September 28: Heading Home
 
Miles Today : ~10
Total Miles : ~63

Well, I had a late night visitor last night. While the campsite was empty when I got here last night, it was still reserved by a couple. They showed up near dark last night expecting to have the place to themselves. Fortunately, I was camped out off to the side and they were very cool about the whole thing. I had a really good conversation with them this morning before heading off back down the canyon.

While the cool river was a welcome companion yesterday afternoon, I was none too excited about putting my feet into the cold water this early in the morning. It was either that or sit on this small mound of dirt for a couple of hours until the sun managed to rise a bit, so I headed down stream. That deep section that I came across the night before was REALLY cold, but other than that hiking the river was enjoyable this morning as it was last night. On the way back, I took a couple of side trips up some other canyons to do some exploring. The second one that I went up was very cool, as it was much narrower than Zion. At one point I put my arms out sideways and I could touch the walls on either side.

The river through here was much smaller, but there were some very nice waterfalls and obstacles to crawl over. I headed up this route for about 30 minutes until I came to a deep pool that would have meant taking my pack off again. At that point, I decided to turn around and head back to the trailhead.

I have to say that I was really sad when I got back to the river walk portion of the hike. Going through that canyon was one of the coolest things that I have ever done, and then it was over. I was back out by the trailhead and it was HOT today. At first it felt good, having spend the entire morning in a cave, essentially, but I soon realized that it was going to be even hotter than it was yesterday.

Before heading back to the car, I got a few short hikes it to check out some of the other cool features of the park. The only one really worth mentioning is Emerald Pool, which is this small pond that formed about 500 feet up from the canyon floor and it right up against what looks like a circ (though obviously it isn’t a circ). I can just imagine that this was a spiritual place for the Indians that use to live here, this pool of clear, cold water elevated in the middle of the desert. It was a big relief to me as I filled my water bladder here before continuing on.

And then there were no more miles to hike. I headed down to the nearest trailhead and jumped a shuttle back to the visitor center. It was time to head back to Las Vegas and eventually back home. There was no climax to this movie, no big ending, no edge-of-you-seat finale, which just seemed wrong considering how unreal the weekend had been. Instead it was just me and 200 miles of road back to the Alamo rental agency. On the shuttle from there to the airport, people were giddy talking about their vacation to the strip, how much money they lost, what shows they saw, etc… One particularly loud gentleman, who was forcing conversation with everyone, looks towards me and asked:

“So, how’d ya do, kid?”

“Not too bad, about 63 miles.”

“Huh? No, how did you do in the casino? How did you do gambling?”

“Oh that. I don’t gamble. I came out here to go hiking.”

And that was the end of that conversation. At least this movie ended with a good zinger.

-Chomp

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