the campsite! It was probably the happiest I’ve ever been on my bike! The roads all the way down were so smooth and were fun curves through the rocks and into the valley. We were going so fast that we were actually waiting on the cars to speed up so that we could go faster. Every feeling of pain and sluggishness that I had felt the hours before was gone and so worth it! We descended until getting to a huge tunnel that goes through the mountain. We aren’t allowed to go through the tunnel on a bike because it’s too dark and there have been serious injuries in there. They will actually fine you for biking through the tunnel. So, we had to sit on the rocks and wait for the van to come pick us up and shuttle us to the other side where we continued the rest of the descend into the camp site. When we got there, we set up all the tents and got ready to go hiking! I had wanted to hike the narrows, and today was a perfect day for it because of how hot it was and how perfect the water felt. The narrows is a 16-mile hike that is all through the river that runs through and helped cut the valley in Zion. You basically just hike up the river. It starts off pretty wide but they said that eventually the walls narrow in so close that you can touch either side with both hands at the same time. Unfortunately, I had to cook dinner that night so I wasn’t able to hike very far through the narrows but I made it far enough that I was out there for about 3 hours. I went with Ashley, JoBeth, Hannah, Liz, and Colleen. Eventually, some others caught up with us but I mostly stayed with those five people. I really loved this hike and I look forward to the day that I get to go back and complete the whole thing, and hopefully getting a permit to go all the way to the end. I went back eventually to make the dinner for everyone with my chore group. We made some super yummy tacos! The rest of the night was just us hanging out and talking in the camp, enjoying everyone’s company. Emma tried to help me learn how to throw a Frisbee a little better but I have a lot of work to do. She is on the ultimate Frisbee club team at Carolina so she’s super awesome at it! That night, we decided that we were all going to wake up really late and not have route meeting until 11 that morning so that people who wanted to get another hike in were able to! We also had a short ride so we could afford the delay in the day.