Day two in Zion National Park. We planned to go to sleep early to get up to catch the first shuttle up the canyon for Angel’s Landing. Our site was next to a group site, and we watched as more and more people began to park and get out. It seemed like a group of people who hadn’t seen each other for a long while and had a lot of catching up to do. It’s not bad when a few people are talking, but after the arrival of about 50 people, the talking echoes through the canyon and you feel as if you are in a very crowded bar. We listened to this for a few hours and didn’t get much sleep. The rangers came by and talked to them eventually. We still woke up early, and noticed they were all up, and all getting ready to hike somewhere. We decided to get ready in a hurry and catch the shuttle before they did.
We walked to the shuttle, got on, and enjoyed a brief period of peaceful silence, until the same crowd of 50 people began piling up in the shuttle, and the shuttled turned into another very crowded bar. We sighed, but agreed it was unlikely they would be doing the same hike as us. Sure enough, they got off at Angel’s Landing, and we jogged up ahead for the first 15 minutes. Whew! It was a pretty funny experience. I learned to not reserve your campground near a group site. Or embrace it and try to make friends. One of those two.
We hiked up to Angel’s Landing, but only did part of it, because I was being a blonde and didn’t realize how much further it went. I swear that huge mountain just blended in with the one behind it. We did the first chained section, then went back thinking that was it, and realized how we hardly made progress on it at all. Then it got crowded on the chained section and we decided to move on and save it for another time (or lifetime). We hiked a few miles further to the top of the rim at Observation Springs, and did 10 miles round-trip. It was an awesome hike with breathtaking views, and we hardly saw anyone the entire time.
At the end of the hike we stopped and cooled off at the Virgin River along the way back to the shuttle, which was a perfect end the hike. Back at the campground we took our camping chairs to the section of the river nearby, and soaked our feet in the icy water while enjoying a glass of wine, sans-crowded bar.
A Hike in Every Country 