Let’s start off with the hike of hikes. Elevation climb, switchbacks, and drop offs on both sides of your climb. But it’s all worth it. The view is spectacular! And you meet people along the way. Everyone is encouraging each other. “You are almost there.” “It’s so worth it.”

Oh and by the way, we had no idea we were twinsies and wearing the same tank top until a fellow hiker told us how cute we were with the matching shirts. We just looked at each other and laughed because it had been two hours by this time, and we never noticed! 55 years …. I guess you just start thinking alike.

We met Robert on our hike. He turned 70 and this was one of his ‘bucket list’ hikes. We teamed up and made sure he got to the top. But low and behold, he was in our first picture of the day when we were in line for the bus to Angel’s Landing, behind us in the green shirt and hat.

I am an uphill hiker. I can go and go uphill at a great pace. Diana is great at downhill. Long strides and she cruises. We know each others strengths so we go a ways and then wait for the other person to catch up. It works great. We took sooooo many amazing pictures along the way. Here are just a couple of us on the way up.

The top of Angel’s Landing is so beautiful. There was a cool breeze whipping up the side of the cliff, chipmunks scurrying around and hikers soaking in the beauty from all directions. Of course, we took view pictures of our own, as close to the edge as we felt we needed to be.

The view heading back really gave us a clear picture of how thin the top of the mountain is that we are traversing.

And we decisded that we weren’t quite finished so after finishing our hike at Angel’s Landing we hiked the Emerald Ponds.

On our bus ride back to the car we were entertained by the bus driver with historical facts and tid bits of information about the park and recent events. He also told us a great little fact that I will share with you instead of a tip of the day.

So, squirrels are the only mammal that can climb down a tree head first. Do you know why? When they climb down head first, their paws can turn 180 degrees in the other direction so they are gripping as if they are climbing up which stops them from falling downward off the tree. How cool is that!