Angel's Landing, June 1, 2010

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go with Mom, Jeri, and Kristin to climb Angel's Landing!! Here we were snapping pics, talking, laughing, and so excited about what we were about to do....

As we got closer to the start of the switch backs, we looked up to see people walking across the face of these cliffs! Then we started to wonder how in the crap do we get up there!! But this somehow just made us more excited....

I have to say the first part of the climb was most enjoyable, we were meeting very nice people and stopping often for a picture! It was uphill every step, but really very beautiful and I could not figure out what was so scary about hiking to Angel's Landing.....

Just still making our way up the hill, having a great time!! I think the people around us were thinking we were crazy!!

FUNNY!! So at this point we had been climbing uphill for close to an hour. Kristin thought this hole in the rock would be a good place to take a short nap!

I think we could've made it in half the time if we would have stayed focused and just hiked instead of taking all these detours for pics!!

WOW!! This canyon was amazing!! I couldn't stop looking around trying to take it all in. I caught myself snapping pics while I was walking, I then had to remind myself I was walking along a very narrow pathway that was straight up on one side and straight down on the other. We were starting to get high enough, I could clearly see how a lot of people fall to their deaths, I stopped taking pics and walking at the same time!

We made it to Walter's Wiggles! This set of switch backs takes you straight up a cliff face. This picture does not do it justice! I'm starting to wonder just how high we are getting....

We were almost to the top of the Wiggles, now I don't really want to know how high we are getting....

A few minutes later we were on top of Scouts Lookout!!

Another view from the Lookout. There was one single railing right here where we were looking off, the rest of the lookout had nothing, this is when I decided my kids will not have the option to climb up here until they are at least 16, or maybe never....

We thought this little Sandstone hill was all that was between us and the Landing, there was a sign that said, "Angel's Landing 0.5 miles!! We thought we were almost there!! We could not have been more wrong! What you can't see in this pic is the part of the hill where you have to scale around the side of the hill on nothing but slick Sandstone that is all but straight up and down, with nothing to hold on to except a chain. If you look on the internet of pictures of the climb you will notice there are no pics of this part of the trail. The reason for that is, you can't do anything but hold on for dear life all the way around it!!

We defied death and conquered the big Sandstone hill, just to round the corner and see this! The spine of Angel's Landing, can you see the tiny people climbing up it? A guy that was standing by us called this little flat spot we were resting on before the spine, "Decision Point," we had to decided whether we were going to continue or turn back!!

We made it!! We walked out to the very tippy point and sat down to enjoy the views for a minute!! The very nice German guy that was taking our pictures for us was scaring the crap out of us, I had to turn my head while he walked around to get different shots then he would bring us the camera and say, "Have a luk, Have a luk," I thought I was going to throw up just watching him walk around up there like we were not 6,000 feet off the ground on slick sandstone with drop offs all around us!!

The View from the TOP!!


On the way back down off the Spine I had to take some pics to show my Husband where I had been! Between taking pics while I was climbing down and laughing at my mom and the cute German guys singing some German song I really wasn't being very safe!

Right here is the place we were joking about having to pass someone that was on their up, You can see the death grip Mom has on the chain and some guy behind us and the Germans says, "The downhill cars have the right of way!" Can you believe we really had to pass people going the opposite direction in places like this??

We kept offering to "move over" and let the cute Germans pass us, they would say, "Dis is no place to rush, we are in no hurry!"

We went down way faster than we went up, it took us about 2.5 hours to get clear to the top and about an hour and 45 minutes to get down, once again, we could've done it quicker if we would have stopped messing around!! What a GREAT experience it was!!

I hope I don't regret this...

I have fought doing a Family blog for fear of starting one and not doing much with it. But I think I found the motivation I needed to put forth effort and stick with it!! Did you Bloggers know that you can turn your Blog into a Scrapbook?? If all my time and frustration (since I am Blogary Challenged) can result in a Photo Book at the end of the year then count me in!! Digital Scrapbooking is finally speaking my language so here goes nothing!!