Angels’s Landing Anyone?

Desert Southwest, Out In The Field, Zion

When visitors to Zion National Park ask me what hike they should try, I tell them if they aren’t afraid of heights and adventure, you must conquer the diabolical Angel’s Landing.  I’ve completed it 3 times but see no reason to risk my life again. The peak was named by a Methodist clergyman, Frederick Vining Fisher, who thought that ‘only an angel could land on it’ although I made it.

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Angel’s Landing soars 1,488 feet straight up into the Zion sky
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I’m going up there?
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Walter’s Wiggles, named after Walter Ruesch, the park superintendent who devised this series of 21 switchbacks.
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Your lifeline, the chains!
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No chains here.
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The chains offer a safety net because to the right is a 1488 foot drop to the canyon floor. That shuttle bus below looks awfully small.

The National Park Service offers plenty of warnings.

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It’s a 2 1/2 mile climb from the trail head at The Grotto to reach the summit but it’s the last 1/2 mile where the trail gets its reputation. The NPS has carved steps into the sandstone and added chains to aid your ascent but danger still abounds.

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You can barely pick out the hiker in red shorts.

 

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The payoff is exhilarating! Now you know how the resident condors feel.

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Big Wall Climbers
You can barely spot the big wall climber in the center scaling Angel’s Landing the hard way
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That’s Angel’s Landing on the left which would be extremely treacherous in the snow and ice.
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At the summit!
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Nice place for a house. View from the very top.

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