We drove to Hurricane Wednesday night after I got home from work and stayed the night there. Thursday morning we hiked Hidden Canyon and the Emerald Pools trails and then drove on the Mt. Carmel Highway for several miles to see the upper plateau. Both the hikes were fun and the weather was gorgeous for us--not too hot or too cold. We packed a lunch for the day and ate it at the top of the Hidden Canyon trail just before you head back into the canyon. We sat on a high shaded rocky overhang overlooking the amazing red sandstone cliffs. It was awesome!
We saw more of a variety of wildlife than we were expecting on our trip. We had several lizards, a snake, and a tarantula cross our path on the various trails, as well as a family of deer off to the side of the road during the two days we were there.
We stayed in Hurricane that Thurs. night again and drove back into the park Friday morning to hike Angel's Landing. Neither of us had ever hiked Angel's Landing before and we totally loved it. It was such a cool hike with amazing views of the whole canyon. The last .6 miles of the hike is out on a steep, narrow, rocky ridge that has a series of poles and chains so that you don't fall of the edge of the cliff a few steps away on either side of you. It was so much fun and the view from the top was incredible! Again, the weather was so nice and we were able to hike in shade for most of the way to the top. We ate another picnic lunch while enjoying the incredible views. (Jason's commentary: Did Julie mention that she had us prepared with so much food that I had on my back the bulkiest backpack on of anyone in the park? That's not an exaggeration either. Lots of people had little camel packs with water and maybe some snacks. However, I was hauling around enough food and water to have a gourmet picnic lunch two days in a row at the top of cliffs. I never saw anyone carrying around as bulky of a backpack as me. Julie would have been a good boy scout--be prepared, right? I've told her before that she should be Scoutmaster rather than me : )
After Angel's Landing we walked along the Riverwalk trail to the base of the Narrows, but we didn't go into the water at all. It was pretty packed with people going into, coming out of, and just sitting around this area. Maybe another time we'll actually hike all the way into the Narrows, but that is an adventure for another day.
That evening we stayed in St. George. We ate at Brick Oven Pizza, hit the outlets and found some great deals on clothes, and then caught the 4th quarter of the BYU v. University of Central Florida football game on ESPN just before Florida fumbled the ball on a punt return and we scored a touchdown to take the lead of a tie game. It was a great 4th quarter!
Saturday morning we did a session at the St. George temple and took tours of the Brigham Young winter home and the Jacob Hamblin home in Santa Clara before heading back home. We tried to stop in Nephi for ice cream at Frost T Freeze where my family always stopped whenever we drove through Nephi on vacation, but it has since gone out of business.Too bad, I think I'll have to make the Culver's in Midvale our new tradition--their frozen custard is delicious!
Feel free to glance through the slide show of pictures at the bottom of the blog, but the pictures don't really do justice to the beautiful places we saw.
