Angel's Landing

What a great experience!  Tyler, Jeffrey, and I got up at 5:00 a.m. and dressed to go on a hike.  We left Baylor, who had a difficult night, to continue sleeping if possible with Wendy.  We left the Lodge at 5:25 a.m. and walked the Grotto trail to the trail head for Angel's Landing.  It was a warm 55 degrees with a bright moon and shining stars.  We hardly needed the small flashlight that we had.  We saw a few falling stars along the way.  We were the first hikers to start up the trail.  Again, it was so nice to be at the Lodge instead of waiting for a shuttle.  In fact, the first shuttle would not even enter the canyon until 7:00 a.m., so we had a good head start to beat the crowds.  We made good time, but Jeffrey and I were pretty gassed by the time we reached the bottom of Walter's Wiggles.  We continued up the switchbacks and arrived at Scouts Lookout before 7:00 a.m.  It was still very dark, and I was a little concerned about starting up the chains with a flashlight in one hand.  A group of hikers passed us at this point which motivated us to keep going.  We started up the chains, and I admit it felt a little sketchy, but we took it slow, and there were no other hikers to contend with, except one professional photographer who nearly flew past us.  By the time we reached the top it was no longer dark.  We arrived at Angel's Landing at 7:40 a.m., so the hike up took us a little over two hours.  We stayed there for about 45 minutes watching the sun light up the top of the canyon.  It was beautiful.  We started down as several hikers began arriving.  We had to wait to use the chains as more hikers arrived.  Tyler got down much faster, and when Jeffrey and I made it back to Scouts Lookout we gave each other high fives and a hug.  Jeffrey was pretty happy about the experience.  Tyler and I both agreed that this hike was better than our first.  I told them that I thought this might be my last opportunity to do the hike, as next year they will begin a lottery system to limit the number of hikers, but there may be a way to camp along the West Rim and defeat the lottery system if I ever wanted to try it again.  We passed hundreds of people as we went down the remainder of the trail.  We arrived back at the Lodge about 10:20 a.m.  While we hiked, Wendy and Baylor slept and then went to eat a good breakfast at the restaurant and shopped at the souvenir store.  Wendy bought me a puzzle of Angel's Landing.  We drove home, and when we got to the Utah/Idaho border it was pouring rain and cold.  What a difference from the morning in southern Utah.  I am going to try to make a video of our time at Zion with all of the photographs we took.