Nicolas Maxim: Zion National Park Natural Setting

When I was a young boy my family and I traveled to Zion National Park in Utah. We had stopped at several places along the way including Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon. Zion was our last stop where we stayed for several days to hike throughout the park. The park had seemed ordinary through the first few days of hiking, but on the last day we were going to hike the angels landing trail. This trail was a trail that gave me a whole new outlook on the trip, and let me see how landscape can impact people in different ways. We hiked up through Walters wiggles to scouts landing where we were just shy of reaching angels landing. At this spot I felt the transcendent power of the mountain and boy was it a great feeling. I felt the weight slowly lift off my shoulders and my mind go blank as I looked up to angels landing following its rock walls all the way down to the ground where there was a stream that we had passed on the way up. The sun shined brightly on the walls and drying the rain from earlier in the morning. The stream glistened as the suns rays reflected from the surface of the flowing water. To me this experience reminded me of a couple of Lanes axioms.
Lanes first axiom of sacred place is not chosen, it chooses was something that goes with this experience. While I was religiously effected by the beauty of the place and the feeling of the sublime, my dad was not so positively effected. He didn't want to be that high in the first place so he felt very different than I did at that point in time. He was tense and not open to any religious experience on the mountain. This brings me to Lane's next axiom that sacred place can be tred upon without being entered. I had an open mind going up the mountain so I was more likely to be religiously effected by the power of the mountain than my dad. He saw the mountain more as a danger than a place for possible enlightenment. My mom never spoke of her feelings while on the mountain so I am not sure how she felt or whether she was affected like me.

Nicolas Maxim