Day I: The plan was to meet the group at the Zion visitor center and take the shuttle bus to the Kayenta Trailhead, hike up to Angel’s Landing then check out the Emerald Pools. I arrived late so I ended up hiking by myself that morning. I took the West Rim Trail for about 2 miles.
The morning was very cool and crisp. Hiking solo was very soothing. As I ascended the paved trail, I admired the beauty of surrounding red rocks and views of the canyon below me.
The trail starts to ascend semi-steeply and then traverses upwards towards the Angels Landing trail head sign where a warning sign is posted.
Here is the view of Angels Landing. This was one of the coolest trails I have hiked on. As you ascend the. .5 mile up to the summit, it seems never ending as you continue to climb. Most of the trail has chains to grab onto especially on the exposed parts of the trail.
Starting early has its advantages because you are not waiting for slow or fearful hikers ahead of you.
I was very content with hiking solo as a few hikers had passed me on the descent.
The majority of the climb is a single track trail as you climb over rocks and parts of the trail are slippery due to the smooth rocks where most of the chains are.
About a quarter mile from summit of Angels Landing, the trail flattens out and you are rewarded with 360 views. I ate my lunch and inhaled the beauty of these majestic mountains that Utah has to offer. I chatted with lots of tourists and had a blast as we took turns taking pictures of one another.
There were lots of cairins.
Hikers are not the only ones admiring the view.
There were a lot of pesky little chipmunks who were aggressively climbing onto back packs and trying to steal food. After a while I gave up and handed one little chipmunk my chicken bone.He took off and returned swiftly leaving the chicken bone next to me, probably disappointed.
Summit pose
Anyways, I was so full of energy that I hiked back up to the summit with the group and took some more group shots
After spending an additional hour at Angel’s Landing, we descended the trail by this time there were so many people that we had to continually stop and wait for hiker to pass. I was growing a bit impatient as I was trying to pass slower trekkers but in some spots it was impossible so I had to patiently wait which seemed like forever.
Some crazies of my WWW (Wild Wednesday Women hiking crew)
Heading back down we saw some rock climbers.
We then headed to the famous Emerald Pools. Well all I can say about this trail was that it was a constant up and down to view all three pools. The lower, middle and upper Emerald pools. We decided to do a loop hike and exit the trail further from where we were originally dropped off and take another shuttle bus back to the visitor center.
Anyways, the pools were very disappointing. It seemed like one had to put so much effort in hiking this one mile trail just to see the upper pool as we passed the others. To be honest It was a bit exhausting. Some parts of the trail were sandy and we had to constantly hop over rocks.
Overall, it was a great day. I would definitely return to Angels Landing
