Hiking the Subway...

The day after school got out, we headed up to Zion's park to hike the Subway with some family and friends. We took Zach with us and he did amazing. It was his first major hike. My brother, Chad, had the pass so he invited the group. While it is usually starting to get pretty hot in June, on that particular day, June 5, 2009, it was a little cool. If you have ever hiked the Subway, you know that it's better to go when it's pretty warm.

Chad's good friend, Casey, came with his fancy camera and took some amazing shots. He was nice enough to edit all of them and here is a link to his blog:

http://caseyniederhauser.com/subway/content/index.html

He did a great job with them. I borrowed one here to show how many of us there were on the hike (with Casey too):



I do have a few shots that I took with my camera (not nearly as good)! This first one is of Ryan, Zach and I. We had not gotten wet yet, so we were still warm and dry :)

It had been a long time (around 5 years) since I had hiked the Subway. I could remember a few things, but unfortunately not everything. I also realized (after hiking in June) that my other experiences had been later in the Summer when it was a little hot outside and easy to dry off and warm up. Therefore, it didn't matter if clothing got a little wet. This hike was different. It was cold enough outside with the breeze that drying off took a long time. This made it really hard to get warm, also. After all of the water (freezing water, I might add), we only had one dry jacket. We gave it to Zach, who was NOT a fan of the cold water, to keep him warm. I have to admit that I was wishing I had been more careful packing the big ziplocs and long sleeve shirts. (I packed plenty of water, though)!

Here is Zach posing by some greenery in the bottom of the Subway:


This is Ryan, Zach, Me, Ulma, Chad, and two of Chad and Ulma's friends posing on a large rock:


This is Zach posing on some step rocks in the middle of the creek:

Here is Chad, Ulma and a few of their friends by the same rock steps:

Finally, here is Ryan, Zach and I by the rock steps:



After hiking down the river a while, we cam across some dinosaur tracks. Zach thought they were pretty fun:


After hiking along the river for a long time, we came to the side of the hill we had to hike up to the top. It's pretty steep and grueling right away and this is where Zach totally smoked his parents. I guess we didn't do enough stair-training to be ready for this part of the hike :) I was just glad to make it to the top and I had a great time! Thanks to everyone who accompanied us!