Zion Backcountry

This is the three days in the backcountry. My batteries ran out at the top of the rim on the first day and I had to bum some batteries off another hiker on my way to get water at Potato Hollow. Luckily I found someone and they actually wouldn't take any money. Seems like people are nicer to each other when we're out in the wild?

I decided to spend three days because it was memorial day weekend and anything less would have had me trying to find a new camp site during the holiday. It turned out to be the perfect amount of time and as you'll see, my camp site was one of the best I could have imagined.

	The start of the journey. At the car and at the trail head.
	The first part of the climb are a bunch of switchbacks to the start of Angels Landing. Basically straight up, but the view is great.
	Looking back down at the switchbacks I came up. Actually, the whole day (5 miles) seemed to be like this. I weighed my pack when I got to Montana and it was 34 pounds without any water in in. I'm sure the water brought it up to 50, at least that's what it felt like! I just remembered that was weighed without my stove and cooking gear as well. No more than another 2 pounds though.
	There was a section that I didn't get the best picture of. It switched back and forth about 20 times every 20 feet or so. Basically straight up. I must have been out of my head when I got to the top and forgot to snap the picture lookingdown.
	I stowed my pack behind the outhouse and headed up to the top of Angel's Landing. I wouldn't really call this a trail, mostly a hold on tight to the chain and don't look down either side of the ridge you are climbing up since there is a long fall.
	This is the second stage of climbing. You can see the destination in the first picture here.
	Almost there, you have to walk along this ridge to get to the end. Don't trip and don't look down!
	Some views from the top. Spectacular.
	Looking down.
	Me.
	A couple of final pictures from the top. I only spent about 15 minutes up there as it was fairly crowded and I had a long day of hiking remaining. This second pictue is looking back from the bottom of Angel's Landing where I left my pack. I'm not sure if you can see the out houses or not?

West Rim Trail

	From Angel's Landing the trail headed back into the canyon. Basically a steep uphill for the next 3 miles. Also it was warm.
	This second picture is a view of the destination. The top. The trail is cut into the side of the rim. I doubt if you can see it, I didn't know it was there until I was hiking on it and looked back.
	A bridge and the trail heading up up up. This is basically what it was like for about 2 miles.
	In the second picture here you can see the elevation gain and the left hand edge of the steep trail.
	Ah, made it to the top. Filled up my water bottles in a trickle of a spring and headed towards the camp site. It was about 1.5 miles to the campsite from the closest water. A group of students were at the spring and told me about some stone chairs that were built at campsite 5 overlook. Then I passed a ranger who looked at my permit and told me about some new stone chairs. Then another couple asked me what site I was at and when I said 5 they said "Jackpot" and talked about these neet stone chairs. And I was worried about where I was going to sit in the camp site... When I got to the camp site I didn't even take a look at the spectacular view. I was so tired that I setup the tent and about fell into it and took an hour nap. When I got up I was amazed at the view, the stone chairs and the fact that there were three stone chairs in camp as well. Pretty cool. It rained a good part of the night, but I kept nice and dry in my tent. This is about where my batteries ran out.
	This is the next day coming back from Potato Hollow where I got water. Had a bit of a bad taste so I got my water the next day at the Rim Spring. The rim was covered with these yellow wild flowers. There had been a fire the previous year and the return of green growth with yellow flowers was amazing. Even more interesting is that on both sides of my campsite the trees had burned, but not directly around the camp site.
	This is my camp site with the view out the front door.
	The sign from the trail to my campsite.
	It's back there somewhere. You can't see it from the trail which is nice.
	The View from my back door. The pictures don't begin to describe it. You can see one of the stone chairs in the second picture.
	Sunset the second night. It really got cold this night and the wind was blowing up the canyon so it was way too cold to sit in the view chairs.
	This is a tree right across from my tent. I felt some sort of kinsmanship with this tree. Interesting that it was in my camp for three days to look at.
	View from my stone chair.
	The stone chairs.
	Sunset the third night. It was much warmer and I was able to sleep with the rain fly pulled back which was very nice.
	Sort of a panorama of my view. When I get home maybe I'll get some software to stitch these together into a single image.
	Sunrise. Packed up and headed out.
	Self portrait
	Down, Down, Down. Much nicer this time.
	Got another traveller to take a picture at the bottom. That was a great trip to the back country. I got to my car, took a shower in Springfield and headed north.

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