An awesome view from the Visitors Center as the sun rose over the canyon walls.
After picking up our passes, we hopped on the shuttle and headed towards Weeping Rock, passing through the Canyon with these amazing views on the way.
Unfortunately, other then the trees, there's nothing to give you a good perspective of the sheer height of these rock walls.
One last view before we strapped on our packs and headed up towards Observation Point.
See the "weeping rock"?
Hiking up the Eastern face of the canyon, you get excellent views of the Western face as the sun continues to rise. If you look close, you can see a shuttle bus in the bottom right corner of the picture. How's that for perspective?
I'm not sure words can adequately describe the hike up as we cut into the face of the canyon.
An eerie scene along the trail.
Most of the canyons had snow melt rivers running through them...
...creating waterfalls...
...and deep gorges for peering into.
Most of you were probably enjoying budding trees by the second week of April, but not here.
One of my favorite views looking back down the canyon. We hiked up the canyon face on the left while Angels Landing, another popular hike, is in the forefront.
Standing on the edge, a couple of thousand feet straight up. Don't worry - this was probably the safest thing we did all day.
Unchoreographed and...
...choreographed handstands in the snow.
Mystery Canyon, but first we had to figure out how to get down into it...
...which included a few treacherous moments of scary slides where I graciously donated a few skin cells to the cause.
This gives you a little better perspective for the steep, icy, snow covered entrance into the canyon.
A great view of the canyon walls with a little water trickling down. The weather was beautiful for this snowy and...
...watery adventure. Our ultimate destination would be back to the Virgin River, at the base of the canyon. But first, we would don our wetsuits, rappelling about 10 times into snow melt waters. Shayna heads down here as Chris looks on.
Chris hooks in and heads down.
A neat view of Chris looking down.
It's not abstract painting, but a view up through the slot canyon with the sun shining on the wet walls.
Sometimes we used the rope, other times, logs.
This is a panoramic picture in an attempt to give you a feel for the sheer size of the walls overhanging the trail.
One last view from the top before we complete the last, and most exciting two rappels.
This 120 foot rappel was tons of fun, except that someone had to go first and get dunked in the icy spring you can barely see at the bottom.
Shayna heads down, hopping along the way. Looking for perspective? Find the guy at the bottom helping the others avoid the frigid pool.
This time we made it down without tangling all of the rope - just an added bonus.
We continued wading along, with one rappel remaining, and it would be...
...down a waterfall into the Virgin River below!
Shayna heads down the waterfall. Zooming in takes away the height perspective...
...until you try to find her at the bottom, along with some onlookers in dry suits. (The water temperature was in the 40's.)
I'm hoping you can click on this picture to enlarge it as it was an amazing view of the canyon with the river running through it.
Chris stays dry for one more moment after successfully rappelling down the waterfall.
One of my favorite pictures from the river.
Last time we did this, we walked out the river in the dark, doing some unintentional swimming. But after speeding through the hike, we had plenty of time to hike up river for some of these views.
Yes, this is almost the same picture, but I couldn't decide which I liked better.
We made it up river to Orderville Canyon, before deciding it was time to head back for some warmth.
The next morning we headed out, passing through the infamous tunnel with these views every so often.
One last view of Zion National Park as headed to our next adventure. Stay tuned for Part II - VI!
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