 The Subway Hike in Zion NPYours truly won permits to the famous Subway hike in Zion National Park!!! One day in May, I just happened to be on recreation.gov and casually looking at what permits were available. I saw that the subway was up for grabs so I put in 3 different dates in July for my husband and I. I honestly did not think we would get them, but sure enough a couple weeks later I got the email confirming we were accepted! I did a double take and was like omg it’s happening! We booked our trip and started to do our research plus talk to friends who had done it too. We made a gear list and made sure to have everything in order for this hike. This hike is just over 10 miles (sorry AllTrails you were way off!) out and back and over 2,700 ft of elevation gain. I would rate it hard and I’ll explain why… First, you start your hike on a pretty smooth trail and then boom big vertical drop down to the water, and I’m not joking, it’s a steep trail and guess what you’ll have to climb this back out so just remember that! Once you get down near the stream, the fun part begins! Up, down, and around the boulders. This trail is all over the place so you need good navigation skills and or a downloaded map because it can get tricky in spots. Best advice is to stay close to the stream the whole way up. This trail was a full body workout, but I will say the views were amazing! The canyon views, wildflowers, wildlife, dinosaur tracks (yes you heard me right!), the flowing stream, endless waterfalls and pools and of course the main event! With only .3 miles left to the subway, we switched into our neoprene socks and got out our hiking poles for stability. We hit the deeper water section and you just can’t avoid it. Embrace the wet shoes and feet! We walked up to the subway and it’s just a magical site. Cool teal pools with walls engulfing you. We even came up to some really cool birds wading in the water. It took us 3 hours to get there and we started early to try and avoid as much heat as we could since we did this in the summer. We hung out near the subway for a bit and then headed back through the obstacle course! Again, that descent in the beginning was a tough climb out so just be prepared and take your time. It ended up taking us just over 6 hours to finish and boy what a wild ride it was. We would absolutely do this one again since it was so fun and different from a lot of the hikes we do. I hope you can snag a permit for this hike because it is so worth it when visiting Zion NP. XOXO Kimmy Recommended: Bring at least 3 L water (You can not filter your water there since it has a bad algae in it), snacks, hiking poles, and neoprene socks (Here's the ones we bought off of Amazon: https://amzn.to/46Ha2zc . Of course look at your 10 essentials list for hiking anytime you go out.
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Our Grand Canyon Adventure!Overall Experience: THE Grand Canyon trip! And let me just say what a wild weekend!!! Between the gnarly weather, rv problems, rough driving conditions, and long hikes; this trip was truly an adventure. Nick and I didn’t realize that the south rim is at 7,000 elevation! Which meant we had to stop more along the way to fill up on gas since we were climbing with our rv the whole time and when we got to Trailer Village RV Park in the national park the weather was pure snow and ice coming down! Just when I thought going south for my birthday would be smart; it was worse conditions than where we came from. We have lots of stories from this trip but let’s just say we made it in one piece, had to deal with a lot of rv problems but eventually solved them all throughout the weekend, and still had a great time hiking on top and throughout the canyon with our friends and pups! I will say I did really love seeing the grand canyon in the snow and I couldn’t believe how much wildlife we saw too! It was a great birthday trip that I’ll never forget and I’m so grateful my friends from AZ were able to join even with the harsh conditions they had to endure to get there too! Overall, I do recommend going to the Grand Canyon, just be aware of the weather conditions, pack all essential gear to be on the safe side, and honestly it was nice going during the off season since it was less crowded! Listed below are the trails we completed so make sure to add these ones to your itinery. Upper South Rim trails and Ohh Ahh Point: Since you know we had a gnarly night with horrible weather and rough driving conditions we ended up sticking to the rim trails at the Grand Canyon National Park for the first two days. The rim trails allowed us to bring our pups on the trail which was fun! Normally, you can’t bring your dogs into a lot of national parks so this was nice that we were able to do this. The rim trails are paved and easily accessible for all ages and all hiking ability. You get great panorama views of the Grand Canyon and you can get a good amount of mileage in on this trail. It was around 12-13 miles total to do the whole south rim at the top overlooking into the canyon. After our friends departed, Nick and I squeezed ooh ahh point in at the end of my birthday on Sunday. I really wanted to get into the canyon so we strapped on our spikes and did a quick hike to ooh ahh point off the south kaibab trail. This was only a 2 mile hike so it wasn’t too bad after already hiking 6 miles that morning. The rim trails are great but once you actually get inside the canyon it really changes perspectives and you seriously feel like an ant. The canyon is so massive and so deep! It has sooo many layers and it was amazing to see. We were super excited that the next day we were going deep into the canyon to fully experience which I’ll share on my next post. *Note if you do go to the Grand Canyon when there’s snow and ice please please please bring spikes to throw on! You can’t believe the amount of people we saw going into the canyon without them and they had no grip, kept sliding around, and or even falling over! And let me tell you, there’s no railings in there! So be smart and safe yall and or just stick to the rim trails if you don’t have spikes!* Ooh ahh point was a great trail if you want something easy and actually a trail that takes you into the canyon. Just remember to bring the right gear with you. These hikes were great and fun to do that were more easy and yet had amazing views of the canyon so add them to your list if you plan to go there soon! Bright Angel Trail to South Kaibab Trail: Nick and I wanted to really explore the canyon before leaving the next day so we decided to do the Bright angel trail. Which is normally a 16 mile trail that goes out and back but unfortunately we ran into a hiccup….Construction! Say what?! In the canyon?! Yes! They had multiple trails closed off which meant we had to take the detour route which actually was nice too and made it a loop trail. We took bright angel trail to east tonto trail to south Kaibab trail. This ended up being around 16 miles and just under 4500 elevation gain. We went from ice/snow to muddy conditions to dry desert, and right at the end we got 30 mph winds! It was a wild ride weather wise. Luckily we had all the right gear with us because the amount of tourists we saw without it was nail biting and made us so anxious at the top because everyone was slipping and sliding on the ice! (And let me tell you there aren’t any railings in the canyon!) We did this trail in 7 hours and I will say though the views were incredible! We even saw a long horn sheep too! This was definitely a tough trail for us and we were sore for a couple of days afterwards but to really get a great understanding of this canyon I'm so glad we knocked this one out! So what's it going to be? Are you willing to take on the Grand Canyon and add it to your list of trips?! XOXO Kimmy |
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