WHAT I WISH I KNEW BEFORE HIKING NATIONAL PARKS IN ARIZONA AND UTAH, part one

When I decided to hike the national parks in Arizona and Utah as part of my Empty Nester Travel Bender and 55th birthday present to myself, I honestly had no idea what I was in for. First, my birthday is in August. It’s hot in August. I should have given that a little more thought. 

I also should have given some thought to the fact that I’m not a regular hiker, meaning I don’t hike often, like less than once a year. Sure, I have a pair of hiking boots I bought back when I set a goal of hiking Kilimanjaro about seven years ago (nope, never went, the mounting expenses post-boots of flight, guides, vaccinations and more got away from me). And I had a really great backpack that I bought for that same trip. What I didn’t have was experience hiking. But I figured how hard can it be? You walk one foot in front of the other, right? Just with an incline. Easy.

So that tells you just how prepared I was for this trip. 

Yes, I did the online research and knew I had to apply for permits months in advance. I submitted my name into the lottery for Angel’s Landing three months before, as instructed, and actually “won” their lottery and got a permit for a specific day and time. Score! (If you’re looking to do this hike, your first step should be to check the National Park Service website for required permits for whatever park you’re visiting. This link will give you an idea of the one for Angel’s Landing for 2024.)

And I did the same for the permit for “the Wave”, the one that only 2% of people who apply online each year get, and somehow, miraculously, also “won” that lottery–on my actual birthday! Double score! (Wait til I get to that blog post–the pictures are everything!)

From the permit approvals, I worked around those two assigned dates and scheduled flights, my rental car and hotels for the parks I could see in between, but since my budget was tight (I had no business taking this trip as I’d been laid off in April and the trip was in August, but when you get the wave permit, you go!). So, I splurged on my hotel for the first night, then went with loyalty reward points for almost all of my other hotel stays, which made them free. I highly recommend this option. With a catch. Keep reading for that part.

About a month before the trip I co-hosted a podcast with an expert on REI about hiking in the heat. We lovingly called it “How to Make Sure Des Doesn’t Die on These Hikes”. Seriously. Again, my mindset was still, “How hard can this be? I’m just walking a lot around really pretty places, and plenty of other people do it every day.” Well, most of those other people actually train. Or they do more than sit at a desk for 10-14 hours a day building a company they’re creating from scratch. They walk each day. I did not. I have no excuse. I could have been training. There’s a trail literally across the street from my neighborhood. But I kept putting it off and before I knew it, it was time to take the trip. 

What I did find out from the REI expert is that I needed to carry lots of water on these 8-10 mile hikes, because the places I was hiking didn’t exactly have water fountains along the way. Thank goodness I’d bought a Camelback for that Kilimanjaro hike, right? And they told me I’d be better off wearing a specialty shirt that is lightweight but long-sleeved. I totally would have been the gal in a tank top, but they said that was just an invitation for sunburn, so to cover up they sent me their top-selling shirt, which I have to say, I kinda’ loved. You can see it here from my last hike of this trip at the Grand Canyon.

(Note to readers: My photos here are fine, but if you want a 3D look at where we hiked, please go to this link to see images that will let you look all around us- up, down, in front of us and behind. This 3D option is a new feature I hope to add to future posts.)

Now I wear it even when I’m not hiking, but I digress. They also sent me another backpack (complete with a removable padded seat) which I assigned to my boyfriend since he didn’t have a camping backpack like me (since he didn’t make some lofty goal to hike a mountain in another country that would take a week to climb, but again, I digress). And they gave me trekking poles. Those trekking poles were EVERYTHING on this hike. You can see those in that photo, too. Seriously. I couldn’t have done most of the hikes without them. Why is that? Well, keep reading.

THE FIRST THING I WISH SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME WAS TO BE READY TO HIKE THE VERY FIRST DAY I GOT THERE, even if I’d gotten up at 3am to head to the airport, then flown four+ hours, then drove nearly three hours to get there. My plan was NOT to hike that first day. My plan was to relax at our really nice hotel in Zion National Park, the Zion Lodge, the only big splurge of the trip. But that hotel is actually inside the park, and we knew we wanted to hike the Narrows the next morning, so we stopped in at the rental shop just outside the park to rent our specialty boots, socks, and walking pole. Yes, walking pole. I know I already told you how much I loved my trekking poles, but those would have snapped in no time hitting the rocks in the Narrows. A walking pole is really just a stick that you will rely on like no tomorrow as you’re walking over all the rocks in and out of the water while you make your way back into “the Y”.  YOU DEFINITELY WANT TO RENT THE GEAR. No, you don’t necessarily need the neoprene socks in the summer because the water, though frigid, is refreshing in the summer heat, but you do need that walking stick and boots, and they offer all 3 as part of a package deal. Well, when we went to pick up our rentals for our hike the next day, the staff at the desk let us know if we really wanted to hike the Narrows, we needed to do it that same day, not the next one, because a storm was predicted the next morning that likely meant people wouldn’t make it far into the Narrows before a potential flash flood hit. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if they were just trying to sell us an extra day of rentals (about $40 for the set- again, worth every penny because you do NOT want to hike in your bare feet or even sandals or your toes will come out bloody from all the rocks, and because your own boots will likely fall apart after 4-5 hours in the water). We decided to believe them and set out to hike the Narrows without even checking into our hotel because we knew time was limited. The Zion Park shuttle bus runs from 6 or 7am (depending on time of year) until 8:30pm to get you to where you need to be in the park, including the start for the Narrows hike, so with us starting after 3pm, knowing we were going to hike one mile to get to the water, then three miles to the “Y” (where it gets the narrowest), then need to do that same distance coming back, we had no time to waste. What I wish I’d known was that hike in particular isn’t difficult in terms of hiking to a higher elevation, but it is very difficult in that you use muscles that haven’t moved in ages as you twist and turn and lift and splash through water–at one point chest high. It was fun at first. And we loved what we were seeing; we could have stopped and turned around at any point, but we kept wanting to see what was around the next corner. MY TIP: RENT TWO OF THE POLES. I saw so many people, even young and capable, fall in the water because it’s so hard to know where to step when you can’t always see the rocks below you. One pole was a lifesaver. Two would have been easier on my body.

By the time we got to the “Y” section, about three miles in and out of the water, which was our goal, I was starting to feel it. As we made our way back, my body was protesting every single step. I didn’t dare stop because I knew if I did, it was very likely my muscles were going to seize up and I would be going nowhere unless I was carried on a stretcher. Mentally, I kept saying take one more step. Then another. But physically, I was done. Stick a fork in me done. I just didn’t want to be humiliated so I kept going, wondering at what point my knees and hamstrings were just going to give out and I’d be falling into the water to drown because my legs had had enough.

You have never seen a happier person than I was when I finally saw the sliver of land that I had to climb out of to make my way back to the shuttle. So what if I had another mile to walk to the bus?! At least it was a flat path. Some incline, sure, but no more rocks that my weak ankles were wiggling over as I held on to my walking pole for dear life. I made it up that path, eventually onto the shuttle, and finally back to our hotel and into our room. And therein sits another lesson in this post. WHEN BOOKING HOTELS, ALWAYS BOOK ONE WITH A BATH at the bare minimum. Our hotel, which I loved in every other way, had cottages, and I thought it would be fun to be in the cottage, so I picked that when I made the reservations. It was a cottage without a bathtub. Yes, it had a shower, and that was great, but this old, aching body needed a soak. So I suggest you skip the cottage and get yourself a room in the actual lodge where there are bathtubs. And I suggest that you make sure there are tubs in every room the rest of the week as you hike. Even better, get the upgrade for the rooms that have hot tubs when they’re offered (which is what we did when we got to Bryce Canyon while staying at the Best Western Plus Ruby’s Inn). But I’m skipping ahead of myself.

SOMETHING ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW: When at Zion National Park, if you CAN stay at the lodge inside the park, you should. I say that mainly because then you don’t have to deal with the parking nightmares outside of the park, where people pay $30/day to park just to catch the shuttle that runs in the park. Yes, you can book a hotel room and park there (we did that for our second night and I regretted it), but there’s no guarantee your room will be close to the shuttle pickup spot and I promise, after you’ve hiked 10 miles or more, you really don’t want to walk any further to get to your car. At least I didn’t. Plus, if you stay at the lodge they give you a special code to enter to get past the gates all the other cars can’t go down (for the road that otherwise only the shuttle can use) and it feels pretty awesome to be able to drive those roads on your own instead of packed in with other people in the shuttle. You’ll get a parking pass that lets you stay in the hotel parking lot as long as needed and it’s nice to just park there, get on the shuttle there, and cut your wait quite a bit. I will say the positive of staying outside the park is there are lots of food options with the restaurants all around. We enjoyed the Bit & Spur Saloon for dinner and the Zion Brewery (or Brew Pub) at lunch. And we found a perfect little shop that sold a knee brace for my leg that no longer wanted to bend and some ointment to ease some of the ache. We relaxed our muscles that second day, since we’d already hiked the Narrows (and good call on going early because it was, in fact, hit with a flash flood that next day and multiple people had to be rescued, including three by helicopter!). Our next full day was the day we had the permit for Angel’s Landing. 

Getting up to Angel’s Landing is a grueling climb. I shall forever call this hike, and honestly the entire week, SWITCHBACK HELL. You climb and you climb and you climb some more. And I was doing it all with a knee brace and a leg that didn’t want to work. But I found going up wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Sure, the switchbacks were A LOT.  The section called Walter’s Wiggles is not fun. The name is fun, but the climb is not. As you turn each corner you think ok, that’s the last one, right? And then there’s another. And another. And another. And another. You get the point. But once you’re at the top, called Scout’s Landing, you’re absolutely thrilled. Mainly to have that tough part behind you. And that’s the section where you finally get to the actual climb for Angel’s Landing.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ANGELS LANDING PERMITS is if they say your climb starts after 9am (some permits say before 9 and other say after 9), they mean it. Because it was so hot, we got up before sunlight that day and started our hike early, getting to the part with the chains at around 8:30am. There was a ranger sitting at the base of that portion who checked my permit and told me we were there too early. Hey, rules are rules, and you can’t blame me for trying to bend them. I told him I’d be back in 30 minutes and he told me nope, the permit said to start my hike at the *base of the mountain after 9, not the top where Angel’s Landing is located, so we had to wait until 10 to come back to him for our hike. He kindly pointed us to the West Rim Trail hike just across from Angel’s Landing, to kill that hour until he’d let us in. We figured why not, so we added that hike to our already strenuous day and once we got to the top, picked a perfect spot under a shade tree to rest and enjoy the view. We were higher than the hikers at Angel’s Landing, and happy to sit for a minute. Until the rain, thunder and lightning started. Then, the highest place on the mountain, under the tallest tree, is not the perfect place to sit, so we hauled butt out of there, hoping we didn’t slip on sand or water as we went way too fast downhill. The only worse place to be at that moment would have been actually ON Angel’s Landing, holding on to the metal chains that keep you from slipping to your death. So, in the end, the ranger did us a favor by not letting us in early and sending us off to hike the West Rim. The good news is by the time we got back down, it was 10am so we really could officially start our Angel’s Landing hike, except during the rainstorm the ranger left (I assume so he didn’t get soaked), so it really didn’t matter what my permit said in terms of time. However, those metal chains secured to posts in the ground that you use to hold on to were now very wet. And so was the ground. Rob, my boyfriend and hiking buddy on this trip, is afraid of heights. We were already pushing his limits just standing at the top of this mountain, without having to hold on to chains or slide to our deaths. Getting him to climb Angel’s Landing now was really pushing my luck. But he agreed to go *part of the way, just to see, and I will tell you, that man was suffering. I was having a blast–even stopping to take photos of him while he faced his fears–but I could see by his face that it was cruel of me to make him go all the way out to the tip. He was trying–and I believe could have made it (very, very slowly), but the people behind him weren’t loving his slow pace and I was feeling like kind of a jerk forcing it, so we turned around after about 10 minutes of climbing.

He was thrilled when he was finally back at the base, two feet on the ground without having to hold on to a wet, metal chain. We did enough of the climb to feel satisfied and started making our way down the mountain. And that’s when my suffering started again. Whatever muscle I pulled on that first day was NOT ok with me going downhill, and I can say with 100% certainty that if I did not have my REI trekking poles, I would have had to have crawled my way down on all fours. And here’s another lesson: DON’T SKIMP ON YOUR TREKKING POLES. As I said, REI sent me a pair to review on my journey. My pair rocked! And since my boyfriend was coming, I ordered him a set of trekking poles off Amazon. They were a third of the price and being cheap, I figured poles are poles, right? Well, they are NOT. One pole in his pair broke on the very first hike, which made it useless the entire rest of the week. Don’t buy the cheap Amazon ones. Go ahead and get the ones that’ll actually make it your entire trip (again, I highly recommend my REI pair because they didn’t let me down once!).

I was such a mess hiking down to the bottom with my trekking poles and leg that wouldn’t work in a brace people assumed I had some muscular issue and told me it was amazing I was doing this climb. I just smiled and gritted my teeth, praying for the bottom to rise up and meet me so the agony could end. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was on this hike for my 55th birthday, trying to prove I wasn’t old yet, when my body was saying oh yes I was. Very old. And I still had six days of hiking to go! And we’ll get to that in the next post in this series I’m calling, SWITCHBACK HELL, SIGHTSEEING HEAVEN.

Tomorrow’s post: Bryce Canyon and HOODOO YOU LOVE?