July 24th : A day in Zion National Park or … Angels are landing!

After breakfast Gert drove the car as real Americans half a mile down the road to get into Zion National Park, where he parked the car at the visitor center. There we took the shuttle to the end of the Park. Along the road the driver named some of the mountain peaks we could see.

He also warned us “to take your belongings with you”. His voice made some of us go back to sleep. At one point he almost hit two deer: a mama and a baby! After riding for 15 minutes we came to the trailhead.

Angels Landing is a strenuous hike but it’s a thrill to get to the top of the mountain (even if you don’t go all the way it’s great!). The path meanders through some sandy terrain at the beginning, but soon the climb with several switchbacks takes you to higher elevation. 

The sun was already getting over the top of the mountains on the other side, making it warmer as we walked. Luckily there was this small canyon we had to go through, where the rays of the sun couldn’t reach us yet! While cooling off, Liisa became a cave woman again and crawled into some of the narrow cracks of the rocks. 

Willie’s Wiggle are the funniest and steepest switchbacks on the trail, leading to some kind of plateau where a warning sing tells us that 6 people have died trying to attempt to reach the top. The trail now uses chains hooked in the rocks and it gets more narrow. I chicken out and stay on the platform while Gert, Liisa and Jana go on. Sonia is willing to keep me company. While they were hiking to the top, we had a pizza delivered from pizza hut!

Excellent lunch. It takes the company of three a while to return and my sister decides to follow the trail some further, wanting to know what it looks like. At last everyone is back at my spot and we hike down. At the bottom – where the temperature is even higher than atop – a rewarding splashing in the Virgin river is our reward. Time to hop on the shuttle again and go back to our hotel, where we do laundry and have dinner later on. Later in bed I think that the angels have landed indeed since two of them are sleeping in the bed next to mine!