Pigburner: Angels Landing

July 14, 2009 Zion National Park

Today our main event was the 2 1/2 mile climb to Angels Landing, one of the most famous hikes in the park. A fairly tame 2 mile/1000 ft elevation gain hike with some cool switchbacks, then a jaw-dropping half-mile/500 ft gain scramble to the top of Angels Landing. This last half mile of trail sits atop a narrow sandstone rib with sheer cliffs to the valley floor on both sides.

That is what we will be on top of in a couple hours - the trail climbs up from the left

Carlynn stayed behind at the motel, a little bruised and battered from our slot canyon trip yesterday. Jess, Sarah, Mel, and I started about 9:30 am, a little later than I would have liked, but the first set of switchbacks into Refrigerator Canyon was still in the shade. In the picture below, you can see the section of the trail carved into the sheer face of the cliff, a little below the section of blue sky in the photo. But this is the tame part of this trail!

The trail up to Refridgerator Canyon

This is the section of trail carved out of the cliff that you can see in the previous photo

After a short hike in the coolness of Refrigerator Canyon, you climb up a series of switchbacks known as Walter's Wiggles on the way to Scout Lookout and the start of the interesting part of the trail. Sarah ran from here to the parking lot on the way down - way too much energy.

Looking down Walter's Wiggles

At the top of Walter's Wiggles there is a wonderful lookout where the faint of heart can see a great view and turn around the way they came. We weren't the faint of heart, and started on the final part of the trail. Shortly after this, we encountered a teen-age girl crying and clinging to a small tree (literally) in a wide area of the trail. A family member was with her, and another family member further up the trail was yelling back asking how "tree girl" was doing (insensitive younger brother, obviously). The poor girl was petrified, and you can see why with sheer drops on both sides of the trail.

The hike is easily done unless you are freaked by heights, then don't even think about it. In one short section the trail is no more than 3 feet wide with the cliffs on either side. In other places you have to scramble across angled sandstone faces which end ten or twenty feet below you in a sheer cliff. Jessica went ahead because she was "a little scared" and didn't want to freak out Melinda. Sarah looked for cliffs she could hang her feet over. Melinda was a trooper, hanging onto the chains and climbing up a trail where in many places you were a trip and a short tumble away from the most exciting (and last) few seconds of your life.

From the top you have the most amazing view up and down Zion Canyon to the river far below. After sitting and enjoying the top of the world feeling, we headed back down. I thought going down would be a lot scarier because instead of facing in towards the rock as you climb, you are facing out and can fully appreciate the exposure of the trail at the top of the cliffs. But for some reason it wasn't. The only bad part was that I hiked ahead of Melinda so I could help her down where needed, and it was a little creepy with her behind me on a lot of the trail where I couldn't watch her all the time and where a mistep without hanging onto the chain could send her tumbling into oblivion. OK, it maybe wasn't as bad as that sounds, but when you are a parent, you worry a little more. The lower part of the trail was in the sun, and it was hot, but the cool river waited at the bottom to soothe tired feet. As we sat and looked back up from the valley floor towards the top of Angels Landing, we realized how incredible that trail really is. A must do.