The Truth Behind Angels Landing, America’s Deadliest Hike

SPRINGDALE, Utah — Towering 1,500 feet over the floor of Zion National Park, Angels Landing is one of the most recognizable rock formation in the American West. Famous for its steep grades, sheer cliffs and razor thin paths, it draws hundreds of thousands of thrill-seeking hikers each year. Yet, long before it became an internet sensation and arguably the “deadliest hike” in America’s National Park system, it was a summit deemed entirely unreachable by humans.

The trail enjoyed by modern hikers is the result of a century old historical gamble, a wandering Methodist minister, and a pioneering engineer who believed regular people deserved access to the heavens no matter the risk.

A Minister’s Vision and the Birth of a Holy Metaphor​

For thousands of years, the towering vertical walls of Zion Canyon were known as Mukuntuweap—a Southern Paiute word meaning “straight canyon.” It was under this moniker that President William Howard Taft first designated the area as a federally protected National Monument in 1909. However, fearing that American tourists would struggle to pronounce the Indigenous name, the National Park Service officially rebranded the sanctuary as Zion in 1918.

Two years before that name change, a 50-year-old traveling motivational speaker and Methodist minister from Ohio named Frederick Vining Fisher stepped off a stagecoach into the region. Seeking pristine landscapes to anchor his popular illustrated travel lectures, Fisher spent two weeks exploring the canyon floor in October 1916 alongside two local Mormon teenagers who served as his guides.

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