We’d hiked the trail to Zion’s Weeping Rock; a trail that was short, but not easy as touted. Staring up, we heard a loud clanging noise to our right like a metal pipe falling onto pavement. Sure enough, there was a lady on the ground, and to her right, the pipe-metal guardrail (bottom picture) that had obviously come crashing down.
Dodging tourist traffic, we took our share of pictures and headed back down the trail, catching up to the woman, hobbling down the trail with one hand on her cane, and the other holding her husband. Taking into account her fall, her hobble, and the steep pitch of the trail I offered to go fetch a park ranger. Hailey offered to stay with the couple, Margaret and Richard. I went down the trail to find a bus driver to radio a ranger.
(Little side note here: The new bus system in Zion National Park is awesome. Used to be you had to battle thousands of cars for road space and parking space, often spinning in circles to find parking at the site you desired to visit. The new propane powered, air-conditioned shuttles run every six minutes and make continuous loops through the park. They stop frequently, within walking distance of every destination.)
Catching a bus driver, I told him of the couples plight. He laughed when I described the woman as “older,” maybe in her early sixties, about 250 Lbs.
Soon, the ranger arrived and I led her back up the trail, meeting Hailey half-way up. She had run back down the trail so that she could assure the couple that help was on the way.
We found Margaret some yards from where we’d left her. One leg quickly swelling, the second leg (recently broken) felt as if things “were shifting around” in there. We left Margaret, Richard and the ranger deciding on hospitals and ambulances as we went back down the trail.
At trails’ end, we realized that this was an answer to our prayers-not that Margaret’s leg were broken, but that we’d bless others in our travels.
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