Wildcat Canyon Run, Zion National Park

After the run up Angels Landing we came down and had dinner. We then drove up to the Upper Kolob Plateau part of Zion National Park. There is a little campground up there with six spots, but it was all full. We drove up to Kolob Reservoir and camped next to the lake up there. It was a really nice spot to camp. On Thursday morning we drove back down to the Lava Point trail head.

We ran out about four and a half miles and back making it a total of probably about nine miles. From this trail head you could run out the West Rim trail, or the Wildcat Canyon trail. We took the trail to Wildcat Canyon. Despite the name, we did not see any wildcats. We did however come accross two snakes. The first was about two miles into the trail. This rattlesnake was coiled up right there on the trail. I didn't see him move at all. We walked around him keeping our distance, and we marked the trail so that we would know where it was when we came back.

The rest of this run was pretty fun. This was definitely a faster run than Angels Landing. We wanted to run out to a lookout point, but we also didn't want to run too far. We didn't make it to the point. We turned around at about 45 minutes. It took about the same amount of time to get back.

On the way back we saw a King snake. We also saw the rattlesnake again. he had woken up and was slithering up the hill away from the trail.

Here is a picture of that rattelsnake we saw. Ryan was running in front and he freaked out when he saw it. I would have to if I had seen it first. Since I knew it was there I was cautious when i aproached to take a picture.

Here is Ryan at the point where we turned around.

And here I am at that same point.

Here is a view from the trail.

And here is a picture of that king snake. We weren't sure what kind of snake it was, but I looked it up when we got back and it is some sort of King snake. It is kinda hard to see, but there it is.

Here is another photo of that rattlesnake. I guess the sun hit him and he warmed up enough to move by the time we got back to him.

And this last photo is of us running. I was holding the camera in my hand, turned it on, held it up and snapped this shot while we were running back up the trail to the trail head. I was pretty tired at this point.

In all it took us about an hour and half to do this run of about nine miles. Not great time, but I didn't stop my watch for the snakes and other photos, so overall not bad. After this run, we hopped in the car and headed home. It was a really good trip to Zion National Park. Next time I hope there will not be a threat of flash flooding so that I can do the whole Narrows hike.