"where bright angels feet have trod" (and a lot of German tourists', and mine too....)

 The title of this post refers to a traditional spiritual song, called "we'll gather by the river".  If you don't know it, here is Willie Nelson's version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6KCzMc3Lw
I could not get it out of my head while climbing to the top of "angel's landing", probably the most famous trail in Zion.  It's about 2.5miles and goes up 1400 feet.  The bottom part of the trail is a wonder of trail construction and management:  Here is a view of one of the switchbacks, and a view of the bottom part from above.

 And here are the middle switchbacks, literally carved into the mountains.  It's pretty steep, but the trail is wide and very smooth, so it's quite easy.

 

Then, things get serious!  the trail goes straight up, often lined with welcomed chains that help with stability (2nd picture) and with pulling oneself up.  These pictures shows the last part of the trail (the rim of the rock in the first picture).

 But the view from the top is really worth the climb!
There were a lot of people there- a lot of Germans in particular, but also French, Japanese, Brits, Americans.... One middle aged Japanese woman was wearing city shoes (flats, not heels, but still...), was dressed as for the office, had no water, and did not look the slightest bit tired nor sweaty......

 Some of the trail is really scary, especially if you are afraid of heights or exposure:  Here the side of the trail opposite the rope is a straight drop 1400 feet to the canyon...  I stayed very close to the rope......

This is the warning sign at the bottom:  It says:  "6 people have died on this trail since 2004".  I was surprised it was only six.  Not because the trail is that hard (it really is fine, steep, but the sandstone have nice natural steps, and the ropes really help, anyone in decent shape can do it), but because there are so many people there who try to take pictures from the very edge ( the sheer 1400 foot drop shown on this picture), and also a lot of them who are completely unprepared:  city shoes, no water, etc....
Anyway, I highly recommend it!




Joe choose to take advantage of the woefully inaccurate weather forecast (which was predicting clouds and thunderstorms this morning...) to join fellow super-duper camera lens owners and catch the changes in colors as the sun first hits the mountains.

 It is indeed a thing of beauty!

 Then he strolled in the valley, catching the morning light...

 and the pretty flowers.

 And then, he hiked part of the Angel's landing trail, and met a couple of tarantulas... EEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!    I'm glad I was not there, or I may have fallen off the cliff.......

 Packing up this evening, and leaving beautiful Zion.  Going to Bryce and Grand canyons tomorrow!