I headed down early Thanksgiving morning to see my parents for the holiday.
They found this cute little place to stay that served fresh homemade scones daily.
Anyways, as soon as I arrived I met mom and dad at the entrance and we rode the bus up to see some sights along the park. This was the 3 Patriarchs.
It was pretty amazing.
We had Thanksgiving dinner in the lodge inside the park. It had a beautiful view of the rock formations across the street.
The next morning we woke up early and started our trek on the infamous "Angels' Landing". What an experience!
Our first set of switchbacks had us climb a lot of elevation quickly. Here is a picture looking back on them.
Here is Dad on the trail.
And looking up the famous "Walter's Wiggles"
We continued up the trail and reached the "point of no return". Unfortunately that day those words couldn't have been more true. We'll get to that part.
First of all, tons...millions of people frequent this trail and park per year. The trail was covered in people. There was a small sign telling hikers to beware and hike safely.
Here is a view at the saddle area.
We stopped here and had some lunch. It was a beautiful day!
Past this point, chains were required to hold on to. We felt a little uneasy with such steep drop offs on either side and all you had to hold onto was a chain.
We did a little bit of the chain hiking and got to this spot to take the picture.
We debated about continuing our hike up to the summit of Angel's Landing.
However, after seeing how many people were on the trail and the narrow areas that you have to pass people that are either heading up or down the trail, we decided to continue along the West Rim Trail in Lieu of hiking to the summit.
We continued our hike up for awhile and saw some beautiful sites. Then we decided to head back down. We passed by the saddle area of Angel's Landing and learned of a horrible thing. As soon as we left that area earlier and continued up the West Rim Trail, a woman who had been hiking alone slipped on the trail near the top and fell to her death. It gave us all the worst 'pit in our stomach'. We felt such relief that we had decided not to go to the top, however we felt completely awful for the family and the loss of life for this woman. We found out later that she and her husband lived in Pocatello and had a second home in St. George. He had dropped her off earlier that morning to hike...I can't even describe the empathy I felt for them! We spoke with rangers as they were all over the place getting descriptions of the first-hand accounts. We also saw them in the area that her body landed. They stated that since there are over 2 million visitors every year to the park, and only 1-2 people fall to their death on Angel's Landing each year, that it wasn't worth it to shut it down. They just want people to hike safely. Our prayers and thoughts went out and still go out to those family and friends.
On a happier note, along our way down from the West Rim Trail we came upon this yellow rock. It was really cool! I had to get a picture!
When we got back to the trail head, mom and dad wanted to show me the "weeping rock".
It was completely amazing...it was this rock that had ancient water spilling from within it. It was like a garden oasis in the middle of this desert like park.
This is not a good picture of it, but we were under the rock and getting rained on!!
We stopped by the restaurant near our lodging and had a delicious dinner to make sure we packed enough calories in for the next days excursions.
We also stopped by the local outfitters to get fitted for our dry suits and all other gear needed to hike part of the narrows. Since I was leaving the day after, we wanted to do the day hike which included hiking up a few miles through the Virgin River up to the "Wall Street" area...BEAUTIFUL!!
It was pretty exhilarating hiking through the river, especially with cliffs on both sides jutting up into the heavens!
We had shallow water to hike through, although the majority of it was about knee deep. Then we reached an area that we turned around in as one of the last areas we walked through had water up past our armpits!
One of my favorite pictures as you can see the enormous cliffs!
I wish my camera had caught more of the beauty. I have learned as we have visited a few of these parks that you have to have the "right" light to capture the moment in all its beauty.
I would suggest that everyone should go here!! It is so beautiful!
We spent the day doing this hike and then went out for pizza at a local pizzeria. It was delicious.
What was even better is that next door was an end of the year sale at an outdoor store!
Everything in the store was 50% off!! We all stocked up on chacos among all sorts of other outdoor things. I won't reveal the damage I did there, but let's just say I saved A LOT of money!
The morning I left...it was so sad!! I hate leaving my parents. I love them so much and love being around them! We did a small hike out by the east entrance that overlooks the park. Here is my last picture in this post...ahh the great memories!
Thanks mom and dad for making it possible to come meet you here! I had such a great time and have so many wonderful memories of this!!
Also, special thanks to my honey! I missed you over the holiday and hope to bring you down with me next time!!
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