Angel's Landing & The Narrows

Ever since I'd heard of Angel's Landing, I knew that I had to hike it. Twenty-one tiny switchbacks followed by a scramble up the spine of a mountain with drop-offs on both sides. This photo I stole from heidikins.com pretty much sums it up:

Here I am at the beginning: really, really excited to achieve a life goal.

Note the "falling man" warning. That's how you know the trail will be good.

Angel's Landing from the Start of the Trail

You first hike along perpendicular to the mountain and do a few switchbacks to get up to a passageway to the back of the mountain. When we were just about to turn into the passageway, a blurry jet airplane whooshed right by us and dove down into the valley. We later realized the noise was a Peregrine Falcon who'd gotten all the way down to the bottom of the valley before we saw it again.

Passageway Mid-Hike

After climbing up 21, steep switchback, you get to a point where the trail gets really skinny and that's where a cable shows up. The cable is literally your life line for the rest of the hike, because this is what you have to climb up:

I'm that tiny blue dot about 1/3 of the way up.

This was the most scared I've ever been to physically do anything in my life. Both Nathan and I got to a point where I looked down and saw a single cable free-standing on the top of a skinny ridge with two drop-offs on either side. This is where Nathan decided to play it safe and sit this one out. I spent the next 10 minutes giving myself a pep talk to keep taking steps forward.

Nathan got some really cool shots of me climbing.

Finally, I made it to the top and the view was unbelievable. I felt bad that I hadn't tried harder to convince Nathan to keep going.

I made it!

View toward The Narrows

Zion Canyon

The views were amazing, but I honestly didn't pay attention to them until I was on my way down. At the top, I rested, ate some trail mix, and had my finger nibbled by an overly-aggressive chipmunk. I thought the way down would be even worse, but I was happy to discover that the familiarity of the trail the second time over made it easier. I was having fun and taking far more risks on the way down.

I met up with Nathan and some new friends from Madison took a picture of us:

Only after the hike did I realize just how massive this cliff wall is: 

I'm happy to be back on solid ground, but was really happy to have conquered Angel's Landing. That was the major win of our whole vacation.

The other famous trail in Zion is The Narrows, which starts at the end of the road where the canyon starts to narrow. You hike completely in the Virgin River for miles, if you want, while the walls of the canyon close in on you. I would have loved to hike this trail too, but we'd had enough. We walked the two-mile, accessible Riverside Trail to see the beginning of it, though.

Riverside Walk

The Narrows

Unfinished business just makes it easier to go back soon. Next time we come, the kids are hiking in the river with us!