Derek Sturman

Derek Sturman

The Subway - Bottom Up

12/10/16

I made the zion subway hike in mid October. The weather was warm and clear that day, making it quite warm on the hike in. The subway itself is slightly cooler than the rest of the bottom up hike. With a little wind chill that comes down into the natural tunnel and it remains in the shade almost 100% of the time. If you plan on doing the bottom up hike in the fall I'd simply recommend being prepared for a warm hike and have some kind of wet or dry suit to keep warm while visiting the subway itself. The hike itself I feel is over exaggerated as being very rough. I thought it was extremely smooth, and quite relaxing .There isn't much of a trail so you'll waid up stream most of the bottom up hike, but it's not strenuous (in my opinion ) it's fairly flat the whole way with the exception of the first part of the hike; Which is a large set of switchbacks that go down several hundred feet. You will need to go back up these switchbacks when returning, which is the only hard part of the bottom up hike.

5.0