Saturday Snapshot: Sunrise in the Outback

Sunrise at Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park, 15 June 2011

Sunrise has been vying for position as my favorite time of day since I was 17. On a spring trip to France in our junior year of high school, two friends and I decided that getting up to watch the sun rise over the Baie des Anges in Nice was the perfect way to celebrate our first full day in the country. Neglecting to consider how much further north than Southern California France is, we arrived on the beach shortly after 5am, nearly two hours before sunrise. We walked the length of the Promenade des Anglais and continued partway around the headland at the eastern end of the bay. I snapped pictures of every infinitesimal lightening of the eastern sky. Jet-lagged and sleepy-eyed, we yawned, more than once. In the end, it was worth every chilly moment. Not because the sunrise itself was a particularly spectacular one, but because it just felt like the perfect way to have started the day and our time in France.

In the nine and a half years since that April morning, I've watched sunrises from planes to various destinations, on my way to class during Washington, DC winters and while sitting on the steps of a stone library at Angkor Wat. I spent nearly three of those years seeing four or five sunrises a week as I put in the necessary miles to keep up my marathon training. Watching the sun sneak above the horizon as I paced along, puffing out fog into the frozen winter landscape or inhaling what felt like half a river from air weighted with summer humidity, came to be a comfortable part of my routine. I can't remember a day that's started with the sun that turned out to be a bad one.

With grad school keeping me up later and homework eating up a lot of the time I used to use for running, I've fallen out of the habit of watching the sunrise this year but didn't think much of it until my trip to the Northern Territory this June.

My tour left Alice Springs shortly after 6am on June 14th - which meant it was still dark, since June is winter here in Australia. It doesn't take long to leave the town of Alice Springs behind and move into empty Outback, which was where we were when the sun began to peek over the horizon. The ghostly shapes of scrub brush and the occasional desert oak became clearer and color seeped into the landscape by degrees. By the time we stopped at our first roadhouse of the day, my breath had caught in my throat a dozen times at the beauty of the Outback at dawn. The early morning air seemed gilded around the edges, rays of sunlight dancing over the red earth and teasing out depths of color that seemed impossible in the full light of day. I soaked in as much of the scenery as I could, feeling more peaceful than I had in weeks.

At Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park the next day, we watched the sun rise over both Uluru and the "many heads" of the Kata Tjuta. Sunset at Uluru the night before had been a great experience, but it was watching streams of light flow across the horizon, pouring color back into the landscape and glinting off the frost that had formed during the night that took my breath away. Watching the silhouettes of the Kata Tjuta lighten as the sun crept higher into the sky, I couldn't help but smile.

I had one more Outback sunrise that week, watching the early morning light break over the top of Kings Canyon as we made our way up the Rim Walk's "Heart Attack Hill," then chase the shadows from the trail. As the canyon walls absorbed the first of the sun's rays and reflected them back in rich shades of red and brown, I paused to catch my breath in the slowly warming air, drawing in the feeling that's what I love best about sunrise: the twin sensations of peace and possibility that accompany the start of each new day.

Color seeping back into the landscape as the sun creeps up to illuminate the "many heads" of the Kata Tjuta.

Saturday Snapshot: Cradle Mountain

My first look at Cradle Mountain, from near the beginning of the Dove Lake Circuit.

I'm a sucker for national parks. Maybe it's having all but grown up in them, but plunk me down in a national park with plenty of trails to walk, night sky to stargaze at and wildlife to marvel over and I couldn't be happier. So when I heard from a couple of Aussies (Queenslanders) my parents and I met in Utah's Zion National Park in the U.S. this past September that Australia's island state of Tasmania is 40% national parks, I decided I had to get there.

Cradle Mountain and the pristine waters of Dove Lake.

Freycinet National Park with its charming bays and coastline was lovely and I'd have liked to spend more time in Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, but it was Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park that made me feel like camping out forever might just be a viable life plan. Known for its six-day Overland Track that stretches from near Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair itself, Cradle Mountain NP is a backpacker's dream, with trails ranging from easy but visually stunning walks to challenging climbs over rocks and crags to reach a view that could take your breath away.

Cradle Mountain hangs dramatically above the northern end of Dove Lake and the Dove Lake Circuit.

Tasmanians say that you can expect to see Cradle Mountain itself one day out of every three but, after my humbling drenching in Freycinet a few days before, the powers that be must have decided I deserved a treat, because I was lucky enough to get two days of crystal clear views.

Cradle Mountain from the opposite (northern) side, a shadowy backdrop behind the lovely greenery of Cradle Valley.

There are places in the park where you can't see the mountain at all and wonder where it's gone off to, then you come around a bend in a path or crest a small hill and it appears, striking against the sky and a rugged contrast to the Tasmanian rainforest below.

A morning at Cradle Mountain, with Dove Lake and its boat shed in the foreground.

If you ever get the chance to visit Tasmania, be sure to include Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park in your itinerary. There's a peace and quiet in the air, not to mention heart-stopping views, that absolutely should not be missed.

The Hiker With the Black Umbrella

The crazy Tasmanian weather means you can go from this
beautiful sunshine over Freycinet National Park's lovely
Wineglass Bay to cranky thunderstorms in an hour or less.

You have got to be kidding me, I thought, looking up as the first raindrops hit the rocks around me. What had happened to the bright, sunny afternoon I'd been enjoying? I was in the second half of an 11km (not quite seven-mile) hike in Tasmania's Freycinet National Park with a friend and, with scrubby trees and wiry bushes leaving just enough trail to walk on, there was absolutely nowhere to go. I heaved a sigh and reached for my pack.

Before you start wondering just how much of a wuss I'd have to be in order to be that put out by a few drops of rain, let me tell you a little about family vacations when I was a kid: they usually involved a couple of weeks in national parks in the U.S. or western Canada and the one question my dad could always be counted on to ask before we left home and as we set out from our campsite each day was, "Do you have your parka?" (In Pinneo family lingo, "parka" means "waterproof jacket," not "big, heavy, snow-proof coat.") With much eye-rolling and face-making, I would say yes, grumpy that I had to lug such an unwieldy thing around all day, with little likelihood of actually needing to wear it. Parkas are ugly, I would complain. It's too big, I look stupid. Whenever I could possibly get away with leaving the thing behind, I did.

Clouds starting to gather near Wineglass Bay.

So it was a bit ironic that, prior to leaving for Australia, a waterproof jacket was on my to-buy list, since one of my first stops would be Tasmania, capital of unpredictable weather conditions. I found a few I liked online, but wanted to make my purchase in-store, since I wasn't sure of the sizing. No worries, I thought; since I would be spending a few days in Los Angeles before heading across the Pacific, I could just pop into an REI store and find what I wanted. Unfortunately, it turns out that REI stores in Southern California don't really carry Outdoor Research (OR) products, which was what I'd been looking at. There was a similar jacket by The North Face that could have worked, but it was a little heavier than I wanted for the Australian summer weather, and REI's own similar line was more expensive than OR's. So I decided I'd wait to buy a jacket until I got to Australia, either in Tasmania or once I was settled in Sydney. In the meantime, I'd just have to tough it out with an umbrella and hope for clear skies.

I had not, however, planned on ending up on a narrow Tasmanian hiking trail, in pouring rain, with nothing waterproof at hand except a black, travel-sized umbrella. If it had been just me and the usual hiking paraphernalia in my daypack, I would have kept on going and ignored the rain, no problem. I had a hat to keep water out of my eyes and it wasn't cold, by any means. But I had my Kindle and my iPod in my pack and no other way to protect them from the downpour, so, rolling my eyes at my own idiocy, I popped open the umbrella, hitched it over my shoulder so that it covered as much of my pack as possible and set off at as fast a clip as I could manage, eyes focused enviously on the water rolling off the hood of my friend's jacket.

The sky over an isthmus on the Freycinet Peninsula,
looking a little more foreboding just before the rain started.

The image of myself in my mind's eye as I hiked made me want to both laugh and bang my head against a wall. Hiking with an umbrella, I thought. Could I be any more ridiculous? The umbrella, wider than my shoulders and much less easy to maneuver, snagged on bushes and branches every few steps and I gritted my teeth as I continually yanked it free, trying to climb without bending over and exposing the bottom of my pack to the rain. The few hikers who passed us gave me puzzled looks and I smiled sheepishly, wishing I could disappear into the ground and take my absurdly out-of-place umbrella with me.

An hour or so later, my friend and I made it back to the carpark and scrambled into our tour's minibus to laughing applause. Soaked to the skin - this hadn't been any gentle shower but a steady downpour, complete with rolling thunder - we collapsed in our seats and I gratefully put away my umbrella, sure of three things: 1) I never wanted to hike with an umbrella again; 2) I was buying a waterproof jacket the minute I found a sporting goods store back in Sydney; 3) My dad was never going to let me live this down.

And there you have it: the day I became "the hiker with the black umbrella."

Snapshots: Angels Landing

One of the stunning vistas visible from Angels Landing.

Standing at the top of a cliff, turning slowly to absorb every bit of a 360-degree view of sandstone peaks - some cream-colored, some pink and some deep red - is a breathtaking experience. When you've climbed 500 feet in elevation in half a mile over narrow rock faces embedded with chains, scrambling up chest-high boulders and edging cautiously past descending hikers to get there, it also feels like a great reward for having ventured all the way out to Zion's Angels Landing.

Looking up at the first set of switchbacks
from the beginning of the trail.

Not a long hike at five miles roundtrip, Angels Landing is nonetheless considered one of Zion National Park's more difficult trails, namely because of that last half-mile. Scout's Lookout is two miles and a 1,000-foot elevation gain from the trailhead and many hikers stop there, content with the views to either side of Zion Canyon and down to the canyon floor. The hike to that point is enjoyable but challenging, with steep switchbacks. Among them are 21 of the shortest switchbacks I've ever been on, known as Walter's Wiggles and named after Walter Reusch, who designed the strange section of trail and helped with its construction in 1924. Leading up to Walter's Wiggles is Refrigerator Canyon, which is a treat to wander through in the summer with temperatures that are regularly 10-30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rest of the sun-baked trail. 

A view of the Virgin River from the bridge that leads from
The Grotto to the Angels Landing and West Rim trailheads.

Whether or not you make it to the top, the hike provides beautiful views of the canyon floor, the Virgin River and the incredible sandstone formations that characterize Zion. Hikers on this trail generally know what they're getting into and are in it for the long haul, so people are friendly on the trail and conversation with strangers during quick breaks in the shade is common. Continuing past Scout's Lookout is strongly discouraged for anyone with a fear of heights, since the trail past that point is quite narrow with very steep drop-offs, and there are some gaps between the chains erected by the NPS that can be paralyzing for those already uncomfortable with the elevation. If you're not afraid of heights and are in good health, however, I highly recommend at least trying the last part of the trail - the view from the top is well worth the effort (and if my parents - 61 and 73 when we hiked this last month - can do it, you likely can too!).

On the way to Angels Landing, looking
back along the trail toward Scout's Lookout.

On the last, most challenging part of the trail from Scout's Lookout to Angels Landing, the mood is even more friendly, taking on a kind of "we're all in this together" vibe that keeps conversation going and has hikers carefully maneuvering to allow one another to pass safely. My parents and I spoke at length with three American women who travel together every year, an Aussie from Queensland with whom we'd spoken extensively on the Hidden Canyon trail the day before, and a group of Americans who thought my dad should get an age award for making it to the top, to name just a few - not to mention the Argentine gentleman wedged into a nook in the rock to let descending hikers pass who offered his hand as a brace for a particularly long drop from one boulder to another.

The view down Zion Canyon from the edge of Angels Landing.

Once you reach the top, the sandstone flattens out, the chains disappear (which is cause for concern for some) and - with the exception of one particularly slanted, narrow spot as you're heading out to the edge - any reason for nerves evaporates in the face of the view. At a height from which the park's shuttles look like ants winding along the canyon floor and with nothing but air between you and the nearest of the canyon walls, it's easy to see why Frederick Vining Fisher, who named the hike, said that "only angels could land [on it]."

Not everyone is comfortable with the way the trail to Angels Landing is constructed (read a 2009 devil's-advocate column from the L.A. Times here) and there have been hikers killed in falls from it (five, to date), but fatal falls from the more popular, easier Emerald Pools trail are more common, though still rare (seven, to date).

At the very top of Angels Landing, relaxing with the
beautiful views on September 11, 2010.

My experience was a very positive one, and I wouldn't discourage anyone in good health, who isn't afraid of heights (or perhaps particularly prone to clumsiness), from trying to hike the whole trail. The first two miles are a relatively steep climb but provide beautiful views of their own, so if you get to Scout's Lookout and decide you don't want to go any further, it won't be a wasted hike. If you do continue onto Angels Landing, be patient, as you'll often have to pause to let a string of hikers going the other direction pass; take all the time you need to take each step safely, especially as you're descending (as I told an older French woman descending ahead of me, who offered to let me pass at a particularly precarious point, "I'm in no rush, take your time!"); and keep one hand on the chains at all times where they're available - they're there to prevent falls, and on a few particularly steep sections they're very useful in helping you walk up the rock, hand-over-hand.

Whether or not you go all the way to the end, you'll have beautiful views from a challenging trail. If you do make it to Angels Landing, you'll get some of the best views in the park - and a great sense of accomplishment.