Angel's Landing
Zion's National Park
Walter's Wiggles
Last February, when Ashley and her friend came down to St. George with me, we drove over to Zion's to do some hiking. Ashley REALLY wanted to hike Angel's Landing, but after seeing trails with snow and ice, and told her, "No way, no how! People DIE hiking Angel's every year." (yes, I know, I am a wimp). That got me out of it then, but on this trip to St. George, Ashley's pick for our day adventure was--yep, you guessed it!--Angel's Landing. With the current temperature soaring in the 100 plus degree range, we had no worries about running into snow and ice, or even rain. We loaded up on power bars and water and headed on over to Zion's. We hopped onto the park shuttle and rode it to The Grotto stop. We began our leisurely walk along the nicely groomed pathway, which quickly turned into a steep ascent. The switchbacks and incline of the trail, along with the intense heat quickly sapped our energetic pace, until we had sweat POURING down our faces, backs of necks, arms, etc. This baby was whipping us good! We have hiked this trail several times before with no problem, but we were ready to call it quits before we even got to the part of the trail called "Walter's Wiggles" (don't you love that name!) None of us dared suggest pulling the plug. Even when we got to Scout's Landing, a very respectable place to turn it around without shame, we kept going. I had forgotten how much I hate heights, especially when my children are scrambling over them, with sheer cliffs on either side. With my heart in my mouth, and a steely set to my face, I just put one foot carefully in front of the other until we reached the glorious top. And then we had to make the hideous journey back down. By this point, we were completely out of water. We just had to steadily go forward until we reached the cool shade of the bottom of the canyon. I was very proud of the toughness of my girls for not giving up when the going got hard and uncomfortable. It is adventures like this one that I hope they will draw strength from when they are faced with difficult challenges. Because they faced fear and extreme conditions, they proved to themselves that yes, they CAN do hard things.
