2020 Winter Camping Trip Day21-Northgate Peaks in Zion

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day21, 2020/12/16

This day Mr.N suggested hiking to the top of Northgate peaks in Zion in the morning. 

I know that a lot of people know Zion, but how many of you know about Northgate peaks in Zion? 
I hear silence. 
I didn't know or I had heard of it. 

Mr.N has a hiking app called Alltrails and he browsed in the area and found the Northgate peak hike. It is a 6-mile hike, Mr.N said it would be a half day hike, however, I thought that it would be a whole day hike, because mostly the hike is off-trail. Anyway we started hiking. The hike starts at Wildcat Canyon trailhead. This is probably more known for the starting point for top-down hike to the Subway. 1 mile after the trailhead, there is a junction: one to Subway the other to the Northgate peaks. To go to Subway you need a permit. There is a sign saying requiring a permit to proceed to go to Subway. I really wish I could get a permit someday to the Subway. 

From 1st Northgate Peak

As I mentioned Northgate "peaks" as plural, there are two peaks. So we did 2 peaks (why not). After a mile the trail disappears and it entered the off-trail area. The first peak, 7100 feet high, was not bad. There was a used trail most of the way. Climb was only 300 feet in 0.2 mile. Then the view was spectacular. I didn't have any idea until this hike that there is such beautiful portion in Zion other than main Zion canyon area. Grey tall rock over the brown-ish ground: it was so pretty. We spent time at the top for a little. Quality time with admiring the nature. 

2nd peak

Then we headed for the second peak. This was much harder than first one. It was much steeper and more slippery. How the path looks like is in the right picture. It was a little scary and I thought about turning around for several time in the middle of the climbing, because it would be a problem during descending if ascending is scary. I debated with myself, and decided to take it very slow. By taking good break and taking time, I was able to manage to hike up all the way. After such a climb, the view was even better. From the second peak, we were able to see Kolob Arch area in the distance (brown rocks in the distance in the picture). There was interesting rocky mountains as well. The scenery was so gorgeous and we wanted to be there forever!

From 2nd Northgate Peak

In Utah in this area it was almost everyday was sunny. As you can see in the picture, blue sky rarely had clouds. Nice color was seen in contrast with clear blue, grey rocks, brown rocks, green trees, brown dirt, and some white snow. I love this area, not only it is very beautiful, but also it is eerie at the same time. 

I was a little worried about descending the steep off-trail, but somehow it was quite smooth and not scary.

We loved so much the view and we took time to do off-trail as well, we finished hike around 4 p.m. It was obviously no time for another afternoon hike, so we headed for the next destination: the Sedona area in Arizona. We drove until dark in the night, we got fast food (Burger King), instead of making camping food at 10F.