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Dancing on Angel's Landing  by Cowan Stark                                                                      

This was my third trip to Zion National Park and was trying figure out my next move.  It was a beautiful late fall morning, and I was sitting in Oscar's in Springdale with no particular place to go.  If you want a fast food production line breakfast sandwich, find a McD's.  If you want a killer breakfast burrito and don't mind waiting for it, Oscars is where you'll want to be.  There were only about seven or eight tables, and one poor teenager juggling the orders and, I suspect helping out with the cooking as he'd disappear behind a divider separating the kitchen from the dining room for long periods of time. You could hear there was plenty of work going on behind it judging by the racket.  I wasn't in a hurry, so I sipped on coffee and my eyes kept being drawn to the images of Angel's Landing on the wall.  Now, I've my previous trips to Zion  I've  photographed most of the usual spots around the park which in my is incredibly diverse.  You can capture fall  foliage on the Virgin River, bighorn sheep on the slickrock, the Checkerboard Mesa, sunrise from the Visitor's Center, and sunset from the bridge crossing the Virgin.  Yeah, they're all 'drive-by shootings' so I figured I needed to expend a little more effort.  But why Angel's Landing?  I'd heard it was a pretty tough hike and more than a little bit scary.  They said it involved chains.  And besides, they were expecting record high temperatures into the mid-nineties on this late October day.  Why bother?  The burrito arrived finally, and as I dug into this huge thing stuffed with potatoes, cheese, scrambled eggs, peppers and salsa , there it was in the corner of my eye again. The  dramatic aerial shot looking down on the summit area, the view downstream across the valley. I was starting to understand Richard Dreyfuss' obsession with Devil's Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Well, I'd probably draw the line at recreating the thing in my living room.  OK, I have to leave after lunch to get over to Bryce Canyon that evening , so I picked up some water, snacks, and off I went.

The trail head starts at the Grotto Picnic Area, just over three miles on the Canyon Scenic Drive as it begins it's ascent to the 6000 foot peak climbing 1700 feet in 2.5 miles.  After crossing a footbridge over the Virgin River, the trail rises gently and becomes paved as it snakes it's way upward.  Now, I'm wondering what all the excitement is about.  It was getting pretty hot, but the wierd thing was that I'm walking on a paved concrete surface.  On could only wonder what my son would try to do here on his skateboard.  Then you turn into Refrigerator Canyon, named for the sudden temperature drop you'll experience as you hit this shaded area.

  A little further on you reach Walter's Wiggles.  This is a series of twenty-one terraced switchbacks built in the 1920's.  Something tells me this was not a good time to a member of the Civilian Conservation Corp who built this thing.  Just getting all that cement up there must have been an awful task.  After negotiating the Wiggles, you'll arrive at Scout's Landing where this hike ends for those ill prepared.  I saw one young lady wearing flip-flops, no hat, backpack, or carrying any obvious water supply.  Fortunately she hadn't left her common sense at home and was turning around to head back down.  Even if you don't go any further than Scout's Landing, the views are spectacular. The sign told me that the summit was only a half-mile ahead.  How bad could that be?  You now find yourself climbing over a spine with chains hanging from posts embedded in the rock.  At some points it narrows, to just a few meters wide.  Now, I don't have a terrible fear of heights...until I get close to the edge.  At one point I thought of my friend Rick with whom I often photograph and took this snapshot of my hiking boots hanging 1700 feet above the valley floor.  Now Rick is truly afraid of heights, so I don't think he'll be hanging this one over his fireplace!  After scrambling the first several hundred feet with a death grip on the chains, you quickly become aware that there's actually quite a bit more room than appears at first. In fact if you actually lost your footing, it would be pretty difficult to slip into the abyss. 

Finally, I reached the summit which is actually fairly spacious.  The temperature in the valley hit 95°F and I flopped down and guzzled most of my water, saving a little for the trip down.  It was now late morning and pretty hazy in the valley which made photography a bit challenging due to the contrasty conditions.  Looking upstream into the Temple of Sinawava I could see rock climbers hanging from the rock face taking the direct route.  Well I guess that put a damper on my success, but then after all, I did walk further than they did.  I spent about an hour just taking in the views and snapping pictures for other people with their cameras.  The rocks were actually getting too hot to sit on anyway and I headed back down.  Going down seemed to be much tougher than going up.  Probably my tired legs weren't helping much either. All in all, this hike is definitely worth the effort, just be prepared and be careful, you'll be rewarded by one of the greatest sights in the National Park system.  

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