Zion Traverse: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Posted on August 26th, 2017

Words & Photos: Marco Vendramel

A Ranger wakes me up, I sit up on the bench that, until a few seconds earlier, had been my bed, I rub my face and try to get my brain working enough to understand what he's saying to me.

"If you keep sleeping you'll miss the last shuttle to the visitor center... But tell me, where are you coming from?"

"...I did the Zion Traverse and I was resting before catching the bus back to my car..."

"Okay, where's your backpack with your sleeping bag and trekking gear? Did someone steal it while you were sleeping?"

"I don't have a backpack, I've got this water bottle and the hip pack I'm still wearing."

The ranger looks puzzled, lowers his sunglasses, and stares at me like I should be committed.

"The routes on this side of Zion Canyon all take multiple days. Unless you ran it, there's no way to do it with just a water bottle."

"That's the point..."

And so begins the US adventure, after the first of three little outings I'd planned for this trip.

Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and last but not least, Grand Canyon.

Rim to Rim, legendary routes for every backpacker, and especially for every runner.

Attempting, searching, trying to run in these places and along the trails that cross them.

Nothing planned in terms of logistics or strategy. The weather forecast is beautiful, and on one of the days spent in these parks, I'll try to fit in these crossings.

Straight off with a bang, as they say; Zion greets me with a landscape of pure mountains, wild, rugged, technical trails.

The climbs are brutal, but between the adrenaline and the urge to run, they go by well enough for the legs I've got on me.

Before the final descent, I treat myself to a detour, out to Observation Point, a natural balcony at 2,400 m overlooking the entire valley. I stop, look down, and I'm sure I've got that goofy grin of great occasions plastered across my face.

Different round, different run, and a few days later we're at Bryce. Somehow, though, I'm pretty sure I got the sequence of Rim to Rim runs backwards... Bryce Canyon is incredible, a lunar landscape, and its route is much gentler compared to the previous one, at Zion. A smart runner would have planned this too, to arrive acclimated, with a route that had solid elevation gain in the legs, but nothing as brutal as the first one I ran. No big deal, I run it twice over two different days, throwing in a spectacular variant: Fairyland, the land of the fairies. I can confirm! I didn't run into any fairies or gnomes, but they could definitely live somewhere like this. You run among spires and red rocks twisted into the most bizarre shapes. Immersed in silence, broken only by my breathing and my footsteps.

Here too, barely any people around, no other madman crazy enough to venture out in this heat, even though I started at dawn, into what feels like a furnace. I emerge from the canyon and run all the way to the end of the rim, and looking back, the spires from earlier, seen from above now, take on a completely different shape. Fairyland...

Grand Canyon. Il primo impatto è pazzesco e non riesci comunque a farci l’abitudine. Enorme, immenso, grandioso.

Grand Canyon. The first impression is insane, and you never quite get used to it. Enormous, immense, grand.

I run for a few km along a trail tracing the rim above it, and in the distance I catch the glint of the Silver Bridge, the gateway to the other side.

I cross it, half in awe, half in reverence, and stop midway, suspended between water and rock.

I set off again. The heat is savage (I'll later see 48°C on the thermometer), and the climb takes its toll.

I look up, the final overlook, the finish, seems impossibly far away. I've got Rob Krar's video of his Rim to Rim (to Rim, for him) burned into my memory. He arrived completely spent, and on the climb it looked like he wanted to stop.

Not me, though. Doesn't seem like it. I actually do stop!! The last three miles feel like a nightmare, with little kids skipping past me, and cheerful families with cooler bags and backpacks slung over their shoulders.

My tongue won't come unstuck from the roof of my mouth, I'm dreaming of the Moretti waiting in my fridge back home, and around a bend, the omnipresent Ranger appears again.

"Come on, almost there, one mile left, scorching day today. Think of the people down at the bottom of the canyon, though I imagine with heat like this most of them are stopping at Indian Garden, or the braver ones at Bright Angel Campground or Phantom Ranch..."

"How was your day, by the way? Was it a good one?"

"It was incredible..."