My first backpack with Dave was in a seldom hiked or backpacked area, the Right Fork of the North Creek. Most visitors to Zion opt for the classic day hike in The Subway, which is the Left Fork of The North Creek, which is one creek further north. I’ve done The Subway a few times – once from top to bottom, which is the very difficult way of doing it. I’ve also done it from the top to the beginning of the ‘Subway’ portion of it, and this is a very beautiful hike. But for more solitude, I always like taking day hikes up The Right Fork, it has great views and nice waterfalls. And rarely do you see anyone else.
There are 2 trailheads for The Right Fork. The usual and more popular one is simply called The Right Fork. This takes you down a 300 foot drop-off of Lava Rock down to the North Creek, just downstream from the confluence of The Right Fork and The Left Fork (Subway) of the North Creek. Regardless of the names of these creeks, they are all so beautiful. But today, we chose The Grapevine Spring trailhead, which was just ½ mile north of the other trailhead. Like the other one, this one took you down some tough switchbacks, steep and slippery, over lava rocks and boulders. On one other trip with all the kids, we had to hike right by a Rattlesnake hidden in the lava rocks. After a 300 foot descent, we came right down to the creek. If you headed up creek to the left about a mile you’d be starting The Subway hike going up creek. But we headed to the right, down creek; with a few creek crossings and seeing some nice cascading falls along the rocks we made it to the confluence of the two forks of the North Creek. At this point we headed up the Right Fork. The next 3 miles or so were a number of creek crossings. The canyon was more open at this time, so were were rewarded with views of the Zion cliffs and mountains. I’ve done this hike a few times before, but I think it was Dave’s first one here and he loved it.
First on our agenda was to find a nice flat place to make our camp, and we found it about 4 miles from the trailhead. It was under some trees, about 100 feet or so from the creek below. We then took off without our packs , continuing up the canyon. As we proceeded, there were more and more creek crossings and each one provided a nice setting, rippling cascades along the smooth slick rock or pepples in the creek. Soon the pinions and junipers would give way to Ponderosa Pines. But just before we hit the big pines, we came to an interesting little narrow slot, it was sort of like a half of the Subway. Here we had to walk in the water, and it got quite deep at the end of this slot, and we had to climb up a bit to get back to a more easy area. At this point we had a number of boulders and rocks to hop. We made it to Double Falls, one of the best destinations in the park. Two 25 foot tall and wide waterfalls, one after each other, with red rocks and cliffs in all directions. To bypass these falls you had to climb up around the right and then back down to the creek.
The next 1 mile was more bolder hopping and climbs up the side of waterfalls. And there were lots of waterfalls. But we made it to our destination – Barrier Falls. A 50 foot waterfall, and no way to go any further. But we didn’t intend on going any further on this day. We just took in the sight of this waterfall, rested, and then made it back to our camp. But as we got back to that little slot section , what I called the half Subway, it started to rain with a soft sound of thunder in the distance. It was a steady rain, not too terrible. But we stood under the overhangs in the slot section. It was perhaps a 30 minute wait, and then the rain left us, and never came back. We were a little wet as we walked the last 1 mile back to where our tents and food were.
To wind down the evening before hitting our tents for sleep, we hung out along the creek. Watching the sunset, listening to the frogs; with the sound of the creek.
The next morning before setting out back to the car, we headed up creek a little ways to explore. The day before we saw a tiny little creek coming in from the north and we thought we’d explore it. At the point where it came into the Right Fork, it wasn’t more than a few feet wide and very brushy, so we ended up mostly in the water as we headed up into unexplored territory (I mentioned in earlier backpack that when I mentioned this little creek to a veteran Park Ranger of 30 years, he never even went up it). But as we were about ½ up the canyon, we didn’t expect to see what was ahead.
The first sight was a 80 foot waterfall. Nice seeps came down from the side of the waterfalls and we were able to fill up our bottles with ice cold and fresh water. Thinking our thrills were over, we figured we’d climb up and over the falls, and this was a loose scramble up to the right. But then it leveled off once we go to the top of these falls. As we proceeded, we were thinking we’d turn back soon. But luckily we didn’t because not too far ahead was a second waterfall, again about 70 -80 feet tall. And it was just as spectacular as the first one. We jokingly thought we were the first white men who saw this, but the likelihood of this is nil. But who-knows. We ended up naming these two falls after each other. Although I don’t recall which one was Burkley Falls and which one was Nally Falls. And it didn’t matter, putting names on natural landmarks seemed moot and unimportant. What really mattered was what the Early Indians living in this area called these falls, and that we will never know.
After enjoying these 2 falls, we headed back to pick up our packs and take the 4 mile hike back to the car up at the Trailhead, making sure we got nice and wet in the Left Fork Creek before making the long climb out with our packs.
There are 2 trailheads for The Right Fork. The usual and more popular one is simply called The Right Fork. This takes you down a 300 foot drop-off of Lava Rock down to the North Creek, just downstream from the confluence of The Right Fork and The Left Fork (Subway) of the North Creek. Regardless of the names of these creeks, they are all so beautiful. But today, we chose The Grapevine Spring trailhead, which was just ½ mile north of the other trailhead. Like the other one, this one took you down some tough switchbacks, steep and slippery, over lava rocks and boulders. On one other trip with all the kids, we had to hike right by a Rattlesnake hidden in the lava rocks. After a 300 foot descent, we came right down to the creek. If you headed up creek to the left about a mile you’d be starting The Subway hike going up creek. But we headed to the right, down creek; with a few creek crossings and seeing some nice cascading falls along the rocks we made it to the confluence of the two forks of the North Creek. At this point we headed up the Right Fork. The next 3 miles or so were a number of creek crossings. The canyon was more open at this time, so were were rewarded with views of the Zion cliffs and mountains. I’ve done this hike a few times before, but I think it was Dave’s first one here and he loved it.
First on our agenda was to find a nice flat place to make our camp, and we found it about 4 miles from the trailhead. It was under some trees, about 100 feet or so from the creek below. We then took off without our packs , continuing up the canyon. As we proceeded, there were more and more creek crossings and each one provided a nice setting, rippling cascades along the smooth slick rock or pepples in the creek. Soon the pinions and junipers would give way to Ponderosa Pines. But just before we hit the big pines, we came to an interesting little narrow slot, it was sort of like a half of the Subway. Here we had to walk in the water, and it got quite deep at the end of this slot, and we had to climb up a bit to get back to a more easy area. At this point we had a number of boulders and rocks to hop. We made it to Double Falls, one of the best destinations in the park. Two 25 foot tall and wide waterfalls, one after each other, with red rocks and cliffs in all directions. To bypass these falls you had to climb up around the right and then back down to the creek.
The next 1 mile was more bolder hopping and climbs up the side of waterfalls. And there were lots of waterfalls. But we made it to our destination – Barrier Falls. A 50 foot waterfall, and no way to go any further. But we didn’t intend on going any further on this day. We just took in the sight of this waterfall, rested, and then made it back to our camp. But as we got back to that little slot section , what I called the half Subway, it started to rain with a soft sound of thunder in the distance. It was a steady rain, not too terrible. But we stood under the overhangs in the slot section. It was perhaps a 30 minute wait, and then the rain left us, and never came back. We were a little wet as we walked the last 1 mile back to where our tents and food were.
To wind down the evening before hitting our tents for sleep, we hung out along the creek. Watching the sunset, listening to the frogs; with the sound of the creek.
The next morning before setting out back to the car, we headed up creek a little ways to explore. The day before we saw a tiny little creek coming in from the north and we thought we’d explore it. At the point where it came into the Right Fork, it wasn’t more than a few feet wide and very brushy, so we ended up mostly in the water as we headed up into unexplored territory (I mentioned in earlier backpack that when I mentioned this little creek to a veteran Park Ranger of 30 years, he never even went up it). But as we were about ½ up the canyon, we didn’t expect to see what was ahead.
The first sight was a 80 foot waterfall. Nice seeps came down from the side of the waterfalls and we were able to fill up our bottles with ice cold and fresh water. Thinking our thrills were over, we figured we’d climb up and over the falls, and this was a loose scramble up to the right. But then it leveled off once we go to the top of these falls. As we proceeded, we were thinking we’d turn back soon. But luckily we didn’t because not too far ahead was a second waterfall, again about 70 -80 feet tall. And it was just as spectacular as the first one. We jokingly thought we were the first white men who saw this, but the likelihood of this is nil. But who-knows. We ended up naming these two falls after each other. Although I don’t recall which one was Burkley Falls and which one was Nally Falls. And it didn’t matter, putting names on natural landmarks seemed moot and unimportant. What really mattered was what the Early Indians living in this area called these falls, and that we will never know.
After enjoying these 2 falls, we headed back to pick up our packs and take the 4 mile hike back to the car up at the Trailhead, making sure we got nice and wet in the Left Fork Creek before making the long climb out with our packs.
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