I am currently moving from LA to Miami, and I’m doing the drive—in part so that I can take some pictures in Utah before I get to the boring stuff (looking at you, Kansas). Today I was in Zion for my first hiking day. I woke up early to catch the first bus into the park so that I could beat the crowds to Angel’s Landing. If you tell someone who knows the park that you’re going to Zion, Angel’s Landing is the one thing everyone will say you must do.   It is a 5-mile round trip trail that takes you 1500 feet up to the top of an incredible outcropping with a view right down the Zion Valley. The trail starts off easily enough, with paved switchbacks to ease you into it. I actually wanted it to start more strenuously, because as much as I’d been looking forward to savoring the post-dawn peace in nature by myself, I had managed to pick up a socially clueless and/or lonely Russian/Canadian tag-along.  He would not stop with his incessant tales of other hikes, and was completely unconcerned that I was giving only monosyllabic responses. But I’d be able to lose Vladimir soon enough.

Angel’s Landing is famous not only for its views but also for the treacherous ascent to the actual viewing point: as you can see below, the pavement gives way to an unpaved path that tucks into a tight little switchback feature called “Walter’s Wiggles,” before last half mile or so, which is basically scrambling up boulders (with chains bolted into the mountain to help) with a 1500 foot sheer drop-off on either side.

Pretty exciting! As a lawyer, I’m actually surprised to find this level of risk available without some sort of waiver or more of a guardrail etc. I’ve often said that national parks in other countries can be more fun than ours because they aren’t normally as idiot-proofed as our highly developed National Parks system. That sentiment is especially relevant given the difficulty or at least risk of the Angel’s Landing climb. But once you make the climb, you are rewarded with some breathtaking panoramas. Well worth the climb—which is actually fun once you get past the prospect of falling to your death.

I was the first person from the first bus of the day to scale Angel’s Landing (three guys who camped in the park got an earlier start and beat me to the summit), and if you are going yourself, I might actually suggest being on that first bus but not rushing the ascent, because the light was actually better on my way down for a bit. Nonetheless, I caught my breath, took in the view, got a few good shots, and then went back down (equally if not more exciting for that famously dizzying stretch), to head over to my next trail for the day.

After Angel’s Landing, I took the Kayenta Trail over to the Emerald Pools trails. The water levels in the park are low right now, so the pools weren’t much to look at. On the bright side, I did not have to worry about the crowds blocking my shots like I might otherwise have had to. Instead, I took the opportunity to shoot some blooming cacti and flowers along the side of the trail, and the Zion Valley always offers imposing views regardless of the weather.

Overall, it was a good first day here in Utah and I highly recommend Zion to anyone passing through the area!  To see the rest of these photos, check out the Zion gallery, or Utah for more photos from this eventful road trip.

The State Bar of California Environmental Law Section has its annual conference right outside Yosemite National Park.  For three days, hundreds of environmental attorneys meet for panel discussions in the morning, and then the whole conference lets out so everyone can hike and enjoy the park in the afternoon.  This must be about as good as it gets as far as legal conferences go.

Law students are encouraged to attend with scholarships and discounts, so I made the trek.  After the second day’s lectures, my lawschool classmate Lara and I got a somewhat late start to the trailhead for Chilnualna Falls (which was silly on our part, because we could walk to this trail from our cabin).  We appeared to be the last 2 people to hit this trail that day, and we passed a lot of people coming down from the falls in the other direction.  We assumed this trail wasn’t too serious since it left from right by our cabin, but as it turns out, the trail is 8.4 miles long with 2,300 feet of elevation gain.  Whoops.

After we’d been hiking for a good two hours, and the afternoon was getting late, we considered turning back without seeing the falls.  Yet everyone we passed assured us “you’re almost there.”  …But we were told that for more than an hour.  By the time we got to the top, the sun was nearly setting.  This was both good and bad.  First, the good: the views were excellent and the light was perfect.  Having come all that way, we had to enjoy it for a bit (and take some pictures, of course).

Now, the bad: again, Lara and I dramatically underestimated this hike.  We had brought water bottles, but — aside from my camera — little else.  After I snapped these shots, the sun went down in Yosemite.  This conference is always held in late October, so while it was a pleasantly cool temperature for our hike up, it began dropping pretty fast.  More problematic, neither of us anticipated being out past sunset, so we had neglected to bring flashlights.  Nor did we really know where we were going.

Fortunately, the trail down was fairly clearly marked.  We did have some moments of uncertainty, and our pace for the hike down was limited by the darkness of the moonless evening.  We also heard what sounded like some sizable movement through the bushes not far away at one point.  But after our otherwise uneventful hike down, we managed to find our way back to the cabin with a story to tell and some photos to share.  The rest of my Yosemite shots (now from all three years I attended this conference), as well as my other photo-worthy moments during my time on the West Coast, are in the California gallery.