On our way from Las Vegas to Indiana we decided to stop at Zion National Park. We will be passing a few national parks but won’t have enough time to stop at them all. Zion was absolutely beautiful. The Native American Indians that lived on this land were the Paiute Indians. They called this land Mukuntuweap. Which translates to “straight up land”. How fitting of a name this is I thought to myself. Standing in the Zion canyon looking down all you see is the sheer drop offs from the cliffs carved out by the Virgin River. BEAUTIFUL!
We spent 3 days here. The first day we took it easy with a scenic drive through the park, and a short 1 mile hike to see the canyon overlook. Caught sunset in the Virgin river overlooking some of the terrain.
Then headed to some BLM for the night just 20 min from the park. Tomorrow morning is gonna be an early one. Waking up at 4:45am. We are hiking, said to be one of the most dangerous hikes in the US, Angels Landing. It was said by the Indians that its so high and hard to get to that only angels can land there.
It was a great hike! There were points where you are hiking on a 3 foot wide path with 1,500+ feet drop offs to both sides. only thing keeping you from tumbling to your death is a chain they have (in some areas) and your balance. 16 lives have been lost on this trail from falling over, with the most current one happening just 4 months ago. We wanted to be there at 5:30 in the morning to catch the first bus out to the Grotto (where angels landing trailhead is). When we get there, there is already a line for the bus! We didn’t make the first bus but we did make it on the second. It was nice and cool at this time and very windy. I think we picked the windiest day to hike this trail….
The trail is over 4 miles with over 1,600 feet in elevation gains. The hardest part for me was Walters Wiggles, where there is 21 switchback to get you up to elevation. and it is steep and gets you there quick! Bring plenty of water! At the angels landing trail head there is another trail head for the Emerald pools. One of the park rangers told us that it was her favorite hike in the park. I don’t know what she saw in it but it wasn’t my favorite. I don’t know if it was because I spent all my energy hiking angels landing and didn’t want to hike any more or what, but I could have passed on that trail.
The following day we did the same thing, woke up at 4:45 to try and catch the first shuttle but this time to hike the narrows. The narrows is a hike through the virgin river and you hike through the canyon walls. something I have never done before. You want to put this on your bucket list for sure! Absolutely stunning! Just take a peak at some of these photos.
We hiked 3 miles in the canyon and turned around because we heard it starts to get real deep and we had all of our camera gear with us.
We accomplished everything we wanted to do in Zion and it was time to head out. Yeah of coarse we can spend more time there but it was just uncomfortable with the heat again. On our path there is this little hidden gem in a small town. With our boots soaking wet from hiking the narrows we figured a little more water on them won’t hurt. So we hiked another creek that runs through a canyon. This canyon was much narrower. A lot less people as well. They have these old tree trunks that they screwed pieces of angle iron into to make ladders to advance from the bottom up the waterfall. There were 2 sets of ladders in the canyon. Pretty cool!!
all in all we hiked 20+ miles in 2 days. We haven’t hiked this much since I don’t even know since when. We tied our boots to the back of the van so they can dry and heading East!!
