April 2019 – Wildly Ever After

View of Angel’s Landing from the West Rim trail

Do you like to live dangerously: sky dive after sunset, swim in a river with piranhas, or…

eat jarred pickles one year after the expiration date?

Do you think of yourself as a balanced individual?

If so, you are the perfect candidate to experience the premier hike in Zion National Park: Angel’s Landing.

My family and I went up there recently, and I can vouch that it is an apt name for that particular hike. Only angels would be comfortable fluttering to a perch on that fin of rock so high…so narrow.

Angels—or condors.

Picture of soaring California condor; these birds have a wingspan around 109 inches, or just over 9 feet)

On the brink of extinction in the 1980’s when only about twenty-two birds survived, intensive recovery efforts of condors have led to a global population that is around 400 (about half of these are in the wild vs. captivity). Nearly 70 condors call wild parts of Utah and Arizona (including Zion National Park) their home. Currently, the biggest threat to their recovery is the use of lead shot by hunters (condors are scavengers, and suffer from lead poisoning after eating animals killed by lead shot).

Apparently, these enormous, magnificent birds like to soar near this prominent massif. Although we didn’t see the condors near Angel’s Landing, we did have turkey vultures circling above us; either it was the sound of the wind fluttering through their wings, or they were chanting something that sounded a lot like:

fall, fall, fall.

Yes, fresh from the hike, I have a few phrases to describe it:

An intense cliff-hanger.

A southwestern desert lover’s utopia.

Heart-pounding…or, if you have a fear of heights, heart palpitating (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase)…I kept my eyes open the entire time…let me tell you about the sights: I had a great view of the tan and blush-colored sandstone, my daughter’s blue sneakers, and the silver chain nearly the entire way up. Also, when I looked back, I saw some guy behind us who was wearing a funky totem pole bird-head like figure on his white t-shirt.

Exhilarating.

Shushh…the sound of the Virgin River’s lullaby from wayyy down below.

Other thoughts also come to mind:

Spooky (especially as a parent).

Crowded.

Alarming.

Many opportunities to commiserate with other people who had the same (healthy) fear of heights.

(did I already say spooky?)

An adrenaline rush upon arriving at the top, yet the knowledge that one would soon be going back through the lines of people near the edge of steep dropoffs loomed like a great shadow. But I found that dread to be unfounded. Maybe knowing we made it up installed the confidence that indeed, we could descend in similar fashion. The view of the valley below was amazing!

Although the hike was wonderful in a twisted sort of way, it’s not an experience I want to repeat any time soon because of the sheer volume of people that undertake the climb. (No offence, people, but South Dakotans tend to get a bit nervous in crowds…where we’re from, there’s lots of space).

An early start to the Angel’s Landing Trail

Although we started the hike around 8:15 am and there was plenty of spacing between upward-bound hikers, once we reached Angel’s Landing, we were amidst throngs and throngs of people going up and going down. There’s only one chain, and the width of the cliffs vary from one person can safely pass to a width of I-guess-I-can-let-go-of-the- chain-for-a-little-bit-and-hope-I-don’t-have-a-buffoon-moment-and- trip, or that no one is tumbling down the mountain above me and going to take out myself or my family.

That’s not to say it’s not worth doing. If I were to go again, I’d want to be one of the early birds and go up at 6 am just for the safety factor of being around so many people while we’re tiptoeing along the edges of cliffs.

We went with a ten-year-old and thirteen-year-old, sandwiching parents between each. I had to threaten my supremely confident ten year old mountain goat that his non-bovid mom would have a heart attack right then and there if he did not hold onto the chain.

Seriously.

Fortunately, my thirteen year old had no issue with that edict.

Oh yes, from a mom’s perspective, I had thought a different trail, the Observation Point trail sounded much more attractive and reasonable for our family to undertake, since that one isn’t fraught with quite so much excitement and offers similarly spectacular views. Unfortunately, my plans were thwarted as many of the trails in Zion National Park were closed due to rockfall, excess water volume (the Narrows), and or road construction (without undertaking a two hour and change car ride), so there we were.

These desert beauties, Indian paintbrushes, are in full bloom.

And there I was. Praying. You can do that as you walk, you know? I don’t think God cares whether you’re kneeling our standing, as long as you’re reverential.

Waiting for the free park shuttle from Zion National Park Visitor Center

Zion National Park has become one of the U.S.’s Disneyland Parks, meaning that if you want to experience the most popular trails, you can expect to wait in line. And if you want to do some of the most popular off-trail hikes (like the Subway) you need to apply something like three months in advance to do so (we entered a last-minute lottery for any leftover permits remaining, but weren’t selected).

Fortunately, my prayer was answered and our family survived to hike another day (much to the chagrin of my son; he thinks mountain biking is a far superior activity). Maybe, someday if/when we return…we’ll be one of the lucky ones and see the condors.

After all, with its vertical cliff faces and prominent hoodoo at the top, Angel’s landing is perfect for them.

But not for me…I’m no angel.

Have a good one and thanks for reading!

Sources:

https://www.nps.gov/zion/learn/nature/condors.htm

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/California_Condor/

It’s spring in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and, as of today, April 3, the mountain bluebirds have been here for about three weeks. Their winter home is in the southernmost west states of the U.S. (California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas) plus northern Mexico. But if you didn’t know where they were coming from, you would think pieces of the sky were indeed falling, for these birds are colored the most brilliant blue imaginable.

Mountain bluebirds (along with gardeners and farmers) are the ultimate optimists. The day after I saw the first pair for the year, a blizzard struck the plains about an hour to the east of us.

No, in the Dakotas, winter doesn’t give up easily. Today, we awoke to an inch-and-a-half of the white stuff on the ground (a bit more is on the way). With a diet comprised mainly of insects and spiders, mountain bluebirds have their work cut out for them. What self-respecting spider, wasp, beetle, grasshopper, or caterpillar is going to be doing loop-the-loops in the air or taking an upside-down stroll on the underside of a leaf? (especially since the leaves here have yet to emerge).

Not one.

Yet, as you might imagine, there are still insects and spiders outside, but they aren’t nearly as accessible or in as large numbers observed in summertime.

Fortunately, mountain bluebirds have other places to look for six- and eight-legged prey. Currently, mountain bluebirds along our road spend a lot of time foraging in a large unmowed field where the dried stalks of grass and thatch provide shelter to over-wintering insects. Other places the birds may search include: tree cavities, under the eaves of buildings, in the leaf litter, or in galls. Other insects, like ants and termites (not really mountain bluebird food anyway), aren’t accessible, for they winter in the soil below the frost line; nor are the larvae of dragonflies and damselflies, who grow and thrive under winter’s blanket of frozen water.

A Hackberry tree (Celtis occidentalis) makes a great tree for songbirds and hummingbirds.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. When spiders and insects are scarce, mountain bluebirds will resort to hackberries, grapes, currants, dogwoods, elderberries, and dried fruits of other plants for food. I can attest to the value of hackberry trees to songbirds in early spring: just last week in Pierre, SD, the neighborhood’s hackberry trees were dripping with robins and cedar waxwings as they devoured the trees’ berries (When I spent time in west Texas, I observed a goshawk nesting atop a hackberry’s main trunk, while in the vicinity, a pair of Bell’s vireos and several hummingbirds built their nests in some other hackberry trees’ branchtips).

Warmer weather in South Dakota will eventually prevail. And with it will come other birds, adorned in the spectacular palettes only nature can conjure. I look forward to the day when I see the first western tanager of the season. Black and bright yellow feathers color the wings and breast of this bird, while the fire of a sunset blazes atop their throats and crowns.

When that highly anticipated moment finally arrives and I hear the tanager’s characteristic upward tik-tik-tik declaration in the canopy of a pine tree, I’ll be the first to say: