The advice to get an early start on Angels Landing is no joke. By the time we worked our way down from the phenomenal views of the painted cliffs and meandering valley, we were facing down a long line of terrified hikers just inches apart and clinging to the chains. They were packed too tightly to move out of the way for people descending, despite the obvious truth that the more people that descend, the fewer people in their way and the less time they’d have to cling to the chains in deadstop traffic. Irony doesn’t affect physics, though, and we were all, those ascending and us on the descent, left with few options…
Read MoreI genuinely loved this portion of the hike. The thousands of small waterfalls cascading down the pancake-like red shale made every step precarious but satisfying. I wish we had a picture of my favorite portion, the steepest subsection of this second stage. The rest of our crew took the trail. I couldn’t help myself. I needed to climb this gorgeous stack of red rock. I needed to touch it, be a part of it. I felt the implicit peer pressure pulling at me, but the pull of the falls was stronger. Much stronger. I made the right choice.
Read MoreI just love the colors! The intensity of the water that must have flooded through, polishing these walls and creating miles of masterpiece! I would both love and hate to be in the canyon when those waters came rushing through—flood waters have always intrigued me, rolling and swirling as they do like a cement mixer of debris and destruction. My mind sometimes wanders through cartoonish surf-board rides atop such a flood, but alas, I am only human and not protected by plot armor. As much as it would thrill me to see such flooding in person, I will be sticking to YouTube videos, I think.
Read MoreThe Narrows are incredibly beautiful, another spot in our nation’s backyard that looks and feels completely alien. Besides the windswept sides and miles of colorful stones, there are gorgeous striations from the sediment eroding and staining the rock in various patterns. The walls are hundreds of feet high on both sides, and the canyon goes on far longer than the several miles we explored. Its grandiosity is difficult to fit into the pictures, but suffice it to say deciding to turn back was tough.
Read MoreThat is when the monsoon hit and turned the sloped granite of the approach trail to a slip ’n slide. We did our best to work together as a team to safely get down from our climbing camp perch with our gear, but it was slow going. As Shanna and I were in a rush to get to the wedding, we grabbed our gear and ran down the trail to get back to our cars, the lodge, the shower, and the wedding. On the way to the ceremony, it was a torrential downpour to the point where we had to drive incredibly slow because even with the windshield wipers raging it was impossible to see through it…
Read MoreBlasts of cold stabbed exposed skin during the transition, painfully reminding us that the arrogant and unprepared are not welcome atop the world’s highest places, that it would be not the heat but the cold that would bring down Icarian ambition here, freezing those who attempt to go higher. Yet, in darkness one thousand feet below one of America’s tallest peaks, we did.
So much discussion was on our lovers today—how Anna and Shanna interact with us, our relationships, all the nuances of each, and how our past lives have converged. We both miss our women.
Read MoreWe awoke at 7am, 10 hours after we fell asleep, which was immediately after the dinner that followed the 2 hour nap that began when we collapsed in our tent. Winded, dizzy, exhausted, not altitude adapted. After 12 hours of sleep, our bodies must have produced enough red blood cells to make up for the nearly 9000ft of altitude we picked up overnight. We were to press on today, and if we hoped to succeed, our bodies would have to catch up at the acclimatization game.
Read MoreI was now higher than I’d ever been before, and the coming days would have me achieving this feat two more times. It was at this time that I checked my GPS—my grandmother had died. The funeral was on Saturday. There was no reasonable chance of making it. My decision when Justin asked what I needed to do was immediate—“I will deal with this when I get back.” It felt callous, but it was the only option given the timing.
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