Our alarms went off at our now not-unusual hour of 4:00 in the morning, where we prepared ourselves for the day's hike. We drove up to the visitor's center around 5:30, when there was enough light glinting over the canyon walls to make some of the rock features out but still dark enough along the canyon floor for our brights to do little. We got to the nearly deserted parking lot and wandered around for a bit until finding the visitor center—which wasn't even open due to the early hour. We got to the nearby shuttle bus stop and waited.

Hordes of people arrived mere minutes before the first shuttle of the day at 6:00. The bus was crammed to bursting and then filled with more. Strains of Weird Al Yankovic's parody "Another One Rides The Bus" went through our head once more.

The bus went to a few more stops prior to the Angel's Landing trailhead, but not a soul got off. Everyone, it turned out, was doing what we were doing: making the trek up the mountain as early as possible.

The trail begins easily, going over a bridge across the currently meager Virgin River and parallels it along a soft sand path. Eventually this gave way to concrete switchbacks, steep and cracked in places, but wide enough for two-way traffic. This went up and up and up, seemingly interminably.

The switchbacks stopped, and from our vantage point we could look back and see the ant-sized swaths of humanity trudging up the switchbacks which we had already traversed. We were around halfway up to our destination atop a massive red monolith.

The trail evened out as it went through a cool canyon, only to turn rightwards and dump us out around the end of this mini-canyon. This section, known as "Walter's Wiggles," is a series of nearly twenty short and steep switchbacks in the rock.

A short walk from there led us to a place called Scout Lookout. From there, both sides of Zion Canyon could be seen. Thousands of feet down and miles in both directions could also be seen, and it is regarded as one of the most epic views in the park.

My mom stayed there as my dad and I began the tortuous trek in an attempt to get to Angel's Landing. One of the hardest and certainly the single most infamous hike in the park, the trail as advertised goes along a ridge with a metal chain rail to hold onto at the thinner points. We went extremely slow up this direction and ended up making it about a third of the total distance.

The rest of the hike, now full of people trying to go both directions in an environment not even built for one abreast, could be seen from our ledge. A line of humanity went down to a section about three feet across, then up about 45º to the top of the cliff known as Angel's Landing. Going further would have been extremely ill-advised, and my dad reported being much more nervous about the hike we did manage to go on than he ever did in his days as a paratrooper.

We got pictures from the cliff, and what views they were. Without any obstruction down the canyon, almost all of Zion could be seen. The Virgin River barely looked like anything way below, and we impressed ourselves with the thought that we had climbed all the way up.

Our nervousness only increased on the way back. We clutched onto the chain as morons with small children tried to pass us—but behind us, which meant they went along the edge of the cliff. Our safety by ourselves would not have been a problem; others' idiocy put themselves in danger and would have put ours in jeopardy had we continued to the narrowest points.

We met my mom back at Scout Lookout, where she had been talking with a family from Ohio. Many of the folks around us who had attempted Angel's Landing had turned back at the same spot as we had. Us and a few other families went down the mountain at roughly the same rate and commiserated about the sheer insanity of trying to navigate such a hike. We got back to the shuttle a tiny bit before 10:00 and enjoyed getting off of our feet in a nearly empty vehicle as we went back to the visitor center and then back to our hotel. The views on the way back were better than they were coming up, and in fact the view from the top of the first set of switchbacks rivaled that from anywhere at the top.

Once back at the hotel, each of us took a shower to clear off the dirt and mostly-unnecessary sunscreen, then went out to eat what was technically lunch but what in actuality amounted to a breakfast more legitimate than the crackers we had munched while on the trail. We wanted to get off of our feet awhile and thus went somewhat across town to Oscar's—technically "Cafe Oscar" although no one calls it that—an establishment at which we had eaten hearty burgers three years ago. Dinner, we recalled, was an excessively long wait, and so we figured that we would be faster served during the lunch hours.

We were right. We nabbed an inside seat and sucked down large amounts of succulent raspberry lemonade, filling us up before we could begin our actual meals. Our burgers were massive—half-pound patties cooked in garlic and topped with anything you could imagine. Mine had large pungent clumps of blue cheese (objectively the best kind of blue cheese) and bacon strips, along with the traditional lettuce, tomato, and onion. My parents got something called the Avocado Chip burger, which had slices of avocado and corn chips along with the standard burger toppings. Served with thick-cut sweet potato fries and it was all too much to eat, but all very delicious. We also managed to beat the crowds, which had begun to line up outside as we exited the premises.

We got back to the hotel room a little before 1:00 and crashed. We slept intermittently but well. At around 6:00 we began to get hungry and struck out into the town for a bite to eat a little before 8:00.

This time, we ended up at Zion Pizza and Noodle Company. A small converted church building with additions, the eclectic eatery also contains a shop what appeared to be a small art gallery. The eateries in Springdale close anywhere from 8 to 10, but the lines that accrue before then are sure to keep them busy until well after dark. As such, the Pizza and Noodle Company was jam-packed, so we decided what we wanted and then Mom and I grabbed a table while Dad ordered.

My parents had a pizza known as the Cholesterol Hiker. A meat-lover's pizza that included sausage, Canadian bacon, pepperoni, and three cheeses atop a custom scalloped-edge crust, they split the thick 12-incher save for my singular bite. Seeing as their name included pizza and noodles, I had to go for a noodle and went for the chicken parmesan. The chicken was breaded and slathered with cheese atop a small lake of marinara, while off to the side the linguine was covered in its own thin layer of creamy white sauce. The garlic bread was one of the best I'd ever tasted, as they basically make a big garlic pizza and put singular slices on plates. The first bite of the chicken parmesan tasted like good cafeteria food, but subsequent bites only strengthened my taste for the dish and I ended up eating all but a single bite (which my mom sampled).

We ambled back to our hotel, where we went to the second floor to a balcony to see the sunset over the canyon walls. From our vantage point, we spotted deer in the woods beyond and went downstairs and out the door to check them out.

A half-trail, half-off-road-route led outwards from the end of the parking lot and we followed it until we were fairly close to the deer. Other folks out for an evening stroll had gone even closer, which made the two male deer suspicious but not enough for them to scatter. We ended up talking to a couple from Sacramento and discussed the local food of their home city as well as our advice for the hikes of Zion and points beyond. We then headed back to the room as the last of the sun's rays began to disappear over the canyon wall.

Tomorrow: we complete our collection of Utah National Parks by traveling to Torrey, on the doorstep of Capitol Reef National Park.