We’re Not Exactly Parents of the Year
Do good parents really take their children to Angel’s Landing? It all began rather innocently. We stopped at the Zion National Park visitor center in July of 1993 and asked for a family hike recommendation. The young park ranger suggested Angel’s Landing. Sure, why not? we thought. We had no idea of Angel’s Landing’s location or reputation.
Soon Hannah and I hit the sandstone switchback trail with our daughters Molly, 13, and Robyn, 11, and son Will, 9. Since the temperatures were pushing 100 degrees, we looked forward to the cool relief of tubing on the Virgin River within the park later in the day. Including the 21 switchbacks called Walter’s Wiggles, the first two miles of the hike are benign, gently ascending. And then we saw the distant climb into the heavens, the plunging mountainside 1500 feet below to the canyon floor, and the chains bolted into the side of the mountain. Hannah and I looked at each other, thinking, Well she said it was a family hike. (http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-angels-landing-trail.htm)
Robyn, the child with valuable self-knowledge, opted to stay back while we four pressed on, grabbing the chains and avoiding looking down at all costs. I thought to myself, They said it was a family hike. It must be okay. I moved forward with Molly while Hannah paired up with Will who, not wanting to disappoint his big sister, followed closely behind, though clearly not loving it. Then a cactus needle, lodged in his hand, gave Will the ticket to save face and turn back. Ironically, having an out, he steeled himself and continued on. Eventually, we four, having hung on with death grips, made it to Angel’s Landing, where twenty others stood on a perch no more than 20 feet by 20 feet far, far above the canyon floor. We stayed all of five minutes; I couldn’t let go of the thought that we now had to retrace our steps. Somehow we made it and found Robyn resting comfortably under the tree where we left her. We knew we had dodged a bullet and were totally out of the running for Parents of the Year 1993.
Jump ahead thirteen years to 2006. While Robyn is in Afghanistan as a soldier in the US Army, Hannah and I take Molly and Will on a hiking trip West to celebrate their recent graduations from college. Returning to some of our favorite National Parks of Utah - the Arches, Bryce Canyon, and yes Zion - our athletic children nodded in passive agreement when Angel’s Landing was suggested by Hannah as a possible morning hike. After the easy first two miles, we fixed our eyes again on the one and a half inch chains and the mountaintop in the clouds. Bigger and bolder than I remember, the chains energized Hannah to go for it. I bailed immediately. Molly and Will, just wanting to please their mother, reluctantly soldiered on. And then after the first set of chains they gave their mother the We don’t’ want to go any further. Can’t you tell! look. Hannah relented and reluctantly turned back to keep our family as one. There was peace in the valley.
Angel’s Landing hike rating – Don’t
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