I caught the 7:00 a.m. bus up the canyon for a hike. It is actually still dark here at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. When I was walking through the parking lot by the visitor’s center and the bus stop one of the park volunteer’s was out walking his dog. The interesting thing about this dog walk was a deer was attacking his dog. This is the first I’ve heard of this, the deer went for his dog twice.
My original goal for the day was to start at Weeping Rock and head up the trail toward the East side. The trail to Observation Point and East Side trail splits at the 2 mile mark. When I got to the trail fork I headed out on the East side trail for about a quarter mile. It is not much of trail in this area and I got to a point where I was going to have take my pack off to get down a five foot rock face I decided to turn around and go up to Observation Point.
Here is the classical picture from Observation Point. The high point in the middle is Angels Landing.
Here is the Google map of Observation Point: 37 16.708 N 112 56.378 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.27847,-112.93965
In this picture you can see people at the top of Angels Landing.
This is the InReach track of my hike. The GPS had a lot of trouble when we were down inside the slot canyons. My FitBit said I hiked 13.68 miles and yes I was hot and tired, hiked from 7:20 to 1:45. When I got back to the motorhome I had two strawberry daiquiris, they were GOOD.
The Virgin River hiking picture from 2010 is still on all the buses.
The other day I hiked the East Side trail from the East Side entrance station. Here is a google link to my turn around point at the end of Jolley Gulch:
I am here: 37 15.117 N 112 52.627 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.25196,-112.87712