This past weekend we took a trip out to Zion to get out of town and hang with some friends of ours Mandy and Ben. On saturday I went mountain biking at a place called Gooseberry Mesa which is a huge mesa (as you might have guessed) just south of Zion at about 5200' elevation. The biking trails are the best I've ridden and the views are second to none. The trails ride along the rim of the mesa which drops away 2000' with incredible vistas of Zion and the surrounding canyon-lands. The trails are mostly slickrock (marked with white dots to keep you on track) linked with short sections of tight and twisty singletrack through sage and juniper trees. To top it off, its all BLM land so you can pretty much camp anywhere, which we did.
On Sunday, we met up with Ben and Mandy and hiked a section of the Narrows, one of the more popular hikes in Zion. The Narrows refers to a section of the Virgin River which has cut a very deep and narrow passage through the surrounding Navajo sandstone. The whole thing is about 12 miles or so but we just did the lower 3 miles hiking up and back for 6 miles round-trip.
You can see part of the trail in the lower right.
The white dots marked the trail on the slickrock portions. These sections were technical and committing! Overall it was not a fast trail-mostly tight twisty with lots of short hops up and off of ledges.
View to the north.
The West Temple from Gooseberry Mesa.
The killer free campsite we found!
2 comments:
wow, miss you man, sent a 7b+ in three goes on my first climbing trip in three months. can't wait to see you. glad that you are feeling better, and i wish that someday we will share experiences together again.
Pretty awesome pictures! Hear it is back to the North Slope, you lucky dog! Be safe and stay in touch. Love you, Mom
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