Trans-Zion….The “Zion Traverse”. Yeah, I’d heard of it. I had no idea though. No clue how mind-blowing this place was. The only comparison I have in my head is the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim. After running both, I’d put Zion above the Grand Canyon crossing any day. Zion was the most amazing place I have ever seen. There is beauty in 360 degrees from the start of the run to the finish. The trails are prestine and meticulosly maintained. I ran the “short” version of the run, bailing at 39 miles from Angel’s Landing. A few of the other runners in our group pushed on until just after dark and completed a 53 mile trek across the entire park. I’ve been on an emotional high ever since I returned home just two weeks ago. It is no use explaining what it is like. In my best effort to share what this place is about, please enjoy this short video I put together using the footage of several contributing runners. The aerial footage was donated by SkyNinja661, a quad-copter photographer on YouTube.
Run long and prosper,
I know this might be a tough question to answer, but having done both now, would you consider the Zion Traverse more rigorous than R2R2R? I notice that the distances and total elevation gain are roughly similar, although Grand Canyon obviously only has two hills 🙂 Zion is definitely in my future. Thanks so much for this video.
Devin,
They are comparable runs. I think the diffrence in difficulty is the availabilty of water in the Grand Canyon. If you run during the season when spickets are available, you can cover the Grand Canyon with plentiful fresh water at regular intervals. At Zion, the water was scarce and we did everything we could to intake enough usibg various filters. There were many more people in Grand Canyon as well. With these in mind, I’d say The Zion run is a bit harder under same weather conditions. Both runs are off the charts though…. must do journey runs for experienced ultrarunners in the US. Good luck! Jerry
Great video Jerry! I’ve been interested in doing the G2G, so I’ll have to add this to my bucket list as well. Was this an effort you did with several folks or was it an organized race event? Thanks!
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Jer, stoked you got to check out the Zion traverse! After doing that last year and finally getting to R2R2R a couple weeks ago, I gotta say Zion is in it’s own world when it comes to the scenery and overall experience when compared to R2R2R.
I loved both but Zion was just a different level of amazing.
It’s no secret that Zion is my favorite place on earth and that the traverse is my absolute favorite adventure run. I’m glad you got to see if for yourself. Sorry we couldn’t hook up, it would have been great to finally meet you in person. We should make it happen soon. I’ve got more adventure runs planned than I can count. I’ll invite you along sometime.
Sounds good to me!
Am 61 from Auckland New Zealand,thinking of doing this,is their an Event co?Would like to have surport/company…
Visited this canyon briefly with my wife 7 yrs ago…allways thought to come back and run this or Bryce?
Any thoughts?