Item
The Trail to Angel's Landing
Title (Dublin Core)
The Trail to Angel's Landing
Disclaimer (Dublin Core)
DISCLAIMER: This item may have been submitted in response to a school assignment prompt. See Linked Data.
Description (Dublin Core)
There are few ways to describe the events of 2020 other than chaotic. The vast, sweeping changes that occurred left many confused and grasping, often in desperation. Meanwhile, 2021 was a mixed follow-up for a year where much remained the same, but travel restrictions began to lift. Seeing this window of opportunity, four friends and I leaped at it. We planned a weeklong trip to Zion National Park and on the first day, we headed for Angel's Landing. The situation around the pandemic resulted in a kind of claustrophobia that superimposed a hyperawareness of personal space. For many, where six feet distance apart was not just a courtesy in some establishments, but a rule that was often enforced. This condition of anxiety or even fear of contracting COVID-19 from another person in the limited size of restaurants, cafes, and grocery stores was easily felt. This kind of spatial awareness bled into one's perception so deeply that it might be retroactive. While watching a pre-pandemic movie with a shot of a crowd, the thoughts would intrude, "Where are everyone's masks?" or "Why is everyone standing so close together." Southern Utah is a great expanse of mesas, mountains, and bluffs under a rolling sky. Zion reflects this in the great size of the rock formations and the verdant greenery accompanying it. The contrast in scale highlights the simple fact that getting up to the tallest point of Angel's Landing is an exercise of walking upwards at steep inclines, often with other people in front of you, creating a line. Maybe it was the change in setting, but for a while, it was as if the pandemic was left behind. Everyone still brought masks, wore masks in crowded environments, and used hand sanitizer but the anxiety was not there. It appeared to be the common rule that the other tourists had agreed to. Replacing the fear was a determination to get to the highest point of the trails and photograph the scope of it all. It was only the first day of the trip and I had already been astounded.
Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Event Identifier (Dublin Core)
Partner (Dublin Core)
Type (Dublin Core)
Photograph
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
Arizona State University
HST643
Spring B Session 2024
History of Tourism
COVID19
Utah
Zion
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
03/14/2024
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
03/20/2024
Date Created (Dublin Core)
07/23/2021
Item sets
This item was submitted on March 14, 2024 by Andrew Ground using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive
Click here to view the collected data.