Zion Park hike to Angel’s landing
& my hike up to Angel’s landing despite being scared of heights
So as you figured from the title heights are not “my thing”. But facing my fears is (like the time I chose to hold a tarantula even though spiders practically make me cry) and the hike up Angel’s landing definitely brought me head-on with them.
We drove to Zion Park with from Vegas-it was a comfortable 3-hour drive that is itself a treat with the changing skylines from state to state.
When you get to Zion you can park along the road, but there were some worrisome signs about cars being towed, so we didn’t want to risk our rental car and chose to pay the $20 parking fee.
Remember the 1990s movie the Truman Show where Jim Carrey plays a man who lives in a “perfect fake world” with painted skies?… well that is what entering Zion Park felt like.
Once you’re in the park, buy an entrance ticket and get onto a shuttle bus ( just ask the driver where the bus is going because we almost ended up going back into town). The park’s shuttle buses take you to the different hiking paths and parts of the park, with an overhead recording giving you facts about where you are.
I just wanted to warn you, so you’re not caught off guard like I was. On the way to Angel’s landing, the overhead recording warns you to “climb at your own risk”, since it’s a strenuous hike that has had fatalities.
Just a short while after we started climbing up I began to regret not working out much during the winter-there was a lot of “huffing and puffing”. It was a pretty steep incline, first a winding path between mountains and then more sharp passes which looked over an even sharper drop.
The first landing was a flat mountaintop where we collapsed with our muscles burning, fed chipmunks & tried to figure out if we could take one home as a pet- but couldn’t decide if they’d count as “livestock”- which isn’t allowed. (trying to focus on comical ideas in order to distract from the thought of the climb that is still to come).
The next part of the hike involved climbing up along the edge of the cliffs holding onto chains. (this is when I began to practice my newly learned meditation breathing- deep breath in an out)
It was actually a really busy day on the mountain which added to the suspense of the climb since you had to stop on some parts to let the people walking down go by.
Eventually, we ended up at the second to last landing which was another flat area with amazing views of a valley between mountain ranges.
It looked “too perfect to be real”!!!!! & so worth every fear till now.
Whether you go on from here or turn around after this take some time here to sit and just take in this view- it’s one you’ll never forget.
We didn’t actually go all the way to the “tippy-top” (we had to go back to meet our friends waiting for us at the bottom who didn’t try the last part of the treck) and waiting for people to pass prolonged the hike.
I can’t wait to go back and set myself a new goal already- to overcome m fears even further and climb ALL THE WAY to the top next time.
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