ZIONS: Angels Landing

By Kelsey Bang May 10, 2011July 21, 2018 1 Comment 8 min read

Yummy cookie dough brownies with chocolate spread! We made these for our Sunday School class!

Tuna made runs with us Sunday and Monday to help drop off treats! It was fun!

Tuesday night Jake and I went to Toys R Us to go get a Pokemon gift egg. It was fun. You just take your gameboy with your game and it will give you a free egg. It was fun! Then you went home to hatch your egg. We had so much fun looking around and playing at Toys R Us. We were there for a few hours playing with the toys and running down every isle.

A large Harry Potter. Jake was trying to make his face. I think he matched it pretty well.

Tuna wanted to take Gismo home. Maybe for his birthday…..

Wednesday was a great day because one of my best friends was in town! I love seeing Jen. We got to meet up with her and a few friends for dinner at Rubios and Yogurt Land! Yes two of our absolute favorites!

Always delicious!

Jen I love you!

A great combo!

Thursday was craft day! I got a bunch of new fabrics and I have been so excited to start making things with them!

Thursday I also got to meet up with Jake and have a picnic up Provo Canyon. It was fun to see each other during the middle of the work day! We got to eat yummy homemade sandwiches and girl scout cookies! I love that the weather is getting so nice outside!

We had some friends join us! (Tuna, Pokey and Wrinkles)

A lovely view of the Provo Canyon River while we ate our lunch!

Thursday night was also a big night of getting things ready to leave for Zions. We went to take both our cars to get oil changes and made a pit stop at Walmart for some treats! I wanted to look at the pets and we saw these cool albino fish. Look at their red eyes! Then we went home and Jake was a trooper and got out all the camp gear for the following day!

Friday afternoon we headed down to Zions! It was a fun drive! We even got yummy Subway with tons of Jalepenos for lunch! This is Stacey friend Justin! (Now our friend to!) He didn’t bring a backpack or anything to carry treats and water, so I let him use my cool fannypac!

We are excited to go hiking! On Friday we had planned to hike the Narrows, but the snow run off was still going, and the water was to cold, it was closed. Sad day.

Since Stacey had has a few to many accidents climbing…..her sister got her this first aid hiking kit! Good work!

Tuna and I are ready to hike! Lets go!

Zion’s is cools because you park your car and then take buses around the park. We really enjoyed all of there inspirational poster signs.

I really bonded with the road. I loved that it was red. Red rock road.

Starting our hike to Emerald Pools.

We made it to the end of the hike! Now to make our way back! We were surprised with how many people from Europe were vacationing here at Zion’s. Many of them were continuing their journey to other National Parks.

Finished our first hike at Zion’s! Wahoo! It was fun! We got to meet a lot of nice people, sadly see and older women slip off a step, have some good conversations and get really hungry!

On the bus on our way back to camp to get some food!

We are really glad Tuna likes the outdoors. He has fun hanging out and going on the hiking ride!

In town there was amazing food! I really would drive down here just to eat another pizza at “Pizza and Noodle.”

Stacey and Justin got a yummy Alfredo/pesto, tomato, pineapple pizza. It smelt good! They said it was wonderful! Considering the entire pizza was eaten, I would imagine it was good.

Stacey getting some greens in!

Jake and I got the mexican burrito pizza! Grilled chicken, jaelpenos, onions, it was amazing! So lets talk about their cute crust! not only was it cute like a pie, it was garlic buttered amazingness! I could of eaten 10 pizzas of just the crust and been really happy!

After a great pizza and salad meal, we headed over next door to a candy shop! We got fudge and treats.

Ok, I admit. This is the best /softest/ chewiest carmel I have ever had!

After we were full of eating candy, we discovered another candy shop across the street! So of course, we had to go try some things out and compare because I had just told my self I had eaten the best carmel in the world from the previous candy shop.

This next candy shop had some cute candy items that looked like a lot of fun. This was one of them.

On our trip we had a wildlife animal count going on. This alligator was number 4 on our list of 9.

We camped out in Zions National Park at their camp grounds. It was nice! You could rent a spot for 16 dollars and it had a picnic bench, fire pit, parking spot and tent/camping area for each spot! It even had clean, nice new bathrooms! It was so nice when we were all ready to go to bed we decided to not put up the tent!

Getting ready for bed! Jake was tired and went to bed while Tuna and I stayed up playing Nientedo and Stacey and Justin watched a movie. Tuna and I got passed two worlds playing Mario, and got all the secret coins.

Well at two in the morning, some fierce winds started up. It was like a tornado on our camp ground. It became freezing cold! Justin and Stacey moved in to the car to keep warm! Luckily Jake and I had cool sleeping bags that zip together. So we made a fort to hide from the cold. It was hilarious though because if the wind caught any opening in your sleeping bag it would instantly fill up with cold air! It was a fun adventure.

We woke up at 6 am to start our hike, but it was so freezing and windy we decided to wait a bit. We ended up getting up around 8 and packing up camp and eating breakfast! Here we are at the trail head to start Angels Landing. It is still freezing out, but we are going for it! All of us were hoping to get our sun tan on.

We came across this cute bug. Stink bug?

We will get to the top of that!

Justin’s new profile pic.

Stacey was practicing her yoga moves of the side of cliffs. She’s to awesome!

The hike all the way up to what they call Angels Landing is all switch backs, going back and forth to get higher…and higher…and higher….

Ancient mail boxes.

I swear this switch back was the hardest of the hike for me. I have never felt so out of shape in my life. Yet I dont think I have ever been this out of shape in my life…ha ha The great thing about this switch back is that after, the rest of the hike is a blast and so exciting!

Half way there!

Chipmunk…number 8.

This is where the hike gets really fun! Because……you have cliffs all around you and a chain to hold onto!

I dont know if you can see that narrowness down there in the middle of this pic…but you have a fun hike up!

Stacey looking good!

We made it to the top! We are on top of the world! A guy up there said we were over 5000 feet above ground. I don’t know what the truth is, but we were high. I thought it would be a scary adventure..maybe death flash before my eyes, but none of that. It was just playing fun!

View from above. We even had a nice breeze to cool us off because the wonderful sun came out!

We are almost back! The walk back down the cliffs were intense because it was so crowed out (Iron Man was going on that weekend). It was great though! Everyones knees held up! We were all feeling energized at the top of the mountain, but on our way back we were all feeling pooped!

After we got back we tried some smoothies, yogurt and subs at the “Orange Star.” It was great! You can tell how serious Stacey takes her smoothie testing.

On our way back, we stopped at one of Jake and I’s favorite hot springs! This place is great because its in the middle of no where, does not smell like sulfur at all, and the water is clear!

When we got there, there was a huge group of people, but they were all just getting out of the water! Perfect timing!

We forgot Tunas wet suit, so he just hung out and got his sun tan going.

The sun came out!

Jakes hair looked great with the wind blowing like crazy.

After the hot springs we stopped at Mavrick to get a treat and ice cream cone. I got this massive hot dog filled with Jalepenos and cheese! A man tried to warn me twice to not get it because it is so spicy hot. I guess I have warn out taste buds because I didn’t think it was hot at all. I liked it! It is interesting how all of us have different taste buds.

We got home around 8 on Saturday and Jake and I finished up our Sunday school lesson and were so tired we crashed and went to be early.

Sunday was MOTHERS DAY! Jake and Tuna wrote me a really cute note. We had fun with our Sunday School lesson, and hoped it went well! We really love our class! When we got home Jake cleaned the house and put away all the camping gear, and even made me a yummy dinner! I got to relax and watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3. It was fun! I realized those two movies really have no plot and are really pointless, but I love them, because I wish I were a pirate.

On of my favorite parts of the day is when my nephew Bryce started to text me on his moms phone. Not only was I impressed with how fast he texted back replies, he was cracking me up. This is how some of our conversation went!

Ok well first we started off talking about Pokemon. Then I sent him a picture message of Tuna and Andrew. Then the convo went like this
Bryce:Hay its still dirty(meaning Tuna)
Kelsey:I know I need to wash him. I am to scared to put him in the washing machine
Bryce: Oh I know what you mean.

I thought that was the cutest reply. I was laughing so hard at how cute he is!

Then he asked me if I had an iphone and if I could face chat, and he even sent me some pictures. I am really impressed with this boy!