A long way up to Angel's Landing

One of the best parts of this trip has been getting into the Canyons. Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point and Bryce are approached from roads that are above their rims. In each case we hiked down into the canyons or in the case of Canyonlands/Dead horse we took the three Jeep trails and criss-crossed the canyon bottom. At Zion Canyon, you approach it from the bottom next to the Virgin River. The river runs at about 3,000 feet above sea-level. The tops of the highest monoliths are over 5,000 feet. The best hike is Angel's Landing. These pictures capture some of the fantastic views.

These are the first of Walter's Wiggles -21 switchbacks named for the Park Superintendent who had them blasted out of the rock in the 1920's.

The second set of the wiggles is very wiggly.

Once you reach the Scout Landing the view of the Virgin River and the road is spectacular. There is a little railing but only on part of the overlook. This is around 1000 feet above the river.

The next landing is a hard pull up the rock. You have to hold onto these chains and pull yourself up. In a couple places you must lean back and go hand over hand as you move up the rock. The cliff drops almost straight down on the right for several hundred feet. (The height of Walter's second set of wiggles and then some.)

This is the second landing. Mom is standing directly in line with the final assault on Angel's Landing. The trail goes up in elevation another 350 feet or so. We chose to stop at this point.

I went down the trail a few yards and held onto the chain for the photo. Once you start going up again there is one chain, a four foot wide rock trail and shear drops of up to 1400 feet on both sides of the trail. No Thanks.

The hard part about coming down is that in some places the best position is the brown bottom decent. We had a great day on the hike and finished up with an extra three miles to the Emerald Pools.