day 12 and 13: washington, zion nat’l park.

Washington, Utah, was the last big stay of our trip, and it was perfect.

At the tail end of our travels, we wanted to be somewhere that felt relaxing. So after reading lots and lots of reviews, I found us a condo in the Washington/St. George area. This is two hours from Bryce Canyon (which is why we stopped on our way from Moab), and 45 minutes from Zion National Park.

We preferred to be able to get a nicer place even if it was a bit further distance from the parks, and that was a good decision because by then most of the family was done with hiking, especially the little guys. We loved our four night stay at the Coral Springs Resort. Our condo was spacious and comfortable, and we made good use of the pools and hot tubs.

We arriving on Friday night, and the kids and I chose to spend Saturday doing this:

David decided to head into Zion for a big hike and to scout out the park for us.

Here’s an important fact I’ve learned about the national parks on our trip: Experiencing them well involves a lot of work.

I’m spoiled by our forays into Congaree National Park back home in SC, because you don’t even have to pay to visit. You just pull up, park several feet from the Visitor’s Center, and choose your hike. There are a couple of different spots for tent camping and canoeing which David or I have done in years’ past.

Well, Congaree is not a typical national park experience. There’s no “dropping by” the parks we’ve visited this month, no matter how organized you are. For the very quickest visit, you’re looking at a minimum of 2-3 hours and a lot of preparation. But that’s okay, because, as much as I enjoy Congaree, these other parks have far, far more to offer.

But here’s a glimpse of the process:

First of all, there’s nearly always a line of vehicles to enter. We avoid going at peak times so have never had to wait longer than 25 minutes, which sometimes means we have to wake up early and sometimes have to head out late in the day. So we schedule our day around the park visit and not vice versa.

If you aren’t able to get a fourth grader parks pass, you can purchase a National Park pass online for $80 for the year, which is a great deal if you plan to visit several of the parks, or even one several times. Entrance fees are typically $30 for a car per day.

Second, there are crowds of people at all times (the one exception was our evening hike at Canyonlands). September is still considered peak tourist season, and it actually wasn’t as bad as we feared but as you can see from our photos, there were always people around.

And finally, often there’s no parking at the trail heads where you’d like to hike, so you park in a farther lot and walk, or use the shuttle system. Zion actually requires all visitors to use the shuttles. We always stop by the visitors’ center first (which is its own shuttle stop), unload, and head inside to pick up Junior Ranger booklets and get our passport sticker/stamp (and use the bathrooms!). Then we load back up and forge ahead to find our hikes.

This is where I’d like to thank David.

As you can see, every single park visit requires research and planning. You don’t just drive in whenever you feel like it and poke around for a good hike. Well you can, but it isn’t wise with kids. You’ll waste a lot of time trying to figure out where you are and how to get around and find parking. So David worked before each one of our park visits to research optimum times to visit, suitable hikes for young kids, to schedule our time in the park, and to make sure we found the best viewing spots.

Then of course for each visit you make sure to pack plenty of high-protein snacks, water, sunscreen, and hats. For six people.

This is an exhausting process. Please hear me: it’s totally worth it. But just understand that the better prepared you are, the more you’ll enjoy your experience.

So, all of this to say, I was happy to send David off alone on Saturday to experience Zion at his own pace.

Angels Landing, Observation Point

Angels Landing and Observation Point are the two most famous hikes at Zion. David checked them out online the night before and read that Angels Landing was closed, so decided to at least go for Observation Point, but was surprised and very happy when he arrived to find it had just reopened.

You guys, I had no idea what these hikes involve, and I’m glad I didn’t, because I would not have felt relaxed all day Saturday while David was in Zion.

Angels Landing is a 5-mile round trip hike up a mountain and across a ridge with one thousand foot drops on either side.

My husband read the warnings on the sign that 6 people have died on this hike in the last 14 years and thought, Well, I guess the odds are in my favor.

Yes, after a few miles of switchbacks that make our hike in Bryce Canyon look like a kids’ jungle gym, you ascend the ridge using a chain. I am dizzy just writing this blog post.

David hiked all the way along the ridge you see in the above photo and back.

He finished up Angel’s Landing and decided to go for Observation Point, an 8-mile round trip that takes you to a view of the entire park. You’re able to look down on Angel’s Landing.

Like the overachiever that he is, David finished both hikes in 4 hours, and drove 45 minutes home to us.

He came back tired and sore but thrilled. Hard hikes in the wonder of God’s creation are truly his happy place.

He told us that Zion is his favorite park so far. It has the rocky-orange and textured rocks of Arches and Canyonlands, but also mountainous green and the Virgin River winding through it.

It makes me happy that he’s been able to take these two big hikes alone. I feel like all our work and travel is all the more worth it when he can explore even more of what these grand places have to offer.

Oh, and to top it all off, he saw this at the end:

A tarantula!!!

The Narrows

We saw Zion as a family on Sunday which was Day 13 of our trip, and even after a day of rest, the kids were tired (and it felt like we’d been gone much longer than 13 days).

So here’s where I tell you my epic packing fail of the trip: my camera battery.

Yep, that was the only big thing I forgot, and it was pretty important. I’m very, very thankful for such a great camera that I didn’t even notice until over halfway through our trip. I felt sick to my stomach, immediately ordered a new battery on Amazon, but no matter how I tried (and even contacted the condo owner), couldn’t work out how to get it delivered to our place in Washington. I imagine I could’ve worked it out somehow but was too tired to try.

It’s okay.

I loved using our camera for most of our trip, and I loved that David’s interest in photography was revived and he took lots of pictures too. But by this point I was exhausted and not as sad as I expected to be. Smart phones are great.

And also, to be perfectly honest, there’s an overwhelming sense in every single national park of A photo could never capture this.

I felt that failure every time I craned my body to snap a picture.

Of course there are incredibly skilled photographers in the world with amazing equipment, and I love that through the wonder of the Internet and social media, we can benefit from their hard work. But even then.

Some things are just too big. They make you feel your proper place. You are not the center. There is much more in this world than a picture on the internet can show. You’ve got to go out and find it for yourself.

I love that feeling.

I have loved it every time I’ve traveled overseas, and I love it now, traveling across America.

This is the wonder that I treasure up in my heart as we wind our journey down.

I will never, ever forget this beauty. I will never forget the enormity of it all.

The Narrows was one of those choking-up with wonder moments.

After visiting Bryce Canyon I thought I couldn’t possibly feel anything like that moment of walking through hushed glowing orange tunnels with my family, with no idea what lay just around the bend.

But then we hiked in the Virgin River, together. With sharp, slippery canyon walls rising on each side.

I put my hands on those walls, felt the strength of them.

I watched my children stumble and navigate the slippery rocks, wincing in ice-cold water. Some of them (Noah), were horrified and wanted only to be carried through. That’s okay. His dad and I took turns holding him because we knew he just had to be with us, in this experience. He has to know what it feels like to hike through a flowing river, even if it’s just in blurred-edge snatches of memory later on. This is part of who he is now. And we are here to help him.

The others were shivering with cold, but grinning with the effort of trying something they’ve never tried before. Yep. It’s okay to get as wet as you want.

There were little beaches to gather rocks on, and to fashion smooth, round “sand balls.” There was a slender waterfall, sparkling in the slant of evening sun that reached it’s ray down to us, at the bottom. There were people around us, speaking all sorts of languages, struggling through the river too, laughing when, like us, they stumbled and got hit in the chest with ice-cold water.

At one moment, Judah turned to look back at David and me and his face was lit-up with excitement.

That isn’t something I caught on camera, but it’s imprinted on my heart, him so happy, all of us happy.

These are the moments you work for as a parent, aren’t they?

When your kids catch the scent of that wonder, all of the internet research and miles on the road and smelly bathrooms and rocky hiking trails feel worth it.

We turned around after about 45 minutes, and found our way back up the river and then sloshed back along the path, shivering in the faded evening light. It was chilly, but this is the time of day the mule deer come out, and we paused time and again, quieting, to see several watching us from the dappled shadows just off the path, their large velvety ears lined with black.

We hosed off sandy shoes and feet at the trail head and waited in line for the shuttle.

Yes, The Narrows is a special place.