The day did not start out well at all. We were all soaked from the pouring rain and I was frustrated at my sopping wet french toast. We had spent the night around the campfire talking about the hike and were all excited about going up “the hill”. We took our moisture soaked hearts to the Ranger’s station to get an update on the weather.
“Gunna rain hard all day.”
“All day?”
“Yup. Look here at the radar.” The screen was green with a monstrous rain cloud covering most of the park. “But hey, this is Zion, anything could happen.”
We decided to go to the Zion Human History Museum to see if we could wait out the rain. We looked around at the exhibits and walked through the art gallery, all a bit dejected. Leland and I looked outside and noticed the rain was letting up.
“Lets go check the radar again” he said.
“Looks like it is going to clear up” young, blonde haired ranger told us.
We went in to the Zion introduction movie with a twinge of excitement. Twenty-two minutes later we stepped outside to sunshine and no rain.
“Well, let’s go up the hill” I said while pointing at the looming rock known as Angel’s Landing in the distance. We climbed on to the shuttle and headed off to the Grotto stop and the Angel’s Landing trailhead.
Angel’s Landing is a 2.5 mile path that winds its way 1488 ft. up to the top of a large sandstone monolith that lets you see the whole canyon. The book had warned of narrow pathways and “areas where chains bolted to the side of the cliff face may be needed for assistance.”
At the bottom of the path we stopped to look up at the overbearing piece of rock we were going to climb. The path started out as sand and was a fairly steady climb for a quarter of a mile until it became a paved path. We passed three young women, one poorly shod; an Indian couple using two hiking poles a piece, and a small family of Germans. We stopped often to catch our breath, take a picture or six, and just enjoy the view.
Before the path curved into a crevasse between Angel’s Landing and the rock wall next to it we stopped and looked down at the path we had traversed thus far.
“Wow.” I said.
“Look how far we have come already” this from Jo.
“Let’s get to Walter’s Wiggles” said Leland.
We made it to Walter’s Wiggles, the series of 21 switchbacks that takes you to Scout’s landing, in about 10 minutes. It took us about 15 more to clime the wiggles. It was once we reached the landing that we saw what was ahead…or thought we did. There was a fairly steep sandstone cliff face in front of us with people scrambling up, using the chains to haul themselves along the side of the face. Others were looking down from the top waiting for their chance to return from the Landing. We took our place in line and climbed/hauled ourselves to the next landing, The Chicken Out Point.
As we turned the corner and truly faced our last half mile we had very little to say.
“Oh shit.”
“Holy balls.”
“Holy balls!”
The guy sitting on the landing laughed at us. “I love hearing peoples’ expressions when they turn that corner.”
What was facing us was a ridge that ran from The Chicken Out Point to Angel’s Landing. It was about a half mile to the top.
I looked at the ant like people scrambling up and down the ridge. “I’m not giving up”
“Let’s go then” Jo and Leland said in unison.
We crawled, pulled, climbed and slid our way that half mile to the top. On our way we stopped for water, to catch our breath and take a picture of rare wildlife like the California Condor. It took us almost an hour to get to Angel’s Landing. Once there we had a stunning view of the entire Canyon from the Altar of Sacrifice all the way to the mouth of The Narrows. We sat down and had a lunch of chips, apples, and cookies. We took the appropriate pictures and looked at each other.
“So, lets go down the Hill.”
Toeshoes and Keens abide,
Cory
Pictures linked below in Jo's posting.
No comments:
Post a Comment