States of Unbeing

I think I figured out what the ! in Utah! is all about.  It's the same reason for the i in math: it denotes a quantity entirely imaginary.  Now, I consider myself quite a creative person.  At any given moment, my head is populated by muppety-faced monsters, people sprouting wings, unintelligible languages and magic of all sorts.  But I was awed - in fact, overawed - by this recent trip, and trip is exactly the right word for it. 

Originally, Kelly (my housemate) and I had planned to go to Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 4 days.  So we begin already with an untenable plan, destined for some kind of upheaval (i.e. destined to be severely scaled back to just Zion).  But the beginning of the drive quickly and conveniently provided scenery that was amazing.  I give you The Vermilion Cliffs:

which were red and stripey, as promised, but of a scale that was only the first of many overwhelming sights.  Zion was similarly red and stripey and huge.  I couldn't quite grasp that what we were seeing wasn't really Maxfield Parrish painting a backdrop for an epic opera.  The light matched, the majesty, the sense of wtf:

It was incredible.

After a campsite-finding fiasco, Kelly and I tooled around on the sheeple-movers (i.e. the tourist tram system that bridges the ideological and aesthetic gap between Thoreau's "Ktaadn" and Disneyland's Jungle Cruise) doing easy but beautiful hikes until dusk and a delicious pizza dinner in the nearby "town."

The next day we set out to do what I, at least, had come for: the 5-mile, 4-hour, 1488-feet-elevation-increasing hike up Angel's Landing.  To be honest, I think I have put my body through harder things.  But my mind was a bowl of jelly once we got past Walter's Wiggles (a ridiculous name for a series of switchbacks) to the first false summit, and the last respite for my pounding heart.

Maybe I haven't quite built this up enough for those who, like me, hadn't really heard of this hike before getting it in my head to go to Zion.  Maybe I'm trying to mitigate the wrath of my Mom when she sees the pictures as proof of the ridiculously foolhardy thing I did.  Maybe I still get vertigo from some of the pictures of it I see online, particularly this one, which makes my skin seize up.  Let me try to illustrate a bit more.

Note: Most of the following pictures aren't from my camera.  I was a bit preoccupied with trying to Not Die.

As mentioned, at the start the trail is a regular ol' steep-ish trail, around some corners and up a canyon where the wind just howls almighty.  Very cool, great views.  Then the top, where you meet this guy:

who must just be breakdancing, right?  Getting really into his air guitar, standing on some cookie crumbs? Nothing's wrong here.  Everything is just fine.  No one is even remotely falling off a cliff.

...Then you get to the chains.  God bless the sweet, sweet chains for connecting me to the mountain through my sweaty, steely grip.  God damn the chains for making me think that their presence here made this whole endeavor humanly possible.  The chains facilitate a series of bad decisions, namely one's progressive steps along a trail which gleefully varies from about 2.5 feet wide to, well--

 that.  And this:

And some of these:

                               

Sorry, Mom.

Then, in some places, there were no chains.  And that was terrifying as well.  And let me not forget to mention the buffeting wind, estimated by one of our fellow hikers at 40 mph on the high ridges.  On each false summit - each relative widening and plateauing of this narrow path - hikers sat, took a breath and a photo and decided whether or not to press on.  I probably would've been happy with my efforts had I gotten even part of the way up (the precursor-to-terror trail was still a physical challenge that left my thighs shaking long before Mr. Stick Man started rockin' out), but I honestly didn't think about it much.  Truth be told, I didn't think about much more than what was right in front of me - trying hard as I was NOT to think of what was to the left, right, or - God forbid - beneath me.  I suppose I'd expected thoughts more emotional, metaphysical, or even Zen calm would've been nice.  Instead, my brain put this song on repeat, and my body followed - all the while shaking my head in disbelief.

I think this face about sums it up:

Next Time:  The summit, the descent, looking up from the bottom.