I promised I would finish said stories in later posts, so that is what I intend to do here and now as we drive to Joshua Tree, California. I guess I'll just pick up where I left off. As stated before, we went to climb angels landing in Zion National Park. We had no idea what to expect. All we knew about it was from what Nathaniel Moore (our Colorado host) told us about it. He said you simply have to hit it up. Hit it up we did. Let me first start by saying that our timing and planning of this adventure really wasn't all that super. We started this 3+ mile climb up a mountain face at, oh, around 4 o-clock. Mind you a 3 mile hike up a mountain takes more than just an hour or two. It starts to get dark in Utah around 5:30 6 o-clock. Do the math. Also I should add that there is a sign at the start of the trail stating that the path is strenuous and that 6 people have fallen to their deaths in the last decade.. Anyway, back to the meet of the story. We began our accent on a nice paved, switchback sidewalk with a nice view of the canyon. It didn't seem all that bad! I even thought to myself "how on earth could people die from this mild hike???". Well the answer to that was to come shortly. The path only got steeper, but remained paved and mild-mannered. The path was so windy and in and out that we weren't even entirely sure where the path was leading us for the longest time, or even which mountain face we were going to, if any. Finally, after a thousand feet in elevation, we found ourselves between two mountains, still climbing, and the day still growing later and the sun setting lower. I couldn't help but think to myself "I really hope this ends soon or we'll be walking back in the dark". Haha... anyway.... we finally reached what I thought to be the end of the trail: a jaw dropping view at the peak of a mountain with sheer 2 thousand foot drops. It was beautiful to say the least. We can finally turn back and make it to the base before dusk! Not. Just when I thought the path was over, low and behold, a narrow "peninsula" jut our from our mountain into the canyon. Chris and Matt headed straight for it and began climbing. Another half mile??? The sun was almost gone at this point! We've come this far I thought, might as well just finish it and get the heck outta dodge. I started my accent up this sketchy looking "path" if that's what you wanna call it. There were no more paved walkways with guard rails and safety poles, I had nothing to hold onto but a chain which was anchored to the cliff. Flat ground? Yeah not here. At points the path was no more than 4 feet wide with absolutely no insurance other than the cold steel chain which i trusted with my life. NOW I could see why there had been fatalities here. Chris and Matt were far ahead of me and I lagged behind with a camera case strapped around my shoulder, moving at a more than comfortable pace. Chris and Matt made it to the actual peak, whereas I made it to the level right below them before I had enough. It was seriously getting so dark that I wouldn't trust going another step without fear that turning back would prove to be too dark to make it back down this hike of hell. My buddies were out of sight on he peak, I shouted to them, but no answer.. I shot a few photos which I will post, then started back before it got too dark, hoping that Chris and Matt would have the same sense to do the same. I held on for dear life, the wind was chilling now and I could barely see my feet in front of me as I made my way back down. I made it. So did they... though apparently they had some close encounters. But the good thing is that we made it! The worst was over. Even though it was totally dark at this point, we only had the paved portion to descend thorough. No problem!
Day 6-8 Zion Cont.
Hey so I exaggerated for effect at times, but for the most part all that was true. Also, coming from a guys point of view who is generally deathly afraid of heights, this is what you get when you put that guy on a narrow, unruly, slanted path thousands of feet high at dusk:)
Ok ok. So now after my blog update last night we headed back to camp. As though things can't get more interesting, we find out that our campsite had been robbed. Yeah... We had the bright idea to leave the tent up to air out. Turns out some hooligans saw the tent and it's contents and decided to take it. Only half way though our trip and we're already short a tent. Oh well.. We've already slept half of this trip outside anyway. Just hope it doesn't rain, which the forecast says it shouldn't. I'm more worried about spiders and snakes crawling up in a warm sleeping bag..... ugh... Anyway once we found that someone stole our tent, we became rather nervous and scared that some redneck moonshiner was gonna come out of the weeds with a shotgun and start up a riot. We started a fire, quickly cooked some soup and got out of there. We're headed for Grand Canyon at 9pm! And it's only a 5 hour drive.... looks like we'll be sleeping in the car tonight.
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