This week, Micah (half of my 80s prom date) headed south to my neck of the woods for the obligatory off-season trip south. I took Friday off work so I could show him around Zion. I headed there Thursday after work and we decided to hike Angels Landing at sunset. We started a little later than we would have liked to (the shuttle buses delayed our start time quite a bit), but we hit the trail around 7:30, when the sun was striking the east side of the canyon with glorious light. We knew it’d be dark on our way down, but as long as we were off the spine by dark, doing the rest of the hike in the dark was no big deal (we had our headlamps). The problem was getting back in time for the last shuttle.
Nearing the top, we peered over the edge to see if we could see Dave, the guy we were staying with, who was climbing the big wall route up Angels Landing. Camped out on his portaledge, he raised his PBR to us.
About five minutes from the top, I had to stop to get a photo of the light before it was gone. Good thing, because it was gone when we reached the top a few minutes later.
Micah soaking up the view.
We did not make it off the spine by dark, but the moonlight was strong enough that we were totally comfortable scrambling the last bit down in the dark. We were so comfortable in fact, that we hiked nearly the whole way down without our headlamps. We moved a little slower because of it, but it was well worth it. It wasn’t until the very end, when we were running to try to make the last shuttle, that I turned mine on so that the buses could possibly see us coming and wait for us (and also running on a trail in the dark seemed like an accident waiting to happen). Here is a 25-second exposure I made with the moonlight in Refrigerator Canyon.
We got back to the trailhead just after 10 and started walking down the middle of the road, hoping one last bus would come up behind us, and sure enough, it did… the sweeper bus that goes down just to make sure. We were happy. If we missed it, we would have had to walk over fives miles back or try to hitch a ride on a road that cars are not allowed on. So yeah, good thing we caught the bus.
And by the end of the night, I officially hit my 100 mile mark. Yee-haw!
by Sarah
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