Kolob Canyon Winter Backpacking, Feb 17, 2022

My friends Karen and Limhi were between jobs and itching to go do something interesting.   Winter backpacking fit that bill, so we got a $5 reservation for a permit to camp on La Verkin Creek Trail down by Kolob Arch in the National Park.   It's hard to get a permit for this in the summer, but on a Thursday in the middle of winter, I'm pretty sure that we were the only group camping in the entire valley, which can hold up to about 50 people a night.   The only really screwy part is that although the reservation is done online, the Permit needed to be picked up at the main Zion HQ office before the hike, since Kolob is part of Zion.   Yeah, 2 hours of extra driving to go pick up a piece of paper that could have been emailed to us.  Your federal government at work.  Ask us privately if we actually did that.  Ha.

The weather smiled on us, literally, and it was COLD and a little windy, but otherwise not very wintery at all.  The trails were mostly dry and not snowy, with just a little mud that was frozen on our way out the next morning.   The trail starts at about 6000 feet of elevation and descends down to about 5000, so it was a nice easy trail, with some red cliffs along the side that did look like they should be part of Zion NP.   Otherwise, the trail wasn't terribly exciting, and probably not one that I would fight for to do again.  

About 2/3 of the way to our campsite (#8), we picked up a glacier-colored stream which was really beautiful.  And cold.  Keeping our feet dry meant not going beyond the side trail to Kolob Arch.  But that turned out fine since time was slipping away and the days were still short.  

We dropped our packs at #8 and headed up to the arch.  It wasn't much more than a goat track along a nice stream, heading up into towering cliffs.  The arch itself may have been the largest arch in the world, but it was thousands of feet above us and rather...underwhelming.  That's ok, this trip wasn't about the destination, but the journey.  

See that really big arch...which looks tiny cuz it's really far away

Back at our packs, we left campsite 8 and wandered back to 6.   This wouldn't have been possible in the crowded summer, but we really were the only ones down there that night.  More rule breaking, oh no!    #8 would have been a nice shady cool place in the summer, but #6 was a sunny spot right on the stream and perfect for a winter day. 

What was exciting were the mountain lion tracks we found in multiple locations around our campsite that evening.   They seemed pretty big, too.   Karen and Limhi were both awake in the early morning and say they heard what sounded like a child screaming.  Typical mountain lion sound I guess.  I'm happy enough that I slept through that!

For a one night trip our packs were rather large, but winter camping is no joke.   Karen brewed us up some apple cider drink mix with a splash of Fireball, and we added clothes as the sun and heat went out of the canyon.   Jim had insisted I bring his down sleeping pad and mummy bag, and I wasn't sad I did.    We all heated water for our Nalgene bottles to throw in our sleeping bags, and put on all our clothing to watch the stars come out.   Limhi put on some down pants that were warm if not fashionable (!) and I brought out a puffy jacket that was 3 sizes too large but who cares I was cozy.  

I may have been the only one to get a decent nights sleep, but we were all happy when the sun finally came up in the morning.   I was warm enough until I put my frozen hiking shoes on, and then I lost the battle of heat, and walked the first couple of miles with frozen extremities.   More cat tracks later, we finally hit a patch of sun, and it's amazing how fast we were removing layers.   Add some uphill trail back in, and we finished in a t-shirt.   Although we still marveled at the ice crystals coating the tiny stream as we made multiple crossings of what wasn't much more than a trickle of water.  

All in all I would say I do prefer a nice warm day to a cold night.