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Zion National Park November 25-28, 2004
 Our flight from San Francisco to Salt Lake City was completely uneventful. We were on our way to Zion by 9:30 AM. Unfortunately SLC to Zion is 5 hours via I-15. We stopped at Spanish Fork Albertson's and bought all our food and arrived at Springdale, the gateway town to Zion at 2:30 PM. The first time I ever visited Zion in 1995 Springdale was a little three dog town with two run down non-AAA approved hotels and a shop that sold rocks stolen from the park. So I was shocked to be greeted this year by multiple level lodges, Four Star Hotels, ice cream parlors, restaurants, bars, and all other sorts of urban amenities. We passed through Springdale and headed over to Watchman Campground. The space we chose had a large parking area surrounded by three wooden poles lying side to side with a picnic table behind one of the poles very close to the fire pit. We didn't want to put the tent to the left of the fire pit because sparks could have blown onto it. So we set up the tent to the right of the fire pit on a grassy area. Just as we had finished hammering in the last stake two "rangers" drove up in a white truck. The lady "ranger" on the passenger side said to me, "you can't put your tent there. You have to put it inside the poles." I looked inside the poles and not only was it clearly a parking area but it had a large mud puddle. I said to her, "you mean inside the parking area?" She wouldn't look up from some paper work or ticket or something she was looking down at. I was standing in the parking area muttering to myself that she was crazy if she wanted us to put our tent on gravel when the male "ranger" got out of the truck, walked into my personal space, stuck the walkie-talkie in my face and said, "you can either put your tent behind the poles or not camp here. You decide!" Rage rose in body and the urge to push him into the puddle was overwhelming. But instead I just said, "oh you mean behind the poles." Then they both drove away. We picked up the whole tent and moved across the camp road to another open spot. They immediately drove back by to make sure we had moved off of their precious grass and the man "ranger" smiled and said hi like he was now our best friend (little bastard). They weren't even real park rangers. They were just some assholes living in an RV and acting as campground hosts during the off season. They didn't even have those cool hats real rangers wear; just some ugly brown jacket.
By nightfall the campground was full. Most T-day weekends we go to Canyonlands, where we think it's crowded if we see more than three people so we were taken aback at the large number of people at Zion. After setting up our tent we hiked the Emerald Pools trail and saw about 100 people including an Asian family with two small children who had a mile to go to the trail head with night falling.
 On Friday we got up and were disappointed it was only 42 degrees, downright balmy for Utah in winter. After breakfast we headed to the famous Angel's Landing trail, a five mile round trip hike that gains 1500 feet to the summit of a thin spire of red rock. It's so thin in places that the park has placed chains to hold on. The spire drops away precipitously on either side while you stand on a piece of sandstone a yard wide. Despite the danger, the trail was littered with park visitors. We were the second ones to summit that morning but by the time we were ready to descend people were crammed on the trail.
 We left Angel's Landing and went another three miles to a spring on the West Rim trail with outstanding views of Zion Canyon but again we ran into quite a few hikers. As we started up the West Rim trail I looked back down on the base of Angel's Landing to see some AH lady with her dog off leash heading up one of the most dangerous trails in the national park system. I yelled at her, "no dogs are allowed on park trails. No dogs." But she just looked around dazed. Was she on drugs? Some people are so dumb and selfish. What is wrong with people? There are signs everywhere; no dogs on park trails. Got it!?
 Saturday we drove up the Kolob Terrace Road to the Hop Valley Trailhead. We never saw another human being for 7.5 miles until we got to the Kolob Arch, the world's longest natural arch. There we ran into three backpackers. The trail started out through some sage brush and some medium inspiring red rock until it dropped down into Hop Valley, a beautiful wide valley surrounded by 600 foot cliffs on each side. The valley narrowed and we could see some pretty red cliffs in the distance but the trail branched off to the left suddenly and we didn't know what to expect. We came out of a Douglas Fir, Pinyon Pine, Yellow Pine forest upon a precipice with outstanding views into the Kolob Canyon. We hiked a steep descent from there to LaVerkin Creek, a lovely creek surrounded by gorgeous red rock wilderness. The hike from there was a scramble up some rocks in a side creek. It was a steep ascent hiking back out of the canyon but well worth it.
 The view looking back into Hop Valley from the top of Kolob Canyon was one of the most gorgeous I have ever seen. We were dog tired when we made it back to the car after 15 miles just as the sun was setting. That night we lit the camp fire and struck up the camp stove for dinner. But after dinner the wind began gusting up to 50 MPH making reading by the camp fire impossible. Sparks from the fire made holes in my polartec pants and smoke got in our eyes and hair. We finally gave up and got in the tent to read. The wind howled and finally the rain broke and it poured for hours. I couldn't believe the tent didn't blow away the storm was so fierce. However, the next day it was as if nothing had happened the night before. In fact, the sun came out and we had a delightful hike up Coalpits Wash to a petrified forest where again we saw no one. We gave ourselves six hours to get back to SLC. Unfortunately as we headed north on I-15 the storm from the night before turned out to be a blizzard snow storm turning traffic into a crawl. We missed our flight by an hour. The Delta agent sent us away to a phone telling us all flights were sold out, overbooked in fact until Tuesday! I was almost in tears. I called another agent from the missed flights phone. She felt sorry for us when I explained that we got caught in a snow storm after camping in Zion and booked us on a stand by flight. When we went over to check our bags at the missed flight section, this little officious intermeddler agent came tearing all the way over from his station demanding to know whether the missed flight agent had reminded us of the $25 fee. I said no but he was insistent. Finally I pulled out my wallet and shoved a $100 bill in his face and said I don't care about the money, the lady said just hurry so why are you holding us up? Finally he gave up and left us alone muttering "you'll never make that flight." As we boarded the plane the agent took Susan's boarding pass and said, "I smell smoke. Have y'all been camping?" I was so embarrassed. Oh well, we made it home with all bones intact just one hour later than we planned and memories of a life time.
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