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Unpopular opinion: a ranger at Zion told me to stop planning my routes by miles and start planning by water
I was at the visitor center in Zion two weeks ago getting a permit for the West Rim and the ranger looked at my map and just shook her head. She said almost every rescue she deals with involves hikers who planned their day around distance instead of the next water source. That hit me because I have always built my routes in a spreadsheet with miles per day as the main number. So I tried it her way on a trip through the La Verne Narrows area, marking springs and creeks first, then drawing the route between them. My daily mileage ended up all over the place, one day was 6 miles and the next was 14, but I never ran dry and I never had to rush a section just to hit a campsite. The weird part is I finished feeling way less beat up than my usual even-paced plan. Now I am wondering if anyone else plans around water and just lets the miles fall where they fall? Curious how you handle dry stretches where the next source is 15 plus miles out.
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