There are few things better than a road trip with friends. And, being back in the US with some greatly missed friends (and boyfriend) a road trip was the perfect medicine for a dab of reverse culture shock.
This adventure started in Utah, where I was visiting Nico (the boyfriend) who was finishing up his internship in Park City. We were joined by a few friends (Robbie, Kristen, and Macy) who were road tripping from the LA area and planning to pick us up and drive to Denver to visit our friend, Steve. I could write about the Utah/Colorado portion of the trip, but honestly it was just a lot of sitting in the car and playing weird drinking games. Cut to: Macy wearing a dinosaur hat, drinking alcohol from a saucer on the floor without using her hands.
After a more than pleasant Colorado trip, The group began the drive back to California. Before heading all the way home, though, we went to Zion. Now, let me tell you how important air conditioning is when driving through Utah in June: Extremely important. If the heat wasn't going to kill us, Nico would have due to my excessive complaints and inability to say anything except "I'm so hot."
We finally arrived, set up camp, and rented water shoes to hike The Narrows. This was a really cool experience. We navigated our way through the river with vertical cliffs of rock on either side. Many parts were shallow enough to walk through while others were deep enough to swim in. We came to an area full of small rock stacks so, naturally, we had to stop and wait for the boys to create towers.
Robbie, Casey, and Nico
Macy, Kristen, Robbie
Many rock stacks
Nico & Robbie goofing around as usual
Rock stack
Ladies, Macy & Kristen
Rob
Nico and me
The Narrows stretches on for miles. Most people, like us, hike in a ways and then decide to turn around because of the distance and risk of flash flooding. I'm not sure exactly how far we went into the Narrows, but we kept a slow pace on account of stopping to stack rocks or swim.
Another important lesson in camping in hot weather is to bring a big enough tent. We squeezed 6 people in a 5 person tent and I got just about the worst night's sleep in my life. Even flipping around to be at people's feet couldn't save me from roasting in our oven of a tent.
The trip was short so I don't have anything to say about any other hikes in the park. I do want to go back someday. I've heard there are a lot of other great things to do in Zion. Next time I'll bring either less people or a bigger tent.
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