15th April: Zion
From Wd
Gavin's diary—Noon Sunday 15th April 2007, Zion Lodge, Zion NP
I will probably be castigated at home for taking the risk of letting James go on the Angels Landing hike ('long drop-offs ... not for anyone fearful of heights' said the park newspaper), but it was great to hear him say he really wanted to do the hike. He survived.
I went off to do the relatively geriatric route—from River Walk at the top of the canyon to Weeping Rock, Lower Emerald Pool and the Human History Museum. (But have my knees consigned me to the senior citizen routes from now on?)
Later I had a shower and played Natalie and Jinny at Travel Scrabble (newly purchased from Wal*Mart) and lost, largely due to a disagreement over the existence of E-Q-U-I-N-E-S as an allowable word.
Jinny's Blog
I forced myself to wake up at 6.00am, it was dark outside. After a shower the hikers were all ready to leave by 7.30am. We took the shuttle to Grotto stop where we started up Angels Landing hike, about 2.5 miles one way. I made it to the top in good time, but the last 0.5 miles is on rock chains. To get to the other part of the mountain where you make the last bit of the climb, you have to walk over a narrow ridge connecting the two with deep cliffs on both side and chains to support you. As I neared the ridge area, I kept telling myself "I can't do this, I can't do this." And then I found myself saying it out loud to others.
Dan had second thoughts as well, but he went on ahead eventually. I just couldn’t do it. I was terribly disappointed with myself that day, though I have never for a moment regretted not going with the others. I did climb on chains a little bit and getting back down was not easy! Not to mention there was a woman ahead of me who was freaking out about getting back down and her paranoia was not helping me!
I then took the bus to the last stop (Temple of Sinawava) and walked the (Merced) River Walk, I saw people heading out to the Narrows trail (the canyon gets really narrow and you wade upto chest deep river water on this trail). I thought I would get back to camp and ask Ron how to rent the clothes for the narrows walk. In the bus back to camp I was terribly sleepy and really really wanted to just sleep. When I got back to camp, Ron was not there, so I promptly went to sleep instead!
I had finished 1.5 litres of water and then some and still felt dehydrated. I woke up occasionally to the sound of rain. By the time I awoke many people were back. By now Dan and Bev were firmly established as the goofiest of the crowd providing us with plenty of humor. I played Scrabble with Gavin and Natalie. I barely stood second. (Gavin helped me beat him, what a gentleman!). There was a hearty stew for dinner that night. I realized that I had been over-eating at almost every meal and wasn’t burning it all up in my hikes. Oh well, never mind, that’s what a vacation is for, isn’t it?
The wind made it much colder that night, we played a guessing game (man is moving towards the centre of a field, he knows he will die when he gets there, what is going on?). We were all definitely warming up to each other.
