Apr 6 – West Rim Trail

We decided to do one of the tougher ones today. The high today was supposed to be around 21C while the rest of the week could hit the 30s.

The West Rim trail gives you access to Angels Landing. Part way up you either continue up to the west rim or turn and climb the spine of Angels Landing.

Off we go.

We first need to climb up to that notch. It may not seem very high but once you get close… Wow.

This is the approximate path

The view as we go up.

 

Once you get as high as you can go on this face you enter Refrigerator Canyon which takes you through the notch to the other side. It is very narrow and only gets the sun for a short part of the day so it is much cooler.

 

Once you are on the other side you must climb Walter’s Wiggles, a long series of very short steep switchbacks.

 

Here is what they look like from a picture on the website http://www.zionnational-park.com/

Once you get up there you reach Scout’s Landing, which is the start of the Angel’s Landing trail.

 

 

 

It’s a long way down from here. This cliff behind that railing is straight down.

 

Now I am not very afraid of heights but the Angels Landing trail just freaks me out. Below is the start.

 

And the final climb to the top.

 

This zoom shows the tiny people at the end.

To get there you must cling for dear life to a single cable or chain that is shared by people going up and down.

It wasn’t too busy when we got there but it looked pretty crowded when we came back down after lunch.

I declined and we continued up the West Rim trail. It eventually reaches the top of the canyon (we did not) and goes across the plateau and ends at a road in the west.

It is about 3 km to Scouts Landing and we continued up the west rim trail for about another kilometer before stopping for lunch.

 

Some climbers had come up from the valley the hard way.

 

From our viewpoint at lunch we were now even with the top of Angels Landing indicating that we had climbed about 1500 feet in elevation from the valley floor.

 

It was actually windy and cool here. We had to put our jackets back on.

Heading back down to Scouts Landing.

 

The climb up was long and slow but we were less tired than we thought. We were both worried about the pounding our knees and shins would take on the way down. Again we survived better than expected. We were sore but not enough to stop us from trying one of the other long, high trails another day.

It was a tough day for Jennie with all the height and the steep drop offs but she handled it really well.

One last look back.

And down. It left kind of weird to walk on the flat again.