2021 Update: We used another route up Bridge Mountain that makes accessing the summit a lot more safe (while of course still not actually safe). I kept this trip report up for reference and for Crawford Arch, but I highly recommend not doing this overly dangerous and exposed route and instead use my new Bridge Mountain trip report. That trip report also describes the route a bit better.
Oct 04, 2016 — This hike is rough, but incredible, and also really dangerous and scary. But still incredible. Not only are there no signs of human life (the Bridge Mountain summit register read that the previous visitors were over a year and a half ago), the hike itself shows a side of Zion National Park that extremely few get to experience. Most of the day is a scramble between Class 2 and low Class 5, and though route-finding is fairly easy using the massive mountain landmarks, it still takes a much longer amount of time than expected to complete.
Shawn and I started a bit too late, but we really didn't expect to be out in the backcountry until after dark. The hike just didn't seem as long or arduous on our paper plans as it did in practice. After hiking through Gifford Canyon and up to the saddle overlooking the canyon separating Destination Peak from Gifford Peak, we were psyched, realizing there was a lot of amazing stuff ahead of us. The looming mountains of orange and white banded colors pushed us on. After spotting mountain lion tracks that paralleled our route for a couple of miles, Bridge Mountain came into view.
We continued first to the north toward Crawford Arch, which required getting to a notch, then drop down from the notch to the north, then turning left to reach a chimney. This chimney proved to be low 5th class climbing (we didn't have ropes or gear, nor would we have known how to use said gear), so we took a half hour to plot our route and committed to the few moves. A short side-hilling hike above Springdale after emerging from a crack in the ground led to Crawford Arch. The arch was incredibly cool. Normally civilization bums me out on a hike, but the fact that it took so much effort to get to where we were, and that it was the only non-technical climbing route to get there gave me an eerie sense of how remote we truly were, despite the fact that we could see buildings thousands of feet below.
After the arch, we backtracked and got to the southeastern approach to Bridge Mountain. It was getting pretty late, but we started up anyway. Some 3rd class moves greeted us early on as we made our way up a steep slab, which quickly turned into terrifying slabby friction moves with a few hundred feet of nothing but air below us. We then traversed horrifying ledges on loose sandstone. Then a super exposed 4th class almost stopped us (well mostly just me - Shawn totally has a better head for this kind of crap, or just a lack of sense for self-preservation). This was likely the silliest thing I've ever done in my life. What followed was a section of dirty, loose rock on the side of the cliff, but the summit was so close, and so tempting. And we made it. Holy crap.
My GPS got messed up around Crawford Arch and Bridge Mountain, so I had to draw in a line, so it might be a quite a bit off, but should still give you an idea where to go.
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