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!

Zion

Zion National Park is officially the second best National Park that I had ever been to (Glacier is the first)! It is amazing beyond words and deserves a lot of time on any itinerary. I can't wait to get back here and would jump at the chance for Nathan to work there. On the first day we arrived, we drove through the Southeast corner of the park, the only section in the South that you can drive (the main road is just for shuttle buses). We saw red, white, and orange scraped hills and drove through an extremely long tunnel that dumped us into a valley with amazing views.

5-27-15 - Typical hills on the Southeast drive

The amazing, sweeping valley at the end of the tunnel.

Nathan

Me

We stayed two nights in Springdale, UT, which is a super-cute tourist town filled with shops and restaurants (we ate at Oscar's twice - it's the best). It reminded me of Medora, ND. The shuttle has stops along the town's main road, which makes it very, very easy to get around.

That first afternoon we took the shuttle all the way to the end of the road, and stopped at about half of the stops to explore.

"Three Patriarchs"

Desert Plants

To break up the shuttle ride, we hiked the Emerald Pools trail, which is across the street from the Zion Park Lodge.

Pool #1

Pool #2

Pool #3

The frogs singing in pool #3 were beautiful.

Our goals for this trail were to see a lizard and not die. Mission accomplished!

One of my very favorite stops in the park is the Weeping Rock. Water trickles out of the rock in a slow waterfall and feeds a variety of beautiful flowers.

Weeping Rock

Then, after viewing the Weeping Rock, you happen to turn around and see this:

It's too much. It's one of the most amazing places I've seen ever. Here's a video:

Here's another mountain:

I loved the experience of staying in Springdale. There were a lot of great restaurants to choose from each night and plenty of fun shops to peruse while enjoying the perfect weather. Plus, you're never really NOT in the park because even Springdale is surrounded by these beautiful red mountains...

La Quinta Inn

...even at night.