Glowing Rocks — The Towering Travelers

Story by Nicole

The last two days of our trip were very driving-heavy, but we were looking forward to spending a night camping in Zion National Park. After hours of flat desert, we began seeing the stunning white and red rocks that made Utah so appealing for outdoor recreation.

We got to Zion at around 5:30 p.m. and decided to take a hike before dinner. We were staying at the Watchman Campground, and since we did not want to do any additional driving, we decided to hike the trail that began next to the campground. Zion is dramatically beautiful, and we weren’t even in the famous parts. We’ve both said that we’d like to go back and explore the canyons in depth.

Watchman Campground (Photo/Jason Rafal)

(Photo/Jason Rafal)

After our hike, we set up camp and started dinner. The woman at the park gate had said that there were no bears, but to put our food in the car or the locked box to protect against overeager squirrels. The lack of bears was something that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. When I took some garbage out, I had a moment of panic because they were not bear proof. I must admit, though, that not having to worry about bears is nice and relaxing.

Our amazing decades-old cooking stove (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I thoroughly recommend camping in Zion at the beginning of May. There are beautiful dark rocky silouettes all around, which is great, but it’s also just such an incredibly pleasant temperature at night. The low when we were there was 55 degrees. I’ve never been on a camping trip in which it did not get down into the high 30s at the very least. Between the warmth and the lack of bears, it felt kind of like we were cheating at camping. We rose before dawn and watched the rising sun touch the top of the rocks as we drove away.

Sunrise light (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We’re now home in Denver. I love having adventurous vacations, but we are both really looking forward to sleeping.