Yeux Verts: Zion

A handful of my friends and I went down to Zion a couple weekends ago to hike the West Rim trail. We stayed in my friend Dane's family's cabin up by Kolob Resevoir. We got in late Friday night and while half of us drove down to leave a car in Zion the other half of us stayed at the cabin building a fire and eating s'mores. What was suppose to be only an hour and a half trip turned into 3 hours and by the time everyone got back we were really worried and really tired. But of course the 4 of us girls stayed up late talking before heading to bed :)

We got up early Saturday, drove out to Lava Point and then began our 18 mile hike. It was beautiful. There were moments where I could not describe the scenery; there is no other place like it in the whole world. Thankfully we have all shared our photos with each other so here ya go!

Cedar City on the way up to Kolob. You could see the entire Valley!

Sunrise

If you look closely you can see me peeking through the top window

Before we started the hike

This was most of what the beginning of the hike looked like- lots of green

The first great view we got. This is the entire backside of Zion National Park

(click it to see it full size...so pretty!)

We had a lot of fun telling and solving riddles as we marched on

Stumbled upon this guy at the beginning of the trail. He barely moved as we inched past

Once we got out of the wooded, green area we hit this beautiful sight. Breath taking moment, spurred on by the idea that even mountains bleed

Part of the "down" climb (no wonder my ankles hurt afterwards)

And this is what most of the end of the hike looked like - white rock (and very very hot!)

Back up again, Angels Landing is to the far right

The river that saved us all from heat exhaustion after hiking for 6 1/2 hours, ascending 2000 feet, descending 4000 feet, and running out of water for the last few miles