A few weeks ago I headed to Las Vegas for the AWS Re:Invent conference. While I am not a huge fan Vegas itself, its proximity to an amazing amount of outdoor adventures is nearly unprecedented.

Within a few hours drive, you can reach loads of amazing National Parks. If you know me, you know that is not an opportunity I will pass up. My buddy Cooper and I planned to do some hiking in southern Utah. The next few posts will tell the story of each of those days.

We flew into Las Vegas on Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving for my international reader) and drove out to St. George, UT. While St. George is a pretty big city, the food options were only fair. We settled on a “sports bar” called Wingers that had 3 or 4 TV’s. They did brew their own beer, but I’m pretty sure it came out of the water faucet. The wings were okay, but were so sticky they practically turned my fingers into duck tape.

On to the good stuff.

We settled on an early start to the day so that we could see the sunrise in Zion, which occurs around 7am. We had a bit of a drive to get to the park so we grabbed a cup of coffee and headed out around 5:30AM.

We parked at the Zion Human History Museum. It was really windy and cold, but first light and sunrise over the valley was pretty cool.

From there, we headed to Angels Landing.

This was my third time to Angels, but I always enjoy the hike.

As you can tell, we had a clear sky and beautiful day for hiking. With the early start we beat a lot of the crowds that would soon follow.

The highlights of the hike are the massive sheer cliffs that drop from Angels straight down, thousands of feet, into the valley below.

The trail itself requires a large amount of scrambling, especially as you reach the top. To me, this makes it extremely fun. I love a trail that requires more than a brisk walk to reach the top.

The views down into the valley and out at the rocky spires that have been formed by the Virgin River are pretty amazing to see. But, you have to be careful to keep your eyes on the climb. Seeing the valley from above is far better than seeing it up close (at the end of a long fall).

 

When you reach the first landing area, you get a good look at the climb to the top. Its steep and rocky, but extremely fun. There are chains available to assist climbers, but I always make it a point to not use them. That said, if you are uncomfortable with heights, don’t climb regularly, or don’t have sure footing, by all means use the chains!

After a few minutes of quick scrambling, I reached the top. The wind was no longer being blocked, so it got chilly again pretty quickly.

We made the trip back down and rode the shuttle back to our car. It was only late morning at this point, so we still had quite a bit of sunlight left for some additional adventuring. We grabbed some breakfast and another cup of coffee from Deep Creek Coffee Company. Next up, Bryce National Park.