Zion: Angel's Landing

Angel's Landing is the most famous trail Zion National Park.  It's a dangerous trail that leads to a 360 degree vantage point with steep thousand foot drop-offs on all sides.  And we survived it by ... not doing it!  Well, not completely true, we did the first 2/3 or so of the trail, and then substituted another trail that still had steep drop-offs and plenty of chances to die ... just not quite as imminently as Angel's Landing can offer.  We're plucky and determined hikers, but we're not crazy, and didn't think the risk was worth it, especially since it's a heavily travelled trail and dangerous situations can arise from passing other people.

See that mountain up ahead - that's it.  We started out at around 9 am, on March 18.

Looking back into Zion valley as we climb the first part of the trail.  I liked the way those trees in the foreground lit up as the sun started climbing over the mountains.

You can see the trail snaking back down into the valley:

Already there are very steep drop-offs - the shrubbery on the right conceals it, but if you went over that edge, you are going to fall for a while!  At least this part of the trail is really wide, lots of room to pass people safely.

I love rocks ...

Ed on some switchbacking trail.  This is an old trail, dating back to the 1930's.  They were a little more aggressive in carving out trails back in the day, I doubt they would develop a lot of these trails if making them today, partly to not have such an impact on the landscape, and partly for liability reasons - modern lawyers would never allow them!

This part of the trail is called "Walter's Wiggles", and is a set of 21 switchbacks that climbs a steep portion of mountains, hard to see them from below, but you can see another guy halfway up that gives you an idea of them.

You can see them a bit better looking down:

We made it to Scout's Landing - this is where the Angel's Landing portion of the trail leaves from, and this is where we chicken out (it was a planned chickening, I had researched it the night before and we decided it was too risky.  If you want to see more of this trail, google Angel's Landing, there are some amazingly frightening photos online).

You can see some hikers setting out on this first part of the trail (below), where you have to scramble for footing while holding onto a chain.  It doesn't look that scary in the photo, except that you have to pass people going the other way at the same time, and the photo doesn't show the 1000 foot drop-off that is just out of the right hand corner of the frame, obscured by bushes.

Here's what we are going to do instead - see, lots of steep cliffs and chances to die, but way less traffic and wider trails with no scrambling:

This is looking down from Scout's Landing at the departure point for Angel's Landing - I wasn't kidding about the drop-offs!  Those are cars parked in that triangular part of road down there - it's a little further from the ground that I like to be on skinny, irregular trails.

Just some more beautiful rocks ...

A view of Angel's Landing from the trail we took instead (the West Rim trail):

These flowers were on almost every trail - I think they might be Indian Paintbrush?

Zion has some mountains called checkerboard mesas, after the pattern created from erosion:

Just some more interesting rocks:

Heading back down Walter's Wiggles - it would be steep without the switchbacks!

Parts of the trail hug a cliff ...

Back down at the bottom of the trail - here's another view in the mid-day light.

Zion National Park: Emerald Pools

Next on March 17 we hiked the Kayenta trail to make a loop with the Emerald Pools trails.  The pools are made by a creek that flows from the cliffs to the Virgin river, and the levels of the pools varies with the season and with the weather.  With it being spring, they were at a moderate level.

The Kayenta trail starts by crossing the Virgin river, then follows the base of the mountains towards a shallow canyon called the Grotto:

Those are cottonwood trees along the river just coming into leaf.  The photo doesn't do justice to the way the sun backlights them and makes them glow:

Me on a a teensy weensy rock outcropping.  I'm adventurous but still a bit wimpy, so this is all the danger I can handle (that will change ... Zion is chock-a-block full of risky trails, actually, genuine risk is pretty much mandatory, but today is just a warm-up.)

The base of the creek that flows into the Virgin river, seen from above:

A small part of one of the middle Emerald Pools.  (The trail was crawling with people, so I don't have too many wide angle photos, as those would give the impression of a bunch of tourists standing in a puddle).

A more strenuous side trail took us up to the upper Emerald Pool.  This fills up when it rains, when a waterfall will briefly run off a cliff.

Looking up at those cliffs - perfect weather, so no waterfall today.

This is part of another middle Emerald Pool, which was flowing off the cliff a bit into the lower Emerald Pool.  I know, nothing looks very emerald-esque today, more sandstoney.

I love slot canyons, and this trail had a short skinny one to walk through:

So this is at lower Emerald pool.  It's pretty cool, there is a shallow cave underneath the waterfall, which was steadily dripping water as we passed under it.

View of mountains to the east as we hiked back towards the river:

Looking north and then south as we crossed the Virgin River.

Coming up next, the West Rim trail towards Angels Landing ...

Zion National Park: Watchman trail

Zion National Park is in the southwestern corner of Utah, and I had wanted to get back there ever since driving through the area on my big cross-country trip of 2009.  We drove there on March 16 for 4 days of hiking.  It was a long drive from L.A., although we went on a Sunday and left early, and that helped avoid some traffic on the escape.  We also ran into a section of closed highway though close to St.George, that led to a one-hour detour, which wasn't as bad as it might have been as the alternate route was very scenic.

Here are some photos of the first trail we hiked on March 17.  The photos can mostly speak for themselves - Zion is another one of those breathtakingly scenic places where the camera could go walk around on it's own and never take a bad picture.  It didn't hurt that we had perfect weather the whole time, either.

The end of the Watchman trail has a lookout where you have a good view of Springdale, Zion's gateway town:

On the way to our next stop we pulled over to look at the "Court of the Patriarchs", several mountains named after biblical folks.  That's the Virgin river (do you sense a theme here?) in the foreground, it travels down the valley of the main part of the park.

Next, we will head further up the road and go see the Emerald Pools ...