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| | | Lee Pass to Zion Canyon, UT | | | |
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Lee Pass to Zion Canyon, UT
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| Run/Jog | 40.21 Miles |
5,027 AEG |
| | Run/Jog | 40.21 Miles | 10 Hrs 28 Mns | | 4.33 mph |
| 5,027 ft AEG | 1 Hour 11 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | The Zion traverse has become one of the hot things to do in the ultrarunning world, right up there with R2R2R. I'm usually not into that type of stuff, but some friends were going, so why not? Then the rock slide happened, closing the East Rim trail and shortening the route to 40 miles, which I was perfectly OK with.
Started at first light down La Verkin Creek trail, and it was quite chilly after dropping in. Big inversion. Once the sun came up, it was nice. A group of three guys from Colorado passed us just before the Kolob Arch trail; the internet sleuth in our group later found that they missed the Hop Valley turn and, as a result, failed to beat us. We did the little side trip up to the arch, which was nice.
Hop Valley trail was pretty, but there was way too much sand. This was the most difficult part of the whole trip. After leaving the valley it got much better, and we got to the Hop Valley trailhead in like 4+ hours. I didn't think we needed to worry too much about daylight, but if the rest of the way turned out to be that slow, we might. Also ran into another group from Colorado doing the same route, except they skipped Kolob Arch, and passed us while we were up there. They left from the TH 10-15 minutes before us.
Once on the Connector Trail, things got much better. Views started opening up as well. Maybe 3 miles in we caught up with the other group, my competitive instinct kicked in, and I picked up the pace so that we wouldn't see-saw with them over and over. But they kept pace for the 4 miles or so to Wildcat Spring, which I'm pretty sure they regretted, as they were looking a lot more rough. They mentioned that one of their guys ran a 50k last week, so later in the conversation someone made sure to mention that one of the ladies in our group ran a 100k last week. I know it's not a competition or anything, but I do feel it's important that we represent the State of Arizona well.
When we hit West Rim trail with ~16 miles to go, I was actually feeling pretty good, which these days is pretty rare that far into a run. I got in a zone and decided to hammer it a little, and got out ahead of the group a little. I last saw them in the distance with about 10 miles to go. It had gotten really windy by this point, but the scenery was really outstanding those last 10 miles. Once I was about 4 miles from the end, I started running into the tourists. Angel's Landing didn't look super crowded with the new permit system, but there were plenty of obstacles below the junction.
Great day out there, and actually really enjoyed this route. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
! The hike down has some UPs stuck in there but nothing too dramatic. I just assumed it was a gradual downhill all the way but that's not quite the case. We did cross over the mostly dry creek several times and of course, that's where a lot of the little Ups and Downs are.
. Besides, I think for us we only had another mile and 1/2 to go. We ran into the folks who had stayed at our campsite the nite before and they told us we would have to take our shoes off to cross the water to get to the site and that it had been cold.... neither which turned out to be true in our case.
we found the change in the air currents from warm to cold and back fascinating. It seemed to do that until we retired. It was nice to sleep by the creek and I think I slept well. I thot the rise and shine time was 6:30AM so I woke up and prepared accordingly but apparently they meant 6:30AM AZ time so I had to kick back in my tent on my deflated mattress for 1/2 hr or more 
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