If you have spent any time thinking about hiking in Zion National Park, Angels Landing is probably already on your list. Or it's scaring you off your list. It's the trail everyone has seen pictures of: that narrow sandstone fin that juts out into the canyon like a finger pointed at heaven, with hikers clinging to chains along the ridge. Back in 1916, a man named Frederick Fisher took one look at it and said only an angel could land there. The name stuck, and now the rest of us just have to work a little harder for our wings.
I had been wanting to do this hike for years. Southern Utah is my soul place. I'm an Idaho girl through and through, but something about that red rock and that wide open sky always feels like coming home to me. So when three of my best friends said yes to a Zion girls' trip, Angels Landing was the first thing I put on the itinerary.
Here's the thing nobody tells you about a trip like this: the hike starts long before you ever lace up your boots. It starts when you apply for the permit.
Angels Landing has required a permit since 2022, and you can't just show up and hope for the best. You have to apply through a lottery on Recreation.gov, either the seasonal lottery (months ahead) or the day-before lottery. The application fee is six dollars, and if you get picked, it's another three dollars per person. My advice: apply to the seasonal lottery first and pick as many date and time options as they'll let you. If that doesn't shake one loose, try the day-before lottery every single day until you get one. We applied for a group of four. We got lucky on our second day of trying. I may have shrieked in the hotel lobby.
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tle slot that feels about twenty degrees cooler than the rest of the hike. I loved this part. It felt like the canyon was handing us one quiet moment before the real work started.
Then came Walter's Wiggles.
If you don't know about Walter's Wiggles, they are 21 stone switchbacks carved into a steep wall, named after Zion's first superintendent, who engineered them back in the 1920s. They are relentless. They are also genius, twenty-one tight zigzags that gain a ton of elevation in a short distance. Somewhere around switchback fourteen my calves started filing a formal complaint. But one of my friends kept saying, "Just the next one. Just this one." And we got up it, one wiggle at a time.
At the top of the Wiggles is Scout Lookout, and this is the spot where a lot of people stop. You can hike this far without a permit, and honestly, the view from Scout Lookout is incredible. Canyon stretching in every direction. Virgin River glinting below. If the chains aren't for you, this is a beautiful place to turn around, eat your snacks, and call it a win. There is nothing wrong with a woman who knows her limits.
But we had permits in our pockets. So we kept going.
And the chains. Oh, the chains.
I have done a lot of hard things in my life. Backpacking trips with my girlfriends. Havasupai Falls. Mountain biking trails that had no business being attempted by a grandma. But the chains on Angels Landing are their own animal. It's a half mile of narrow, exposed sandstone spine with thousand-foot drops on both sides, and heavy chains bolted into the rock to hold onto. You go slow. You let people pass at the wide spots. You breathe. And you pray, a little. I did, anyway.
I'm not going to tell you I wasn't scared. I was. There's a section where the ridge narrows to about the width of a sidewalk, with nothing on either side but sky, and I had to talk to myself out loud to keep moving. But here's what I learned on that ridge: I am braver than I think I am. So are you. The fear doesn't disappear. You just walk through it anyway, one chain at a time, with good women behind and in front of you.
When we reached the summit, I sat down on that warm rock and cried a little. Not because it was hard, although it was. Because it was beautiful in a way that's hard to put words to. Zion Canyon was spread out below us in every direction. Green and gold and red. The Virgin River a thin silver ribbon. The whole place felt bigger and older an
