Great Western Road Trip: Zion National Park is Beautiful and Deadly

Zion National Park is located in southwest Utah along Highway 9, just off Route 89. It's a park of contrasts, with flat, calm valley floors and threatening sandstone giants towering overhead. There are activities to be enjoyed requiring very little effort and others only for the most foolhardy. It's an amazing place.

Zion National Park is entered from the east by a mile-long tunnel carved through the mountains in the 1920s. As you come out the other side the pure contrast between the cliff faces overhead and the green valley floor below is obvious. After a few switchbacks on the road you come to the flat and wide green valley floor that curves between the largest sandstone monoliths in the world.

According to geology, the towering sandstone giants of Zion National Park were once the largest sand dunes in the world, at over 3000 feet each. After time and weather turned them into rock, the Virgin River came along carved a canyon through the middle of them. This water is what provides the beautiful contrast, making the valley deeper and supporting the lush green vegetation that stands distinctly different from the deep red sandstone that rises every higher overhead.

Like all the other national parks, this one has a great visitor center with great models and explanations of the parks ecology and geology as well as helpful park rangers to fill you in on any other details you're interested in. Zion National Park offers standard hotel-style lodging as well as traditional campgrounds and backcountry camping.

Zion National Park has some really easy and rewarding hiking trails as well as some incredibly difficult and dangerous ones. Some of the easier ones include the Weeping Rock trail and the Lower Emerald Pool trail, whereas some of the more difficult ones include the Narrows and the infamous Angel's Landing.

The short Weeping Rock trail is a bit crowded, but it will take you to an overhanging rock area nestled in a corner of the valley. Here, the overhanging rocks are constantly dripping small drops of water over about a 40 or 50 foot stretch. The trail leads right up behind the overhanging and it's a neat place to look out into the valley through the water dripping in front of you. There are also some nice hanging gardens here that are sustained by this dripping effect.

The slightly longer Lower Emerald Pool trail isn't too crowded and takes you back into the forest into another corner of the valley. By the end of the trail, you arrive at a small pool that contains frogs and is a haven for other wildlife. I personally didn't find it that fascinating, but it is a fairly calm little corner in the valley and is very nice in that respect. I hear that earlier in the Spring season, the pool is larger and there's a nice small waterfall that feeds it. Hikers can also go to the middle and upper emerald pools by slightly more strenuous trails and although I didn't go, they should be more rewarding.

The Narrows is a very popular and somewhat famous part of Zion National Park. It can be a multi-day hike or just a portion depending on what you want. Just like its namesake, it takes you through the narrow portions of Zion Canyon, in some places getting so narrow that you can reach out both hands and touch both canyon walls at once. In many portions of it hikers have to wade through the river, so in order to hike this area, you have to come prepared. Also, it can be very dangerous because of flash floods, but the visitor center usually monitors the weather and can keep you notified of its relative potential on any given day.

And then there's Angels Landing trail, probably the most infamous trail in Zion National Park. It's 5 miles long round-trip, incorporates a 1500 foot elevation gain (the second-most for a trail in the park), and its main danger is exposure to steep drop-offs on both sides of the narrow trail. It supposedly received its name because an early explorer saw the solitary peak and remarked on the seeming impossibility of reaching it by saying: "The only way to reach that would be an angel landing there." The week before we arrived at the park, three people had died from accidents, two of them on this trail.

We were staying at a motel in Kanab, Utah and the receptionist there was obviously an avid hiker and particularly recommended this trail to us. He also mentioned that there were two deaths that previous week and before we left the next day to go to Zion National Park, there had been yet another death on Angels Landing. However, even though it's one of the most dangerous trails in the park, it's also one of the most popular. Millions of people have hiked Angels Landing throughout the park's history seeking out its challenge and exceptional view of the Zion valley and until that disappointing week, only six people had died on it.

The trail isn't a loop, so after you get to the end, you just turn around and go back. The first and last two miles of the trail is actually called Walters Wiggles and differentiates with Angels Landing in a flat area called Scout Lookout. Walters Wiggles is mainly a series of steep switchbacks until you get to Scout Lookout. It can be strenuous for that reason, but there's only a few exposures to steep cliff edges and there's plenty of opportunities to stop and rest when you need to.

Angels Landing makes up the last .5 miles of the trail (and of course, you have to turn around and come back once you get there). It's a narrow bit of rock jutting out from the rest of the Zion Canyon wall and is often steep, slippery, and so narrow that sheer drop-offs are directly on either side of you. There are places where the rock ledge widens out to about 40 or 50 feet and gives you plenty of room to breath, but there are also plenty of places where it narrows to 4 or 5 feet and one false step could send you plummeting 800 or 1200 feet (depending on whether you fall to the left or the right) to your death.

In order to lower the odds of falling and instant death, the national park has had chains bolted directly into the rock in most of the most steep and narrow sections. However, the chain is really only for protection and to help balance in strictly crucial areas; it's not there for peace of mind. There are still sections where you're scrambling over the naked and sometimes slippery sandstone rock face with nothing to hold onto at all and it would be really nice to have a chain provide a little peace of mind. And after the half-mile is all said and done, you come out to a flat place on top with an excellent and exclusive view of the Zion valley floor.

My wife and I decided to try to make the hike. The park warns visitors of the sheer drops, the fact that several people have died that way, and against anyone with a fear of heights. My wife claims she has a fear of heights and I admit that I have a very slight fear of it, but I figured I should be OK with the chain and my wife figured she could always turn back if she felt she needed to.

Well, we got there, it looked scary, but we started slowly making our way over and up the trail holding onto the chain wherever possible. We made it past a very narrow but flat part with the steep drop-off on either side. We held onto the chain and slowly walked on the edge of a very narrow cliff face where all the footsteps were smooth and warn down (and thus slippery). We even moved out of the way to let people coming back pass us.

We made it around and up and were excited that we'd made it and were finished! We went over to the edge where a tree was growing on an outcropping to enjoy the view and it was amazing! Then we looked a little to our left and up and realized we'd only managed about ¼ of the trail so far. We were very disappointed and even more so because the rest of the trail was incredibly steep (much like climbing a rock wall at an almost 90 degree angle) and completely on the ridge of the rock, guaranteeing a steep drop on either side.

We took in our view, thought about it a lot, let the butterflies in our stomachs work their way out, observed the many people scrambling up and down the last portion of Angels Landing, and made our decision: We were fine with where we were. Seriously, the view was great and I don't think it would've gotten that much better from Angels Landing proper. And looking at the rest of the trail was enough to turn my slight fear of heights into a fear of magnificent proportions. I'm pretty sure it would do the same for anybody.

So, we turned around, went back, hiked a few other trails and enjoyed our day. It turns out the three people who died the week before us died in the following ways: a rappelling accident (not on Angels Landing), a heart attack (which could've been from exhaustion at the climb, fear of heights, or anything else), and a fall (and apparently this guy was getting too close to the edge at the very top, maybe even jumping around, and when he fell he left his family behind).

Angels Landing can be a safe trail, if you're slow, careful, in good shape, and have absolutely no fear of heights. If you're lacking in any of those categories by even a small amount, you'd be better off enjoying the rest of your life in other pursuits.

Zion National Park is an amazing place, with much to see and enjoy and not a few dangerous adventures to undertake. Its amazing beauty of contrasts and its serenity is really only punctuated by people's deadly mistakes. So enjoy the park, but make sure you come prepared and you know yourself before embarking on any of its wonderful adventures.