Angel's Landing, Part II

Click here for Part I.

I was feeling great after reaching the summit of Angel's Landing in just two hours.  Ahead of schedule and with the sun now fully up, I had the opportunity on my descent to better appreciate the beauty that had been obscured by predawn shadows on my way up.

The way this fin seemed to just jut straight out of the canyon floor with nothing around it intrigued me.  I struggled to get good light on it, and actually discovered as my view expanded that it was part of the same formation as Angel's Landing itself.

More great compositions from shadows on the canyon wall, this time of evergreen trees.

The sun still wasn't high enough to shine on the canyon floor, but was plenty high to give me a good look at what I had just climbed.

The Zion River is fairly narrow, but clearly provides enough moisture to sustain a lot of plant life.

The combination of arid red rock and lush green vegetation is unlike any other place I've been.  A truly distinctive scene.

I got a fun chance to play peek-a-boo with the sun around this escarpment, getting some nice sun beams around the edge.

From here, the canyon seems to just extend infinitely to the south.

The wider view from this vantage point somehow seems to make the canyon feel smaller.  I'm not sure why that is, but in this case smaller definitely doesn't mean less spectacular.

It was only 10:00, and I'd already fallen in love with Zion.  And I had still had seven more hours before I planned to leave to get to know the park even better!