| Zion National Park, UT |

‘National Parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.’ – Wallace Stegner

Somewhere in that great conclave of ideas, stands Zion National Park and as I discovered today, amongst that incredibly impressive panoply, Zion ranks very, very highly.

It isn’t a large place and in fact ranks among the smaller National Parks in the country and partially because of that reason, driving is banned in the park for the majority of the year.

For it’s become extremely popular in recent years and attendance has surged. So as a means to provide equal access and more importantly, to protect the park itself, the National Parks Service came up with an innovative, and free shuttle system from the bordering town of Springdale, UT.

If you get up early enough, as I did, you can snag one of the limited parking spots by the Visitor’s Center. If you’re a late riser, then you’re riding the bus. Which would in some circumstances, be a bad thing, but in this instance, it’s likely easier than jockeying for position and fighting crowds. The shuttle stops run the length of the main drag, are clean, frequent and will drop you literally at the doorstep of the park.

And crowds there are!

Though I got up early, I was dragging after Snow Canyon yesterday and didn’t leave the hotel until 8:20am versus the 7:30am target time I had set. I drove to the lot about 3/4 of a mile away and was blown away at how many cars were already there. There was a solid line for the shuttle, so I waited for the next, and the same size queue filled up behind me. And apparently this is completely normal, despite the fact that we are a long way from peak season in the mid-summer.

In doing a little reading on the park, this surge of humanity is starting to take it’s toll, as attendance in the last ten years has risen from 2.7 million to 4.3 million persons a year.

Given the glory laid out before us my Mother Nature, the attendance figures make eminent sense.

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You get a great view of that glory on the shuttle ride in as the bus has windows on all sides and I tried my best to take it all in on the 20 minute ride to stop #6, The Grotto.

The shuttle driver was congenial and bantered with us through the two-way intercom, in the times that the recorded voices weren’t telling us of the history of the park.

As a brief aside: The National Park Service is really doing a terrific job in managing this place. The Park is clean, well ordered and runs like clockwork. All of which are noteworthy enough but made more so by the fact that it is indeed one of the most-visited in the country.

At stop #6, we offloaded, started the trek and many folks started the process of checking off a ‘bucket-list’ item.

You see, Angels Landing is often ranked amongst the best hikes in the world. Which, at first blush, may seem curious.

It’s not particularly long, nor is it particularly high and though it is strenuous, it’s not overly so.

The challenge lies in your mind, more than it does anywhere else. For to finish the hike, you need to cling to mounted chains along an absurdly narrow ridge line. While alongside you lie 1000 foot sheer vertical drops.

If you lose you nerve, as many do, you turn back. If you slip and fall, as several unfortunate souls have in recent years, you die.

Now lest I give off the wrong idea, it is not at all unsafe, but it is important to watch your footing, take your time, and know your limits. All of which were well on display by the veritable melting pot of thrill seekers on my hike today.

You see, in my brief few hours on the hike, I either met or overheard people from Japan, Brazil, Israel, Canada, Spain, Germany, China as well as numerous parts of this great country of ours. There were definitely some other languages sprinkled in there as well, but sadly, I’m no linguist, so those were left unidentified.

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The hike up to Scout Landing, covered about 1500 feet over the course of 21 seemingly endless switchbacks, and is paved to provide better accessibility.

Once clear through those, you arrive in kind of a collective holding area at the top of a cliff side and many folks there were trying to figure out their next move, or lack thereof.

For it’s here that you get your first true view of the final mile or so of the hike and are introduced to ‘cliff clinging’ via the pre-installed chains.

The chains were installed, because quite frankly, almost nobody would complete this hike without them. They allow you ‘easier’ access to the more ridiculous parts of the ridgeline and are present through most of that final push to the summit.

While waiting out a bottleneck to get started, I got to talking with a couple in front of me and we both remarked on how amazing it is that people hiked peaks and mountains like this like this well before our time.

Someone always had to go first and they generally had nothing but the primitive clothes on their back, a steel will and a sense of adventure. No fancy boots or other gear, no GPS, not even a path or a sense on how to get there.

But they got to this peak on Angels Landing and many others, and for that we owe our forefathers and mothers much appreciation.

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Though the hike was the busiest I’ve ever been on, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might be. Everyone was in good spirits, talking, joking, offering a hand (or a push) to those who needed it.

I’ve said this before but in my experience there is a different, and better display of humanity on the trails.

Partisanship, pettiness, bitterness, etc. is not often seen and it has been a very rare that I have met someone on a mountain that I wouldn’t want to associate with off a mountain.

Some of that of course comes from surrounding yourself with people who enjoy the same things as you – but I also believe that nature brings out the best I us, and in being in nature we often find a version of ourselves better than the everyday one.

That has certainly been the case for me.

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In the end the summit was even more than I thought it could be.

Your reward for your efforts was a true 360 view of the Zion Valley in all it’s splendor and glory.

Probably the best such view I’ve seen to date and one that will hopefully live in my memory for the full remainder of my years.