Hike The Watchman Zion National Park, UT

Jun 04, 2017 — This hike should not to be confused with the popular, official Zion National Park Watchman Trail. This is not that trail, but instead the route for reaching the summit of The Watchman. If you have time, this route would pair nicely with Johnson Mountain because it uses a similar approach, a route which we did a few years later.

At the time we did this hike, parking in Springdale was free, but that's changed. Expect to pay an exorbitant fee for leaving your car in town. We parked at a small lot and headed along a residential road. We passed a "Private Property" sign for a small neighborhood, but I imagine this is moreso for vehicles rather than hikers. We weren't too concerned about it and had no issues. At the end of the paved road we headed to the left and up an old roadbed that started ascending toward the peaks, generally headed east. Our first objective was to reach a weakness in the cliff band above. The weakness doesn't look like much from down here, but it would ultimately go quite well. Another potential issue would be a smaller cliff band much farther down that appeared to have only one weakness, a break that would be necessary to reach since all other options would result in a cliff. The roadbed ended shortly after we started hiking on it, but a social trail continued up the progressively steepening slope. We were able to stick to one of many social trail options, usually keeping to what seemed to be the most major one. With the exception of the smaller cliff band lower down, you can't go too wrong when ascending the slope, even if you lose the social trail system altogether. Regardless of how you make it to the major cliffs below, it's hard to miss. Surrounded by pinnacles high above and a significant cliff face below, the weakness is the only viable-looking option. It also leads to a notch in the Johnson ridge above, so that low point can serve as a nice point of reference.

Getting over the cliff band requires some Class 3 scrambling on overall nice rock with minimal exposure. The ascent of this section makes an ascending traverse heading north (left). It isn't completely straightforward, but if you're finding a move to be harder than Class 3, keep moving to the left and find an easier option. A couple hundred feet of ascending brought us up to the notch separating Mount Allgood (to the north) and Middle Johnson (to the south). There's a south-drainage canyon separating Johnson Mountain from The Watchman. We'd have to get into this drainage and cross it to begin the ascent to The Watchman. It's not obvious at all where to go, but the route cdown can be kept at Class 3. We got cliffed-out a few times, requiring us to scurry around looking for other options to descend. Additionally, getting down isn't the only hassle. If you descend too far to the south you'll be cliffed out by the watercourse of the drainage, which is surrounded by cliffs.

Once in the drainage, we located a tree-filled chute that runs diagonally (see photos below). There's a Class 4/5 section that had a rope when we were there - if the rope feels old or you can't find it, good luck finding another way up. I'm not sure how difficult the climb would be without the rope in place. We actually had difficulty even finding the rope because we went exploring any number of incorrect gullies. Once above this rope, we scrambled to higher ground on interesting slickrock territory mixed in with little bowls of orange and wihte rock and short sections of easy scrambling before getting to the crux of the day. We stumbled on at least two gully posibilities with Class 3-Class 5 moves. We ascended a Class 5 route, and then found a Class 3/4 option on the descent later on. Just keep it cool and find something that works for you - nothing should feel particularly exposed, and if it's too hard, there is likely another way. The difficulty is likely pretty subjective dependent on the gully you find. After the gully-finding madness, continue along the ridge on fun Class 2+ scrambling until the summit. Incredible views of Johnson Mountain, the Virgin River, and Springdale.