Angels Landing. Zion National Park. Southwest, Utah. September 28th, 2021. 5:30am.
By and large, black men are uncomfortable in predominately white settings where we know we are outnumbered in a place we are seldom seen. It’s something inextricably braided into our DNA going back to our inception of slavery being invaded by colonizers. The mechanism developed as survival over the span of more than 400 years is still embedded indelibly in our collective psyche. Mine was wreaking havoc this morning in Utah where the black population sits at a whopping 1.19%. The stage was set for one of the most interesting days I’ve ever experienced while on a death-defying hike.
It was an early pitch-dark morning. I only heard voices coming from silhouettes of people as I ambled closer from the parking lot, still half asleep. You must get to the shuttle early at Zion National Park to hike Angels Landing because it’s the glamourized “bucket list” hike in Zion National Park that ramps up to crowds the point of being problematic, especially by mid-morning on weekends and holidays during tourist season. There is a consensus that Angels Landing possesses one of the most stunning viewpoints you can experience but is not recommended for anyone with a fear of heights (here I went again on my own). I was early enough to catch the first shuttle as the sun started to rise.
There were about fifty people ahead of me in a line snaking around barriers and dividers sectioning everyone off into lines. I could also see that I was the only black person there and immediately felt a visceral paranoia, accompanied by a thought that ties back to my opening paragraph. “This had to be how it felt at a slave auction” resounded in my skull in response to the unfettered looks I was getting form from all directions of my surroundings that were carried with laser curiosity as to why I was there. The feeling felt tantamount to how the roach must feel when its captor discovers it after the lights are turned on- unwelcome and vulnerable to the whim of its potential captor. The chances of me being harmed by a potential captor was closer to nil than slim, but I need to convey how rooted this is in our DNA. What transpired next is where I believe much of our common human understanding recedes and the universe speaks an esoteric language that flickers like portals you can only enter if willing to converse with it for moments in time.
I’m a keen observer, but how this happened is still beyond the laws of physics to me. Nobody was within a few feet of me (social distancing) when I looked to my left and then swiveled back to my right. I saw a guy standing right next to me, shoulder to shoulder. He was a white guy in his thirties at the time like me. I gave him a precautionary scan to size him up because he seemingly appeared out of thin air. His appearance presented the juxtaposition of a clean-cut TV personality with salon beard/haircut trims; and rugged hiker with hiking boots/backpack, two arm sleeve tattoos, one leg sleeve tattoo and a hockey player’s build.
He spoke. “What’s up, man?” I replied with a cold, “what up?” The eyes never lie, and I could tell this guy could see how guarded I was through the hesitancy in his eyes. My discernment determined no intended threat. The shuttle branches off into various hikes in the canyon, so he asked, “which hike are you going to hit? I’m taking Angels Landing on first.” I told him I was going to Angels Landing first also. Acquainting rapidly, we talked about where we were from, eerily similar tastes in Hip-Hop music, travel and Tom Brady. His name was Winsor from Boston, Massachusetts and we would remain inseparable for the rest of the day.
Boarding the shuttle, we stood next to the door on the ride to Grotto Trailhead where Angels Landing starts to be the first ones to be let out for a head start. We were naturally laughing and talking about various topics when a group of women in their mid-twenties asked where we were from and if we’d come on the trip to Utah together. I said, “Nah, I just met this dude forty-five minutes ago, where are ya’ll from?” The group of CrossFit athletes from Milwaukee, Wisconsin thought our response about meeting each other was facetious which turned into banter on both sides for the rest of the ride. We got separated from them about halfway through the hike, but they left an impression with their competitive and frolic nature as we pushed each other physically starting out the hike.
Angels Landing takes between 3-6 hours to hike. The crowds (attracts 4.3 million visitors a year), steep sandstone steps and potential weather that can be volatile can present a precarious outing. There have also been double digits deaths from falls since the 90’s and you must now get a permit to hike Angels Landing. The first section is grueling. You climb about 1,000 feet in elevation over 2 miles to get to the final half-mile ascent that gets much of the attention. The first 1.5 miles is a continuous climb over mostly terrain bereft of shade before you reach “Refrigerator Canyon” which is a brief shady section. I had been hiking incessantly for the past year, so I was fine here. Winsor was in optimum condition as he was step-for-step with me and was able to continue our ongoing conversation about everything (If you ever want to fully gage someone’s physical condition, go on a taxing hike with them and talk the entire time. Most people render themselves mum to preserve their energy). The views along this section are outstanding and the weather was impeccable that morning. After this section is “Walter’s Wiggles,” a section of 21 close range switchbacks that steeply climb toward “Scout Lookout.”
Scout Lookout concludes the first portion of the hike and starts the second section up the spine to Angels Landing. This is where everyone stops to catch their breath, behold the sweeping views and evaluate whether they want to continue to the summit. I witnessed many people turn around here. After feeling strong powering up the first section, my muscle was deflated as I set my eyes on the spine. While everyone else was taking pictures, mingling and feeding trail mix to squirrels, I eased away from the crowd to look closer at the spine of the mountain. My heart plummeted in unison with my imagined body, into the abyss of this monstrosity from a repeating reel in my mind. That stubborn old nemesis, my fear of heights, had returned with a vengeance.
As I started to negotiate my way into backing out, Winsor popped up like a cheap car salesman on a midnight infomercial. “You ready for this, bro!?” He was damn near frothing at the mouth and my mind commuted words my mouth couldn’t utter in response because my heart was still in my socks. Earlier, he told me that it was imperative that he made it to the summit because he was carrying a small urn in his backpack with the ashes of someone close to him. He took off towards and up the spine. I followed with the velocity of tortoise, cautiously making my way up some of the chains bolted into the mountain, guard-rails and carved steps which really provided me with zero relief because you’re angling diagonally up the side of a steep mountain with death beckoning drop-offs. Winsor realized he’d gotten a good lead on me and turned around to see where I was. When he spotted me, I yelled out, “go ‘head, bro…you got it!” He paused with concern as I shook my head and waved him off.
After Winsor disappeared over the spine, a kerfuffle arose as some impatient hiker was yelling at people to get through pockets of traffic behind me. There was younger woman who was grasping tightly to one of the poles connected to the chains, unable to move due to fright. I offered my hand to help her start to make her way down and off the mountain because although I can be chivalrous, I was also looking for a way off the mountain myself. She took my hand, and we made our way down to the base of the spine. She was from New York and her name was Liza with a contagious sense of humor and gregarious nature.
Her two friends, Brooke and Syd had continued up the spine while she got stuck where I found her. After about 30 minutes of getting acquainted through laughter with levity of how we’d both chickened out of finishing the hike, I decided to try again. I told her maybe I’d run into her later in the canyon and she wished me luck on my decision to make another attempt at climbing. The climb throughout was terrifying and I’d be fraudulent in omitting the pertinent fact that I was overcome by panic innumerable times along the way. The defining moment was crossing one exposed section where I allowed myself to look down on both sides to the canyon below. It was the width of a diving board (no hyperbole here, Google away) The best way I can describe it is to imagine walking a plank over the Grand Canyon. What I felt looking down was ineffable, followed by a moment of clarity so immense that it was almost trance-like- sheer meditation. I was devoid for the first time that I can remember in my life from what I described earlier as being embedded in the psyche of the black man.
No, I’m not deluding myself with a kumbaya epiphany to serve as validation that we can all get along in the world, but I do know that only consciousness was present at that moment and nothing else mattered. It made me think about the time I read about how astronauts upon returning to earth after being in space with a view of the planet realized that we are small in the grand scheme of things and our differences are even smaller. After I scrambled a little further and located Winsor on the final viewpoint waiting for me. I’m sure that feeling within my psyche will remain, but on Angels Landing, I was able to reach a height that allowed me to see a glimpse of what those astronauts were privileged to see by meeting this stranger and looking down into that canyon from 1,500 feet above the ground.
On the way down, me and Winsor ran into Liza, Brooke and Syd, finishing the hike together. I hadn’t realized how thick of a Bostonian accent Winsor had all day until these three women started cracking jokes on him, pleading him to repeat words like Cowdah (chowder), ahnt (aunt), bee-uh (beer), kahnt (can’t), kah (car), eye-dee-er (idea) then guffawing to no avail. Winsor had some slick punch lines of his own and cracked back, so serendipity gifted us more frolic with more people as we started the morning. We did “the secret hike” and an alternative to Observation Point that allowed us to view the entire canyon, perched atop rock formation from catbird seats. After that, we ate dinner and set our sights on “The Narrows” hike for the following morning. Me and Winsor have stayed in touch and plan to meet up for future hikes in Sedona, Yellowstone National Park and Yosemite National Park. I try to wake up daily with an optimism that seeks to will the probability of having experiences like that day. Not so much the exhilaration of the hike, but rather taking the chance to experience something new through my psyche, and people.
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