Saturday, January 23, 2010

Snowshoeing up to Zion's Angels Landing (Jan '10)

Our state got hammered by some big blizzards that dumped multiple feet of snow in the mountains. This storm prevented Mike and I from doing a cross country ski trip with some other guys over to Yosemite's Glacier Point. We were disappointed to say the least. The high country of Zion was not spared from the storms either, and so we took advantage of an early morning departure to be the first ones up the Angels Landing trail to Scout Lookout, and even higher up on the West Rim Trail.






A view of Angels Landing from the trail below.











Multiple 'waterfalls' of snow (avalanches), crashed down around us as we hiked through Refrigerator Canyon.




A view of the river below, from the railing at Scout Lookout. The chains higher up to Angels Landing required some major digging in order to find them.







This footprint sign seems so out of place.












A view of the main canyon from the West Rim Trail. There was at least 3 feet of snow up here.





Mike and I agreed that this incredible snow with the views in Zion is probably not even beatable by what we could have experienced in Yosemite.









Video of Avalanche in Zion
 
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