Day 24 (Angel's Landing)

Day 24
July 15, 2006
Hiking at Zion

Frank and Norm caught a shuttle bus at 6:30 AM in order to hit the Angel’s Landing Trail by 7:30. Frank and Sessy hiked this trial in 1994 and it is by far Frank’s favorite hike of all time. “Hike” may be a misnomer since it is also, out of necessity, a “climb” in places. The morning air was cool and comfortable, especially in the shade as the two set out for a summit 2.5 miles away and 1, 700 feet higher than the starting point. The first two miles were very steep with dozens of switchbacks, many with 30% grades that traversed the limestone walls of the main canyon and a side canyon.

One notable segment was named “Walter’s Wiggles” and was comprised of 22 20-foot-long switchbacks that climbed about 200 feet in little more than 2 tenths of a mile! At the end of that section, the trail leveled out and the real fun began! Over the next half mile, we climbed, scurried, and slid along mountain goat ledges and crevasses that were more of an obstacle course than a trail. The Park Service had installed heavy gauge chains in dozens of places to give climbers some security. The real shocking part, however, was the shear drop-offs. At one point we were walking along a ridgeline that was about 36 inches wide with a shear drop-off of 1,200 feet to our left and an almost shear one of 800 feet to our right. Remnants of the night winds were still about the place and we both felt a few surges of adrenaline as we briefly contemplated the consequences of a misstep.

We made it to the end, where Angel’s Landing, an off-white stone peninsula 1,500 feet tall jutted out from the side of the canyon, sort of flattened out and provided an exquisite platform to view the canyon in all directions. The river and road below looked like things you might view from an airplane. “Awesome!” in a word.

After the hike we met up with the rest of the family and ate lunch in Zion Lodge’s dining room. Then Sylvia and Sessy shopped in the gift shop while Frank, Norm and the kids played on the lodge's beautiful front yard. There is an ancient, huge cottonwood tree in the center of the yard that stands like a majestic sentinel, shading a quarter acre of green grass.

In the late afternoon we hiked a short trail to Weeping Rock where water seeps out of the limestone face of the canyon and “hanging gardens” of maidenhair fern and resurrection moss cover the stone. It is a lush oasis in an otherwise very dry environment.

At 10 PM, we attended an excellent lecture in the lodge’s theatre given by a ranger on light pollution and its affects on our ability to see the night sky. Two points that we left with were 1) of Americans born today, only 20% will ever see (even once) the Milky Way with their bare eyes; and 2) If you were to take a standard sewing needle and hold it at arm’s length and peer through the eyelet at the darkest spot in the sky that you could find, and if you had the magnification afforded by the Hubble Telescope, you could see about 1,000 galaxies each containing between 500 million and 1 billion stars!