Zion Finale

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Woke up to cloud covered peaks and a sketchy weather forecast this morning.  Tossed out the planned hike to Secret Canyon 'cause I figured even if we did hike it, it would still be a secret since we would only see our feet.  Instead we decided to do just the first leg of the Angel's Landing Trail which appeared to stay fairly low for a while (wrong) but still scenic (right).

The trail starts out easily enough with a moderate incline but shortly starts a serious ramp-up.  By this time the skies were starting to clear so we decided to continue on at least as far as something called Walters Wiggles.  The following photos will give a little sense of the rest of the day.

Starting Point

We're going WHERE?

Nice day for a stroll.

Oweeee... A Flat Spot

View From the Top
1,000 Feet STRAIGHT down!

I was thinkin' about just putting the cell camera in video mode and dropping it off the cliff....

That got us to Scout's Point.   Another 1/4 mile up this rock scramble and across the knife-edge ridge in the upper left takes you to the actual Angel's Landing.  Park records document 5 deaths on that route.  We decided that if we could see it, that was good enough.

Now for the trip back down.

More Wiggles

"Walters Wiggles"
(1-8 of 31)

Yes - I went too.

ENOUGH Wiggling

Almost There

Well... Not Quite

Sippin' a Mango Smoothie and Munchin Fries

 In the end, I'd have to rank this as one of the most dramatic trails we've ever done.  The vistas were mind boggling the entire route and the 1,000 foot sheer drop view from the top straight to the canyon floor was heart stopping, (almost literally).  It was a bit of an uphill slog to get there, but well worth the effort.

Later in the evening we treated ourselves to first class dinner at the Zion Lodge, (including a giant slice of chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream).

Tomorrow we move into "free-styling" mode with no place to be and no time to get there with a genreral plan of zig-zagging back and forth across southern Utah and Colorado, slowly working our way north as te temp start to climb.

Good night from Zion Lodge,

Brad and Val