Happy Friday everyone!
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m still a little bit behind on life this month. We still don’t have internet at our new house yet (side eye Comcast) and so it’s made blogging a little difficult, but it’s supposed to be fixed today – fingers crossed! Anyway, I’m really excited to share the first round of photos from this past weekend’s camping trip at Zion National Park! And I say first round of photos because I have a lot more that I took over the course of the weekend, the scenery was just so beautiful that I couldn’t help it! So while I’ll hopefully have time to share more next week, I thought a good place to start would be sharing the photos from our favorite hike that we did during the trip.
The hike to Angels Landing is one of the most popular hikes in the park, and it’s also somewhat well-known as being a fairly “dangerous” hike that’s not for the faint of heart. Ironically, Cam and I were watching an episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers (random) where he was interviewing Jennifer Connelly and she was talking about this hike to Angels Landing and how terrifying it was, and so of course Cameron and I were both like OMG WE HAVE TO DO THAT WHEN WE GO TO ZION. Ha.
We did the hike on Saturday, which was our first full day in the park. I’ll admit, I was a little concerned about this hike, primarily because I was worried about the trail being narrow and crowded. However, it ended up being a much tamer hike than I thought and really was just a lot of fun! It’s actually only 5 miles round trip, and although it’s a strenuous hike, the payoff is definitely worth it!
The sky was so blue it was insane and I was loving all these gorgeous cactus flowers along the trail.
This hike is short but steep and there are lots of switchbacks along the way. You’re also in the blazing sun for a lot of the time, which makes it even more challenging. The temps weren’t too bad for us (in the high 80s or so) but I really can’t imagine doing this hike any later in the year than May!
After awhile, you go into a section known as Refrigerator Canyon, which is cool and shady – so nice!
There’s also a section of really short, steep switchbacks known as “Walter’s Wiggles” which reminded me of Lombard Street in San Francisco. Once you get to the top of those, there’s an area called Scout Lookout where a lot of people choose to stop before the intense last half mile to the finish.
Basically ou have to climb along this ridge, and there are chains to hold onto to keep you from falling.
It was fairly crowded, but we made it to the top without any problems and the view was amazing!
Of course we couldn’t resist taking a ton of photos (and a little rest, ha) once we got to the top!
I really wanted Cameron to take this picture of me hanging over the edge and he even got a little freaked out…I’m glad I did it though, made for a good photo! 🙂
There were tons of chipmunks at the top!
Gotta love a summit selfie 🙂
Such a gorgeous spot!
We didn’t really take too many pictures on the climb up (because we were trying not to fall off…) but we managed to take a few more of the climb down, which gives you a better idea of what it’s like.
Angels Landing was a really spectacular hike, and I’d definitely recommend doing it if you visit Zion National Park. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, which I should have guessed given it’s such a popular hike. (Plus we’ve definitely done hikes that were much scarier/more challenging so this didn’t seem to bad by comparison) Granted, I wouldn’t recommend it if you have a fear of heights, but there were definitely people of all ages, shapes, and sizes who made it to the top. Definitely a fun experience, and I’m so glad we did it! (And sorry for the photo overload, ha!)
Have a great weekend everyone!
