I slipped on Angel’s Landing and lived to tell the tale

Not only did I hike angels landing with two girls I’ve never met before on Facebook, but I also camped with them for a week.

Angels landing was the kickoff, our first hike of the trip. We got to Zion at around 2pm on May 19th and sent it. As we rode the shuttle to the base of the hike I looked up at what I’d be climbing. A beautiful brutish red and golden orange cliff. We would be hiking a cliff face for hours till we reached the top with hundreds of other ambitious hikers. Was I scared? No.

Should I have been? Probably.

Angel’s Landing is an incredibly dangerous hike as you must climb the cliff face with steep drops on either side. The object in between you and certain death is a chain, just a smoothed down metal chain touched by thousands of people a day… As disgusting as that chain was to touch in the heat of covid, it was my safety net.

Shockingly enough getting to the top wasn’t that physically strenuous or daunting, it was the people that scared me, and made me clench the chain tighter and tighter as I ascended the mountain. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people holding onto this metal chain staked into the mountain for dear life, some going up and some coming down. So of course, there was a traffic jam.

This traffic jam of people on a mountain is what we call ‘bottlenecking.’ Bottlenecking occurred every foot up the mountain… Each time we’d need to stop and wait for a group on the opposite side to pass. Passing often required one to walk over other people without access to the chain. Suffice to say, this was quite scary. Any misstep or move could result in one slipping off the mountain, and certain death.

And yet here we all were. On a path to summit this dangerous climb.

Soon enough, we made it to the peak. It was gorgeous! Seeing Zion in all its glory was incredible. A hike so many hikers spoke of and dreamt about, and I had just completed it…The feeling was incredible. Maybe so incredible, that I got a little ahead of myself…

After numerous pictures, videos, and snacks we began our descent down the mountain. I didn’t want to miss a minute of it and while I had been filming this whole time on my go pro I wasn’t as focused on the quality of my videos as I was of my safety.

Suffice to say this was not the mindset I held on the way down… I decided to hold my go pro up high and descend as if I was on a casual beach walk, enjoying the scenery, where if I tripped I would be welcomed by warm, soft sand. To my disarray as I slipped on the highly-trafficked and smoothed down rock, without a single hand on the chain, the ground below me was not warm nor soft. It was hard, slippery, and was pulling me towards the edge of the cliff. As I watched my life flash before my eyes, and my body inch closer and closer to the cliff, I immediately latched onto the chain for dear life. Inches away from the cliff, I had evaded death…Without that chain, I don’t know where I’d be today.

That slip was a wake-up call. As brave and adventurous as I can be, I must also be safe and cautious. Don’t get cocky I told myself. When you get arrogant in your capabilities you make mistakes. Descending a mountain with steep cliffs on either side is not the time to make mistakes…I learned my lesson.

Safety first kids, your life is worth far more than some shaky go pro footage. I promise!