Observation Point

We decided to do a bigger hike on our last day in an effort to get Liz tired enough to sleep in the car. On our trip out to GJ, she did her first all-nighter but was miserable and couldn't nap. Even at home she'll get squirrley (leg tickles) and restless. She hates exercise but after most of the things we do, she passes right out like a little baby. We were driving to Cali that night so we wanted to make sure she was incapable of being awake. 8 miles, 2150ft elevation gain should have done the trick.

I think this hike was my favorite of them all. Yes, it was the biggest and longest, but the views were awesome from the whole thing. We got to go through a small slot-canyon, some flat river beds, a desert plateau and some steep sandstone cliffs. And there were no mormonious angels making Brian hide behind trees or shreak & run at random moments.
The sky was ridiculously dark next to these white-ish cliffs. This peak was right in front of a highly polarized part of the sky so that it came out looking like white on dark-purple!
Liz walking through crossbedded cliffs!
A crecent moon, about to set behind the cliffs. Yes it's daytime and the moon can be up during the day - some college kids don't know that (to my surprise).
Angels landing is the little brown nub coming out under the white sandstone layer on the far wall, in the middle of the picture.
Zion canyon with Angels Landing right in the middle. The park had a really good transportation system. No cars were allowed past the visitor center and you had to take a shuttle along the valley floor. Having seen the overcrowded, polluted nature of some of the parks, I thought this was a great way to keep the rabble from having a massive impact. You can only take one backpack full of trash in, so there were only a few bottles thrown on the side of the trails. Since you can't drive your 500K bus/house with your 10 megawatt generator right to the base of the cliff, there isn't a bunch of engine noise & people watching TV everywhere.
Lizzard!