Just got back from a 2-night backpacking trip in Zions. The original plan was to hike to Observation Point from the East Mesa Rim Trailhead and then out at the park's East Entrance. We were going to filter water at Stave Spring to resupply, but it had already gone dry.

When we picked up our wilderness permit the rangers said they had two nights available at Camp 9 on the Laverkin Creek Trail. There were two springs still flowing right near that campsite so we took it. It was also about 3/4 of a mile from Kolob Arch. So we hiked 7 miles to camp Wednesday afternoon evening.

While on a break about halfway there, one of the leaders went to sit on a rock when he heard a rattle. He slowly moved back and saw a rattlesnake which was coiled just a few feet from him. We ended the break and gave the snake a wide berth. We counted 8 or 9 rattles on the snake and it looked like it was probably 3 or 4 feet long. Once at camp we were very grateful nothing happened. It's scary to think about what kind of situation we would have been in if that had gone differently.

Saw the arch on Thursday and explored some of the close canyons and stayed in our shady site deep in the Ponderosa pines.

We got up at 5 on Friday and back on the trailhead by 6 to hike the 7 miles back to our cars. When we got behind some of the buttes, the temperature dipped into the mid 50s! It made hiking out so much better than hiking in the high 90s on our way there.

We even saw two wild turkeys that were at least 3 feet tall. The footprints they left on the trail were 8 inches across. They were huge.