Day 2 - Chasing Angels

“Getting to the top is optional

 Getting down is mandatory” 

-Ed Viesturs

                The morning light came much earlier than I had hoped. Due to final exams and the following celebration, I had not enjoyed a full night’s rest in over two weeks. I rolled out of bed and dragged myself into the shower. The high water pressure in the hotel was incredibly soothing on my road-weary body. I felt the time spent staring down the dividing line weigh down my eyelids. Sleep grabbed hold of me and before long I drifted into a dream underneath the massaging jets of the Travelodge shower. I awoke a few minutes later to Corey's knocks on the bathroom door to remind me that we had only a few minutes to catch the first shuttle bus into Zion Canyon: an observation that would turn out to be much more significant than I anticipated at the time.

                Corey and I arrived at the visitor’s center at 6:45 AM. The sun peaked into the canyon and illuminated the park in a way that truly showcased the colors of the sandstone walls that gave Zion its allure. We caught the first bus with only minutes to spare. A recorded audio-tour of the lower canyon played softly over the bus’s loudspeaker. A man's voice told the story of Zion’s geological formation, its discovery, and its eventual designation as a National Park. Zion, we were told, meant sanctuary. I felt the name appropriate given the sheltered nature of the canyon, and its effect of distracting me from how long it took us to get there from Texas.

                Five other hikers of various ages and national origins piled out of the bus and headed across the street to the trailhead for Angels Landing. There was a young Indian couple, an older American gentleman, and an eighty-something-year-old man named Jan (yohn). Jan yodeled in Italian, but based on his accent and his bright-orange-colored-felt Australian cowboy hat, I assumed he was Dutch. We marched ahead of the party and started up the hike’s first major climb in altitude. Long switchbacks worked their way up the canyon wall and offered stunning views of the Virgin River, which foreshadowed what the overlook above was like.

Long switchbacks

                The morning air was cold and made our ascent of the first switchbacks a frigid endeavor. We hiked into Refrigerator Canyon, a name given for how chilly it remains - even when the rest of the canyon is scorching hot. We moved quickly across a flat section of trail that gave us a reprieve from the hike’s unforgiving switchbacks. After just five minutes, we were launched back up the canyon wall on the first of Walter’s Wiggles. Walter’s Wiggles is a series of twenty-one short and steep switchbacks. The engineering marvel was named for Walter Ruesch: the park ranger who created the trail to Angels Landing in the mid 1920s. We had gained roughly eight-hundred feet and hiked nearly two miles in forty-five minutes. We heard voices above us when we reached the bottom of the Wiggles. A wily older couple had set out earlier than the first shuttle in order to reach the top first. Unfortunately for them, they vastly underestimated how quickly younger hikers, like Corey and I, could cover ground. We flew up the two-hundred and fifty vertical feet of the Wiggles switchbacks and caught the couple at Scouts Landing, an overlook that offered views out onto Big Bend below. Our first glimpse of the rock-fin that made the last climb to Angels Landing appeared to our right.

Bottom of Walter's Wiggles

                Our goal was simple: be the first people to ascend Angels Landing that morning. I had seen pictures of the hike online where the ridge was covered with hikers. We had no interest in sharing the tranquility of the canyon with others that morning. The older couple wished us luck and we were off. We moved swiftly, but safety was of high importance. Since 2004, there had been six recorded deaths of those who fell from the ridge that made up the last stretch up to Angels Landing. After we finished our ascent, I opined that those deaths were either the result of recklessness, or being caught in the wrong place during a rain storm. There was no excuse for simply falling by accident, given the convenient safety-chain that hugged the interior portion of the ridge. Corey did not use the chain once during his ascent up the rock-fin, and missed no opportunity to remind me of that fact throughout the rest of the day. Our steps were deliberate and balanced when we crossed the aptly named, Steps of Faith, a part of the ridge where just one yard to the left or right would lead to a fourteen-hundred foot fall and certain death. After some slightly vertical climbing, we reached the top. The end, though it had been in sight for quite some time, finally evened with us in altitude.

Steps of Faith

                We climbed the last steps up to the Landing. I wished to let out a victorious yell, but I was far too out of breath. After I stopped coughing, my jaw dropped. Every direction I looked there were images as beautiful as any I had ever seen. I took a moment to burn the canyon views into my memory. I thought to myself that if there were angels, they certainly hung around the overlook that carried their name.

Fat Chipmunk that lives at 1400 feet above the canyon floor

                Swallows who nest on the exposed rock face buzzed our heads. They flew high above us then dove within feet of our heads. The whoosh of the birds that flew by told Corey and I that we were on the swallow’s home turf. Chipmunks scurried about and were skittish at first, but soon posed for my camera in an obvious attempt to get some of my Clif bar. I did not oblige them. One should never feed animals in the wild. Judging by how plump the chipmunks were, I assumed many people did not follow that rule.

                Corey and I sat on the overlook and snapped shots of the canyon for twenty whole minutes before the groups behind us made it to the top. Soon after the Indian couple finished the climb, Jan’s yodeling became audible. Jan warned to stay away from the edge and told us that he was headed back down already. We asked why he did not want to spend more time on the landing. He replied that his latest ascent marked the forty-eighth time he had made the hike. Jan was over eighty years old and confidently stated that he would surely make the hike a fiftieth time before he checked out. He turned around and headed back down so as to avoid dealing with the uphill traffic that increased in the mid-morning hours.

Above Scout's Overlook

More technical portion of the climb

                Corey and I took some more photos and meditated a bit near a stack of rocks. After nearly an hour above the canyons, we turned and headed back down the rock fin. I generally have found the hike down from high places to be more unnerving than the hike up, but that was not the case in Zion. The hike up had been so strenuous that I gladly welcomed a downhill trek. Back at Scout’s Lookout, a park ranger told a group of people facts about the canyon’s Condors and Swallows, which we were familiar with from our time at the top of the trail. We passed, what I believe, was about two-hundred hikers on our way back down the canyon. Corey and I agreed that we made the right decision to finish the hike before it was crowded. I could not imagine that we would have enjoyed the experience nearly as much had we been forced to share it with such a large group of people.

Walters Wiggles from the top

                After descending Walter’s Wiggles, we hiked back down the long switchbacks and reached the banks of the Virgin River on the canyon floor. Corey waded into the river and snapped some shots of Angels Landing in the water’s reflection. We walked back to the bus-stop and boarded the shuttle back to the visitor’s center. It was nearly noon. We had completed the five mile round-trip which climbed fourteen-hundred feet in just under four hours. Had we turned around immediately at the top, we could have made the trip in three. My legs ached and my stomach growled. We left Zion and stopped at a nearby burger joint.

Trees can grow anywhere it seems

                We had already spent more energy that morning than most do in a day, but we had a long trip ahead of us. With that notion in mind, we started the eight hour drive to Elko: a mining-town in Nevada’s high-country that was our day-two destination.

                Corey and I had no idea that Nevada’s north-eastern territory was covered with stunning mountains and wide valleys. We took a bit longer route that drove through a national wildlife preserve that lay in the foothills of a long, but not very tall mountain range. We saw one pronghorn antelope. A modest sighting considering how many run across the plains of New Mexico and Texas. The detour turned out to be fruitful though. As we drove toward a mountain range, a full-sized Golden Eagle left his perch next to the road and rose into the air. The raptor looked majestic in flight. The eagle flew high quickly and flattened out, likely in search of food.

One of the last sections of climb

                An hour later, we pulled into Elko and checked into the hotel. Elko is a place largely untouched by changes in architectural style since the 1960s. Large blinking casino lights and old neon hotel signs lined the main street that our hotel sat by. I was glad I decided not to book a room at a local casino, which appeared to be the same as it was in the days of the rat-pack. The town looked slightly run-down and the casino was no different. Our hotel was more like a dorm than anything, but it was just for the night, and we were simple travelers that needed little more than a roof and a couple of beds.

                That evening, we had dinner at the Stray Dog Pub. The pizza was good and the bartender was friendly. We made conversation with the bartender as Corey and I looked over pictures from that morning. It was hard for us to believe that just thirteen hours earlier we started the Angels Landing hike. It felt much more like it happened some time ago, or that it was all just a dream. I sipped my ale, rubbed my sore right leg, and looked forward to what the next day had in store.