Episode 1 - Shit i almost died a couple times!

our first and defining episode we decide to take on angels landing!

so in preparation for this hike that we all know is going to be rough anyway, we take some time and get ourselves together on saturday night, AT THE BAR!!! after getting good and drunk the night before and getting not nearly enough sleep we embark on our journey around 7am. this time of day seems really stupid to me for quite a while, until i realize its pure genius(by midday everything is hot!), with us today we have wiggles, bearfood, and goat, this is a good group to go hiking with. now this hike is goats idea and i think hes the only one actually in shape for it. if you dont know anything about this hike its tall not the tallest in Zion but still... 1,500 doesnt seem like a long way to walk but when its 1,500' up over two and a half miles it makes for a calf pounding walk.

the beginning of the walk is fairly tame, its maybe 9am and already getting hot. i decide it would be a good idea to leave a trail i can follow back down later so i start sweating my balls off. up and up we go breaks for pictures and water. we get to one of the first of many AFUCKINGMAZINGTACKULAR views. bearfood breaks out the jurassic park them song, this song is amazing cause it can do so many things; make this inspiring view even more so, make you chuckle when you're tired and most importantly make you go batshit crazy when you have heard it for hours on end. hours. but we march on. we are getting a little tired with all this uphill bullshit but to make us feel better about it some children run up the mountain past us. and at some point we get passed by a couple of old guys and a dad with a small child on his back. oh yeah we are in some kinda shape. im not sure what that shape is but even jello has a shape. blob is a shape. after the longest 1.5 miles of my life we get to what is called "walters wiggles" sounds cute doesnt it. ITS NOT!!! nothing cute about. 21 switchbacks left and right and left and right you get the idea. two things happen around this time. first we come up with the name "smoker and fatman" as the others in our party bound up the hills and we gasp for breath and feel closer to death..., second we learn about bearfoods insane fear of rodents. they are half the size of her foot and yet win every single arguement, it is truly an irrational fear. those who can walk uphill stop a lot to take pictures and make sure we are still moving.

a while later we come around a bend with another amazing view feeling like we have accomplished a good bit already, the view opens up and there must be 50 people sitting around having a picnic and just a good time, then we see the bathrooms that have been installed on the side of this mountain. park service 1 - pride 0. we move past them and get to our first inspiring sign, the way i read it it said "warning falling off cliffs may result in death." the second and most inspiring sign was "angels landing .5 miles" A HALF MILE OF LIES!!!! this half mile was longer than the rest of the hike, slowly climbing around semi stable rock, scrambling up slopes, the good news is at some but not all of the most dangerous points they have installed posts and chains. loose chains mind you but chains none the less. there are a couple of points they forgot to install the chains into mid air because my ass was hanging on a rock more than a thousand feet up. there were also a few rocks i go to know very personally, physically, almost biblically really. one of them still owes me dinner for the terrible things it did to me. each time we get to a nice flat spot i think we must be almost there i look around and see the rest of our group a ways ahead moving along nicely. during this section of the hike i also perfect the awkward walk, its very safe for me but death to anyone with about 10 feet of me as who knows where i will flail to... i constantly look back and make sure fatman is still with me a couple of times we stop to wonder where the best place to fall off of here would be. not that we actually get a choice, but it makes me feel better about how close i am to death to joke about it.we get to a nice big flat spot, the biggest one we have seen in a while.

Smoker vs. Nature the Rematch! i stand and take in all of natures majesty, observe the mountains in the distance look at the details of the rock formations, look down at the small lizard running by me OH MY GOD IM FALLING!!!! NOPE, NOPE... IM GOOD!!! what actually happens was i spun my head around to look at the tiny lizard and my equilabrium spun just enough to mess with my balance and was not prepared for it in the least. so with a huge shot of adrenaline and a new appreciation for life. i decide its time to move on. nature, we will call it a draw again...

several more false ending to this exciting beautiful misery that i am dragging my ass thru. with each one i become more angry with the rocks and yell at them for multiplying right before my eyes. after what seemed like forever we reach the top! hell yes! i drink a ton of water and have a cliff bar which i find out gives me heartburn, cause it couldnt be the late night drinking or the fact that i eat like shit. nope it's the cliff bar. it slowly sinks in that once im here i now have to go back down. we sit and debate for a while about things like what to cost would be if we split the medivac chopper, or why fatman forgot his wingsuit, and last how awesome it would be to have a 1,500' waterslide coming down from here, loops and twists and all. since i lived all the way up here i decide it's a good plan to push my luck. (yes my descision making is very questionable) but i lay down and slide the top portion of my body out over the cliff for a better view. it was fun. sometime up here "bearfood" almost became "greasespot" because of that irrational fear of a CHIPMUNK! i dont know if this was before or after the epic lightsaber battle on the top.

we take some pics for nice people that dont speak much english and pack back up and are on our way back down the mountain. it starts out easy enough hop some rocks here and there and move along nicely down the mountain. then we get to the climbing portion and the second date with those rocks. mostly this goes pretty quickly fatman tries to slide off the mountain but fails he does succeed at almost pooping himself but we live and move on. did i mention its noonish at this point and the rocks have become very hot, so its extra fun to grab onto a rock that is really hot and not be able to let go cause its what is holding you up in the air. next stop the down wiggles. we get to the top of walters wiggles and it looks like 21 knee pounding turns with cliffs. what could go wrong? we set a nice picture of people cascading down the switchbacks and move on, the down is much happier than the up. we reach about three quarters of the way down and stop to look back on the journey we have just achieved, it was very gratifying. we finish the walk down and see the river and try very hard not to jump off the trail and into the river and succeed. we get back to the shuttle and have a nice little drive back to the entrance. its at this point i realize just how horrible i smell, i worked hard for that smell and im glad i could share it with you.

this hike was amazing, though difficult, do some reading and know what you are in for unless you like suprises like i do...

on a last note the following day i decided to look up Angels landing and read about the people that have had fatal accidents doing this hike (and there are several), i dont reccomend reading this before you do the hike.