Angels Landing

Letting go.  Not a concept that I come by naturally when it relates to my girls.  Letting go took a step forward or should I say a step up this past July during our family fandango around the national parks of the southwest.  The back story of this vacation has a couple chapters to properly set the scene.

Twenty years ago I had visited the same triad of national treasures; The Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park.  Doing day backpack trips through the best of each park with my sister.  During that trip our plans included the famous Angels Landing hike in Zion.  A hike known for breath taking vistas and so named because a one time resident of the canyon stated that only an angel could land on the pinnacle of the rock formation.  Like many others we hiked up to the Scout’s Landing location of the trail.  This was a flat, broad location that offered shade and some incredible views of the canyon.  Also like many others we viewed the next stage of the hike, a half mile of scrambling over the spine of the rock outcropping with sections having chains cemented into the rock to provide a splattering of safety, and decided the trail ended here today.  This chapter of the back story closes with me leaving Zion and that hike with a desire to concur my acrophobia and get the iconic picture of the canyon and rock walls which inspired the parks name.

Fast forward to this past January when my oldest daughter (13 at the time) came to me talking all about really cool hikes in Zion and Grand Canyon.  At first I was confused since this is the same daughter that has mastered the art of complaining about each and every national park that I’ve dragged her through.  It was as if a light switch had flipped and she was all about hiking, seeing the parks and doing the ‘iconic’ hikes.  She became very proficient at finding youtube videos showing fun loving adventurers on the trail, including the Walter’s Wiggles switchbacks and the dreaded last half mile, including the step of faith rock that has 1000 foot drop offs on either side of it.  One particular go-pro footage (mounted above a backpack with a top down view) accentuates the visual aspects of my fear.  After a couple weeks of non-stop, ‘Dad look at this hike!’  I went to Jill.  We had already planned on going to the gulf coast and sitting on the white sand and not doing a thing (a very un-Steele-like vacation).  I said, ‘how often does a 13 year old show this much interest in a subject?’  This is the same daughter we often have to text to get her out of her bedroom.  So at that moment we performed a vacation switchback and walked away from the soft breeze of the gulf and I booked a trip through the American southwest.  That was the first of my acrophobia sleepless nights.  

The sleeplessness came from the fact that six people have fallen to their death on the Angels Landing trail.  While hundreds of hikers and day tourist make it safely to the top every day, the fact that the word ‘death’ is in the previous sentence is an acrophobia trump card in my mind.

An additional chapter of the backstory was in March when our Priest, Father Larry, told us the story of when he hiked the Angels landing trail and had gotten to the Scout’s Landing.  He was debating about going on when he said he saw two teenagers coming back from the top.  As he said, ‘well, it’s not like I could stop then’, so he proceeded to the summit and even took a picture with his feet over the edge.  Not exactly the kind of support I was looking for when trying to talk Alex ‘off the ledge’. 

Walter's Wiggles, 21 switchbacks up to Scout's Landing

The morning of July 15^th  brought a crystal blue sky full of promise.  We headed out to catch the park shuttle around 7:30 or so, about an hour later than I would have preferred due to the approaching heat.  The later starting time also means more tourist, which is an emphasized problem on this particular tight trail to the top.  The quick elevation gain of the hike was taking it’s toll on a number of hikers, including Jill and myself (though we did pass a fair number of others).  We made it up the initial switch backs and passed through the three quarter tunnel walkway carved into the rock face.  We then enjoyed the “refrigerator box”, a small canyon path that leads to the backside of the hill.  This section is always shady and has a steady breeze, hence leading to it’s nickname.  We then traversed the nearly straight up Walter Wiggle’s switchbacks which seemed smaller than the last time I had gone.  Now we are all at Scout’s Landing.  Beautiful views, a chance to rest and contemplate the options. 

I knew how badly Alex wanted to go to the top.  While I had spent months setting lowered expectations, I also knew what it meant to her.  She would understand not going up, but it would eat at her.

“Jill, I’m taking Alex to the top.” – couldn’t believe it came out of my mouth.

“I want to go” Sarah quickly chimed in. 

Ok, so we snacked up, watered up, packed up the walking sticks and headed to the next stage.  I set all sorts of important rules like, if there is a chain you must have a hand on it at all times.  And the ever important, no talking back to each other. 

It wasn’t long before we were at the slanted rock making our way through the chain section.  The chain was heavy, with large links and at times was tight up against the rock face.  With each grab of the chain knuckles were scraped against the rock.  We climbed not looking down to the right, which just seemed to fall off into the desert abyss below.  With Sarah’s size, her feet didn’t quiet reach the natural location for a foothold while holding onto the chain.  This led to tentative movements and slower progress.  Occasionally I was coaching her on best path and saying when ‘butt-slides’ where appropriate hiking technique.  The lack of speed of our progress seemed to be emphasized by additional hikers now around us. 

To sum it up, this section of the hike was likely around 50 yards in length.  My fear of heights was accentuated due to watching out for the two of them.  By the time this part of the hike was done, I knew a decision had to be made.  I couldn’t go forward.  I had to invoke Plan B.

The six months of late night planning in my head then went into motion.  I thought this very scenario might occur so I had developed alternatives to get Alex to her goal.  Going it alone was last on the Plan B options and wasn’t going to be considered.  So I figured I had to find a set of hikers who would adopt her for the journey.  I put the months of sleepless nights to work and carefully developed a list of criteria for the selection of a surrogate family. 

1. Had to be my age or younger
2. Had to be athletic because the climb wasn’t a stroll in the park
3. Had to have appropriate hiking shoes which is an easy way to sort out the hiking riffraff
4. Had to have a child with them so they would understand responsibility beyond themselves

Just past the first chain section of the climb I spotted a family that visually met every criteria.  They even commented on Alex wearing a Pirates hat.  I quickly explained our situation and made the ask.  They couldn’t have been nicer and invited Alex to join them to the top.  Alex and I swapped backpacks so she could take the camera to the top.  I left Alex with a final command, “No feet over the edge pictures!”, and the mother of the family laughed at or with me, I’m not sure which.

I then had to put Plan B Point 2 in play.  I had to break the news to Sarah that she was going to stay with me.  We battled through a few tears at this disappointment, but overall she was very accepting of the decision.  I just felt the scramble over rocks and with the chains and her size was going to make it tough, especially with the increased number of hikers coming up behind us.  Could she have done the hike, yes.  Could she have done the hike with me staying sane, I’m not so sure.  After getting some great pics together from this location she was ok with it.  When I questioned another father, younger than me and built like a football player, about not going up he said, ‘there is no way – this is far enough’.  I joked, ‘yep – every 18 years I make it further on this trail.’  So Sarah quickly did the math of what age I’ll be when she can get to the top.  She was back to her joking self.

The last half mile to the summit of Angel's Landing

Now we wait.  For a while I was able to follow Alex’s process since I had placed my Pirates hat on her head at the start of the day (secretly part of Plan B).  The mustard yellow hat stood out from the crowd.  Back at Scout’s Landing we started talking with a group that turned out to be the extended relatives of the family guiding Alex.  As things turned out, the family lived a mile away from my childhood home in Mt Lebanon PA.  They even lived on the very same street.  Must be a sign – I held onto this sign as if it were one of the chains in the rock.

It was an hour or so before Alex and her guides made it back to us.  Alex had both a great sense of accomplishment while looking pretty drained all at the same time.  As another hiker said, from this point forward it is more spider monkey action than hiking. 

As we said goodbye and thank you to the family for returning Alex to us, the mother looked at me and said, ‘You’re not going to want to see the pictures!” and laughed.  I looked at Alex and said – ‘you pulled a Father Larry didn’t you?’ and she gave a simple shrug of the shoulders and wry smile.  After getting rehydrated and some food at lunch an avalanche of stories out of her with the same excitement that she had that January day when she first spoke of the challenge of Angels Landing. 

Letting go – sometimes it takes a Plan B.

The following link is a video of our vacation highlights.  Like similar videos it’s kind of like someone asking you to look through their vacation slides.  I hope you enjoy these highlights and keep in mind that only about 1 in 6 pictures that I took made it to the video.  I’m trying to limit the number of virtual slide trays you have to sit through.

In addition to the Angels Landing trail pictures (including an un-authorized feet over the edge snapshot), there are pictures from the Narrows hike up the Virgin River in Zion– one of my all-time favorites as well as all of the other stops we made on our journey. 

Enjoy this road trip tour of the Southwest: https://youtu.be/uhXEWiyMqCM