Zion National Park (Day Three): Angels Landing
If you missed Day Two from our Spring Break trip to Zion National Park, go read about it here.
We now come to the last day of our Zion National Park trip. We saved the hardest hike for last, which, in hindsight, is a good thing, because I couldn’t walk the next day (more on that later). Angels Landing is the most famous (or infamous) hike in Zion, and, as we learned during the hike, the most dangerous. In the last 21 years, 14 people have fallen to their deaths on this hike, the most recent just a few weeks before we did the same hike. Had we known this, would we (or at least I) have done this hike? Probably not. More on that later. I should also mention that we inadvertently saved Angels Landing for last because they had to repair a section of chain that had broken away in the previous days. Which was a whole other awesome anxiety to pile on to this hike.
Tragically uninformed about what we were getting ourselves into, we set out around 5:30-6 a.m. to get a good parking spot (we learned from our mistakes the previous days). It was still dark in the canyon, so we got ourselves a parking spot, pulled out some blankets, and went back to sleep. We did see some people with flashlights and headlamps bobbing along the trail as we pulled in, but we had no desire to do this hike without proper visibility.
Angels Landing is 5.4 miles roundtrip, and it’s strenuous all the way through, climbing 1500 ft. in elevation in just 2.5 miles. You begin by climbing a series of switchbacks to Refrigerator Canyon. Inside the cleft of the canyon, it cools down, which is a pleasant reprieve, and there is more vegetation here. Then you climb the east wall along a series of 25 more switchbacks called Walter’s Wiggles. For a person who hates hiking uphill, this in itself was a nightmare, and I only survived because of my trekking poles.
At this point, you reach Scout’s Lookout. This is a huge flat area where you can get views of the canyon around you and consider whether you really want to do this. There are, if I remember correctly, restrooms here. (We also randomly saw Brad from Season 41 of Survivor while waiting here.) Our visit came the last weekend that permits weren’t required to complete this hike, so I don’t know if it was more crowded because of this, or if it was always this crowded before the permits, but we got in a long line to ascend the narrow rock fin of Angels Landing. The crowd was the result of “traffic jams” coming down the trail. It’s a one-way path with only a couple feet between you and the edge of the “trail,” so you have to wait for specific points to pass each other. There’s also limited room at the top. When we got in line, people were yelling down from the summit that they were trapped up there because more and more people kept coming up from the bottom. Think those photos of a log-jammed Mt. Everest, and you can imagine what it was like.
The final section of Angels Landing climbs 500 ft. along a razor-thin ridge. There are chains that you hold onto (and I was very, very happy I’d brought gloves with rubber grip to use for the chains, or my sweaty hands would have slipped and I’d be dead right now). As a short person, I also had some trouble reaching chains that were just a little too high for me to hold onto comfortably. There was a young child in front of us who was sobbing that she wanted to turn back (if I couldn’t reach the chains, imagine how this ~10-year-old girl felt). It was, overall, not a good time.
As a person who didn’t realize she was still scared of heights, I found myself clenching ever muscle in my body for the duration of this hike. There were certain parts where I genuinely worried I was going to die because my legs and arms were shaking. There were a few unprotected flat rock faces that you had to navigate across, and my body actually revolted against me and would not allow me to walk across them. I kid you not, my legs would not support my weight, and I had to scoot across them on my butt.
At the top, we ate lunch, took a few pictures not too close to the edge, then I was ready to get back down to flat ground. We told every person we passed on the way back down who was questioning whether they wanted to keep going that it wasn’t worth it. Because that’s the truth: yes, it was a cool view, and yes, it does give me a little burst of pride that I was able to complete that strenuous of a hike. But in the end, it wasn’t the best view I’d ever seen (it wasn’t even much better than the view at Scout’s Landing), and it wasn’t worth literally risking your life. And according to someone we talked to at Scout’s Landing, there is a much better, easier, and less crowded viewpoint that you can also access from that landing.
While we were there, we saw two separate people almost make a mistake that ended their lives. Both of them were impatient and decided to jog down the final slope to Scout’s Landing. Both lost their footing. One grabbed a tree, which stopped him from careening off the edge. One slipped and barely caught his fall. If you’re going to do this hike, you need patience. You need to be sure you’re physically capable, that you’re prepared with gloves and proper hiking boots, that you either do the hike during daylight or with a headlamp to leave your hands free, and that you have a hiking buddy in case anything does happen.
Ryan and I had spent the previous two days hiking Zion, including The Narrows, without issue. We hike regularly and aren’t in the worst shape. But after Angels Landing, I could barely walk. My calves and quads were so tight that I could barely bend my legs the next day. This hike is not for the faint of heart, and while I can look back and say I accomplished this feat, I will never, ever do this hike again.
Thanks for reading! If you want to read about my other hiking adventures, go check out the “Hiking” category at the top of this post.