Angels Landing, Zions National Park

This past weekend I decided out of complete impulse to go and surprise one of my best friends for her Birthday! It was a non-stop weekend, we all had such a blast. On Saturday we decided to go hike Angels Landing, we were getting pretty discouraged on our way there when it decided to start rain, but we decided to keep driving hoping that it would clear up.  We pulled up to the entrance to Zion's park and decided to ask the ranger if the hike was safe , and if by chance the weather was going to clear up. She told us yes, then proceeded to tell us that it was closed for search and rescue this morning but we should be fine to hike it now. All that was going through my head at the time was, "SERIOUSLY?! You just had to tell me THAT of all things?!" definitely not something that you want to hear, kind of freaked all of out.

 The hike was difficult for me, let's just throw it out there…. I'm out of shape. The hike was full of steep switch backs at the beginning. The last 0.5 miles of the hike was were the "fun" began, there were chains for the rest of the way up since it was so narrow. We met a lot of very friendly interesting people along the trail, including a 77 ….. Yes 77 Year old man, hiking with his son. What an inspiration to all of who hiked that day and crossed their path, I hope that when I get to the age I'm still ambitious as he is.

 We were all burnt out by the end of the hike, we all decided to go down by the river to go and try to cool off a little bit. There was another group down there already and they all jumped into the river to cool down. We all didn't exactly want to get all sopping wet but we decided to just dip our feet into the water.

 Gradually throughout the hike the sky got clearer and clearer, it turned out to be such a gorgeous day. I have to say this was probably one of the more difficult hikes that I have done, but I'm sure glad that I pushed my self to be able to complete it. It makes me want to get more in shape for next summer and do a lot more difficult and challenging hikes. I personally have never been to Zion's I was amazed how gorgeous it was! I have learned to appreciate what a gorgeous state Utah is, going on all of these hikes I have been lately. Utah has such gorgeous secrets that you have to go out and search for, so why not go appreciate what we have been given?!

Stewart Falls

It's amazing to think what a beautiful world we live in, living in Utah we are very privileged to have such beautiful mountains that surround us. I love hiking, once it starts to get warm I get all excited about hearing about new hikes that I can go on. All of us that live in Utah County have heard of Bridal Veil falls, super short 10 min hike right at the beginning of Provo Canyon but nonetheless its absolutely gorgeous. I have heard a lot about hiking Stewart Falls and honestly thought it was connected to Bridal Veil falls, boy was I wrong. It's in a completely different part of Provo Canyon near Sundance and Aspen Grove tucked away where you can't see it from the local road.

 

The hike to the falls was a little bit interesting, we had a little trouble trying to find the trail head since there were no signs leading us to Stewart Falls, all the Signs there said Timp. Trail. We finally asked someone nearby where the start of the hike was, he pointed us in the general direction and we still had a little trouble finding it. There was a trail but it looked a little to steep for it to be a family friendly trail. We couldn't see any other trail so we decided to trudge up the steep hill, what a great way to start off a hike right? The rest of the hike went pretty smooth, there was a lot of gorgeous scenery along the way it reminded us all of the "Sound of Music".

 

We finally got to the point where we could see the falls, we got to a point were the trail just seemed to end (I was the one leading by that time) so I chose to go right and take the most difficult way to the falls which included, rock climbing and sliding on the dirt with our bums.

 

By the time we got to the falls we realized that there was a much safer way and there was actually a trail to get down there without sliding and getting all dirty. If you ask me hiking is worth the end result the beautiful ending that you get, we hiked up the falls to were a ton of little water falls formed a little stream which eventually turned into the big water fall at the bottom. One of the most breathtaking scenes I have ever seen. We stayed up there for a little while just in awe of our beautiful surroundings.

When we decided to head back we take the "smart" way back and followed the trail the whole way back, we did however encounter a snake that looked like a ginormous worm, and I freaked everybody out by screaming when I almost stepped on it. Hiking Stewart Falls makes me want to go/do all of these hikes that I have never done before, hopefully by the time it hits winter I can go on a few more other than that I guess I will have to plan a lot for next summer!