Tag Archives: National Park

And Yet Another Car Insurance Claim

If you are new to the blog, this is a post recap of a 3 week road trip my boyfriend Louie and I took last summer. I know it’s been awhile since then, but I wanted to share it with you and for myself. I’m deep into planning for this year’s vacation, and already brainstorming next year (Glacier and Yellowstone are top of the list) so I figured I’d finally get this done. Or closer. So much to tell you!

previous posts:

And so it begins…to Aspen

Bear Necessities

Leaving Aspen…Good Riddance

Moving Along

No Such Thing as a Dead Horse

Feeling at home in Arches National Park

Entering the Fiery Furnace

A Night Off the Ground

The Only Good Forest is a Petrified Forest

What the Heck is a Hoodoo?

We had a reservation at Watchman Campground in Zion for two nights. It was a “walk-in” site, which mean we’d park a little ways away from the campsite. I thought this would be cool, for less traffic sounds, though, it would mean, more carrying things.

Since we were coming in from the East, we came in through the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway and would have to (get to) go through the Tunnel there.

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Somehow the landscape had already completely changed from where we were earlier in the day. Unbelievable. Anyway, after you enter the park, you go through a 1 mile tunnel, and then the view just opens up into this incredible scenery, with terrifying switchback turns and places to pull over and breathtakingly try to capture it all on photo, which of course we did.

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Anyway, we got to the “camp” area of the park, and smugly drove past all the “campground full” signs to check in for our TWO NIGHT reservation. Unbelievable, right? We wouldn’t have to put the tent back up the next night! IMG_6091

Now here I just can’t remember, did we set up camp first and then go in search of sightseeing opportunities, or the other way around? I can’t recall, but I’m guessing so as that is very much my style.

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I took all the tent photos on my phone to instagram them. And most of the other photos were on a point and shoot Canon I have. It’s probably not as good as the phone camera, ha, but it’s got a strap and is definitely better to whip out on the trail.

The campsite was just a bit set back, and quite near other “walk-in” campsites, but ours was in the back, near some trees and a mountain. A deer was hanging out nearby as we set up camp. We had our own bear box so we loaded that up with things that bears like. (Remember, the bear box is SAFE from bears.)

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And then we caught a shuttle near the visitor’s center. I was getting pretty hot, so we rode a bit, and then decided to get out and walk on an easy trail back to the camp, the Pa’rus Trail.

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As you can see, Zion is pretty beautiful. It’s far lusher than the other places, and I guess some might call it God’s Country, hence all the religious names. That picture really has it all, doesn’t it?

We decided to go out for dinner. Something we had learned about Zion is that there is a brewpub right nearby! We just had to walk out of the campground, over a short bridge over the river, and boom! There was a small shopping area with the Zion Brewing Company.

It was nice to sit and have a sandwich and a beer and relax. We were happy to not cook, and then we were happy to go back to the campsite and relax.

The next morning we woke up early to catch the shuttle to get out to hike to Observation Point. Leslie had said she thought this was the best hike in Zion, even though most people talked about Angel’s Landing. (I was terrified of Angel’s Landing, as there is a part with chains to hold onto so you don’t fall to your death, so we were postponing it).  We got going quite early, as was our habit, and in retrospect, we were extra glad. The hike started out with a huge climb, but the views were really worth it the whole time. (Did I say that at the time? Probably not. Probably I complained a lot.)

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The higher we climbed, the better the views were! There were some scary parts for me, but I stayed on the inside and kept moving and it was manageable. (I have a terrible fear of heights.)

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And then we finally got to the top, where we rested and had our lunch. WHAT a view! We were higher than Angel’s Landing (that’s right) and could see such a long way.

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Then the clouds started rolling in, and we thought, we’d better get back down.

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So we headed down, and the storm didn’t hit until we were very near the end. And when it hit, it hit hard. We waited for the shuttle in the pouring rain, got on the shuttle in the pouring rain, got back to camp and ran for the car, where we sat.

We were glad we’d staked the tent down well, because this was a doozy of a storm. When the hail started up, I thought the windshield was going to break. It was pouring rain, huge hail, and so windy. Thunder and lightning galore! We sat in the car, listening to the sound of the hail making dents in the car (for 15 minutes! I’m not even kidding!), and then finally the storm had passed through. We got out and surveyed the damage. At first we thought it wasn’t so bad, but then we realized, yes, the car was completely covered in hail dings.  But, the “window” the bear had taken out was still there, our tent was still standing, luckily, and seemed secure enough to withstand more.

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(This is from Capitol Reef, but you can see the duct taped window, can’t you? Zoom in.)

We moved a few things away from the edges of the tent, and decided…well, too rainy to cook. Better just go back over the “town” area and eat at the brewery.

It was a little early though, so we thought we’d get a coffee first. Keep in mind, originally we’d though we’d finish our hike and then do something else, but this storm was insane. We’d heard some huge cracks of thunder in addition to the hail, and then when we stopped to ask a ranger the forecast we heard about this: A “house-sized” boulder blocking the road several miles away! The calm river we’d walked over the day before (on a bridge) was rushing with water, with maybe only a foot of clearance.  And the road we’d driven in on the day before was closed indefinitely. And the park closed as well, which didn’t mean we couldn’t walk around, but did mean they weren’t letting any new visitors in, unless you were at the campground.

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Another storm hit while we were getting coffee, and finally we decided it was time to give up on any more sightseeing and have a drink and a burger of sorts again. We kept trying to check the weather to see what ELSE would be happening, (in case we ought to actually get out of there before nighttime) but finally decided the storms seemed to be moving through. After dinner we went back to the campground, and made sure everything was still dry enough to sleep. We were lucky, for the record. There were a few campsites that got washed away in the flash floods, but we were on high enough ground.

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The next morning, we had to get up early to pack up, and we moved the car to the visitor’s center parking lot and then caught the shuttle to hike Angel’s Landing. We decided to hike it because Louie really wanted to, and there was a place I could wait while he finished the part with the chains that I wasn’t about to do.

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This was a little scary too, some switchbacks. Not too bad though.

Anyway, we got to the place to wait, and wait I did. I even chatted with a few people—I wasn’t the only one waiting while the rest of my party did the scary part, though I was one of the only ones totally okay with it! (I felt I’d done enough things to fight my fears and was totally fine letting this one get me.) One woman brilliantly had a thermos of coffee with her and I had some.

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Louie bravely continuing on. I thought this part looked scary enough but later he’d have to go through a part where both sides of a chain had steep drop offs. Crazy.

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This little guy really wanted my peanut butter pretzels, but I wasn’t going to let him. He finally left me alone but bothered some other people. Of course I’d love to feed him but you really shouldn’t feed wild animals (besides the illegality of it, it’s bad for them.)

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and finally Louie reappeared! He didn’t die!

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He’s very brave! He said the hike was awesome and that I would have been terrified. In case you are wondering why all the pictures are of him, it’s because (ahem, ahem) the pictures of me are on his memory card/camera which he hasn’t uploaded yet!

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After that we took the shuttle back to the visitor’s center and then took one more short hike, the Archeology Trail. It wasn’t very exciting, but we did seem some really cool lizards.

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And we got a nice view of the campground from above.

Sadly, we had to leave Zion for our next destination, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We stopped in the nearby town of Springdale for supplies and lunch (Mexican!) before really hitting the road.

Nights Camping: 12

Miles Hiked (estimate): 78

What The Heck is a Hoodoo

Road Trip 2016 continued!

Previous posts:

And so it begins…to Aspen

Bear Necessities

Leaving Aspen…Good Riddance

Moving Along

No Such Thing as a Dead Horse

Feeling at home in Arches National Park

Entering the Fiery Furnace

A Night Off the Ground

The Only Good Forest is a Petrified Forest

It wasn’t too far to Bryce Canyon from Escalante State Park, and as usual, it was a beautiful drive. Seriously, there’s just no way to understand how gorgeous and amazing the land out there was if you haven’t been. Go!

So as we got closer to Bryce Canyon, I realized since we were arriving around 10 am, we should park outside the park and take the shuttle in. This was easy enough. We made lunch, packed our backpacks, filled our water, and took the shuttle. We hadn’t decided what to do yet (I tell you, it is hard to preplan for an entire 3 week trip, and I just ran out) but we quickly skimmed the newsletter (called “The Hoodoo”, which, if you aren’t sure what that is, I’ll show you in a minute) and saw a hike described as “one ultimate hike!” and knew it was the one. It was listed under strenuous and was called “The Figure 8 Combination. You combine the Queens Garden, Peekaboo Loop and Navajo Loop for a 6.4 mile hike.

Remember, it’s a canyon. Coming out is always harder! But this wasn’t like the Grand Canyon, and after hiking to the Colorado River and back, everything else seems like child’s play.

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Bryce. It’s really unbelievable. All those bits poking up are the hoodoos, and it’s what is left as the parts around them have been eroded away. (I think.) We took the shuttle to Sunrise Point and then hiked through the Queen’s Garden. This part of the trail was super crowded, but for good reason. It was absolutely beautiful and amazing, and while I know I’ve said that before I’m sitting here typing, nearly a year later, and I can remember exactly how I felt, looking around. Terrified, yes, because it was a pretty steep downhill with lots of drop offs, but amazed at the crazy pointy bits and the natural wonders that were simply unlike anything else we’d seen, and yet, here they were. What an amazing world we live in!

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Hoodoos up close!

The trail, as usual, thinned out a bit the further we got, though it was always pretty well traveled. There were lots of ups and downs, and it was certainly no picnic of a hike, but around each corner there were more breathtaking wonders. I can’t recommend this hike enough.IMG_6014

There were quite a few archways! Being a St Louisian now, I do love arches.

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The trees just add another element. You don’t see so many trees in other parts of Utah. Bryce is a higher elevation-8000 to 9000 feet, so the flora and fawna are different than other parts of Utah that we had seen. It was also cooler, which was a relief.

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At one point we sat and had a nice lunch break. There were also a few points where there were vault toilets to use, which is always a little funny—you are miles into a hike, and then you wait in line for a potentially really stinky bathroom Smile

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You can see there are some switchbacks in the hike.

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The hike took us into the early afternoon. Getting out of the canyon was a little terrifying for me, as it was a lot of not looking down and just forging ahead, and the switchbacks getting out were really crowded! But we made it without too much trouble, somehow, and then got on a shuttle bus to go back to the car.

We found an ice cream shop near the car and had a treat before we headed out to our campsite. I couldn’t reserve us a site at Bryce so I got one at Kodachrome State Park, which was about 30 minutes away.  As busy as Bryce was, there was hardly anyone at Kodachrome, and we found our tent-only loop easily enough. The only thing was there were a lot of gravel roads, and there was NOBODY else there, which was a little scary at first! But we settled in, we found the showers at a nearby electric loop, realized there WERE other people there, and then a few more parties joined our campground. All the time we could hear cows mooing, particularly the next morning, which was kind of funny.

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I wish we could have relaxed more but the next morning we were up and out of there, and went back to Bryce. It would have been great to explore Kodachrome further, but our crazy schedule didn’t allow it. We hadn’t seen all of the park, so we got there early to drive to the end of it and come back. Another way to avoid crowds is to get up early, and we did that.

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We took a nice little hike called the Bristlecone Loop and saw more of the hoodoos and the canyon, and then stopped at a few more viewpoints and the visitors center, but it was getting crowded by that point, and we were eager to get to Zion, so we headed out.

On our way to Zion, we got hungry and didn’t feel like eating out of the car, so when we saw a German Bakery/Restaurant called Forscher Bakery, it seemed just the ticket. Oh, and for some reason we ordered a pizza. It was odd, but excellent. To be continued!

Nights Camping: 10

Miles Hiked (estimate): 64

A Night off the Ground

And so it begins…to Aspen

Bear Necessities

Leaving Aspen…Good Riddance

Moving Along

No Such Thing as a Dead Horse

Feeling at home in Arches National Park

Entering the Fiery Furnace

After leaving Arches, we headed to Capitol Reef National Park. Capitol Reef is definitely one of the less visited parks—I’d never heard of it before starting to research this trip, and I suspect many of you haven’t either.

Capitol Reef was an odd park. There’s beautiful landscapes—the park is based on something called the Waterpocket Fold which caused most of its unusual features. But there’s also large amounts of Mormon history and historical buildings.

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On our drive from Arches to Capitol Reef, we were trying to get a handle on what to expect, and we just couldn’t. This park took a little getting used to. At first I thought maybe it had too much of an identity crisis…but in retrospect, much like this blog Winking smile Capitol Reef was interesting and amazing because of all the different things it had to offer.

The park was free to enter, and in fact the only time one needed to pay was on the Scenic Drive. Our National Parks pass covered it, but it was definitely a good deal. We made a few stops and looked at various sights, natural and historical, went to the visitor’s center, and drove on the scenic drive. There was a gravel road Louie wanted to check out, but it looked like it was going to storm and I made him agree to wait until the next day.

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The area looked like it had been strip mined in places, but this was all natural. Very crazy to look at, and different from the other parts of Utah we’d seen. It had certain similarities of course(it looked more like Canyonlands that Missouri does…), and especially to Colorado National Monument, but had its own feel.

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I’d reserved a small cabin for the night in the border town of Torrey. The campground in the park was non-reservation, and while it turned out it wasn’t full, we were happy to have beds for the night! Before leaving the park for the evening we bought a homemade fruit pie at the historic Gifford House. That was definitely a weird thing, that there are orchards (started by the Mormon settlements) in the National Park AND that there was handmade pie for sale. We figured we’d go out to dinner and eat it afterwards.

We checked into the cabin at Torrey Trading Post. Torrey is a very small town just a few miles out of Capitol Reef. The cabin was around the side of a small store, post office, and a few private residences. We had to share bathrooms with the other few cabins (2 or 3 others) but as there were the nicest bathrooms we’d seen in awhile, it was no hardship! We took showers (ahhhh) and did laundry at a small laundromat across the street, while relaxing. There was a TELEVISION in the cabin, and Louie and I were able to watch some of the Olympics while looking at things on the internet through wi-fi. You really start to love amenities when you’ve been camping awhile!

After the laundry was done we went to Café Diablo for dinner. It was highly recommended by guidebooks and Trip Advisor and we definitely enjoyed it. The Rattlesnake cakes seemed to be the thing to order for an appetizer, and we both got various fish entrees. The chef seemed to be a really creative guy, to the point of being a little ridiculous, but it was a fun meal and we enjoyed it.

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Our view from the table wasn’t too bad either.

After dinner we relaxed and shared the pie—strawberry rhubarb. Unfortunately the rhubarb wasn’t as well cooked as it should have been, but otherwise it was an excellent pie. The cabin had a little picnic table and we hung out outside for a bit and tried to angle properly to watch the sunset. It was kind of funny because there were kids who seemed to live there (it was a family owned business) running around and adults moving vehicles and yelling at each other, and there we were, on our vacation.

I slept GREAT. Sleeping in a bed was amazing.

The next morning we had a bit of a snafu. Louie had noticed that the doorknob to the cabin was a little funny, but when he returned from the bathroom first thing in the morning, we realized I was stuck in the cabin and he was stuck outside. We were having a conversation through the open window about what to do when the owner’s son heard us and called out his window did we need help. Why yes, or at least a screwdriver. After a bit of finagling (and Louie climbing IN the window to help take the door knob off) we got the door open. We were checking out soon, so we didn’t get a new knob at that time. The man was very apologetic, and we did understand. After all, we were well used to disasters! It was pretty ridiculous though, I felt. Here we were, NOT camping on the ground subject to the elements and wildlife and still managed to have a snafu.

After that excitement we headed for breakfast at the Capitol Reef Café. This was a super cute place and also advertised rooms for pretty cheap. All of Torrey was very cute, and we’d stay there again—people were friendly, and it was a VERY small town. I wouldn’t want to live there, but I would spend a few more nights on vacation happily. There was just something about the town that we both really liked—it was small, friendly, and a bit cheesy and touristy but in a totally fun way.

After a good breakfast with potatoes and veggies and eggs, it was time to hike. We started with the Chimney Rock Trail, a 3.6 mile round trip hike. The trailhead was fairly empty, except while we were getting ready at least two or three other groups were too. Meaning, all of us were leaving for the hike at the exact same time, which was sort of annoying. We managed to separate out eventually, and had a great time—the best part of seeing the parks has ALWAYS been getting on the trail.

Small soapbox: I’m a huge National Parks lover, as you can tell. But people say, oh, I don’t like all the crowds, I prefer to go to {insert place} and that means more to me. Well, of course you are entitled to your opinion—differences in opinion are important! But, if you think National Parks are simply crowded, just pick a hike rated “strenuous” or even “medium” or, that is more than 1 to 2 miles long, and you’ll get every inch of solitude you wanted, I promise! Especially at a less popular park, but even at the popular ones, like Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain, you get a lot of solitude on the trail. (Grand Canyon, I’m sure it’s only true off the main trails, but it’s still well worth doing, because there is a reason those trails are so popular.)

But I digress. The Chimney Rock trail was fantastic.

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I realized this was a piece of petrified wood! Wood that has turned to rock. Don’t ask me to explain how, but you can google it Winking smile

After that hike we went and hiked on the Grand Wash Trail. This was at the end of the gravel/dirt road I’d mentioned earlier. The sun was coming out and it was getting hot by this time.

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We probably added another 4 miles on that hike. I didn’t enjoy it as much—I think I don’t drink enough water when it’s hot and sunny. In any case, after the hike we had some lunch out of the cooler (I believe hummus and pita chips and fruit, we did that a lot, or peanut butter sandwiches, or bagels for lunch) AND we splurged and got another pie. This one was mixed berry and we also got ice cream and coffee to go with it.

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We enjoyed our food outside the Gifford House and relaxed.

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And on that note, I’m going to leave off here. Our next stop would be a campground in Escalante-Petrified Forest State Park, en route to Bryce Canyon. I’m not going to lie, I wished we were staying in the cabin another night, and I wished I’d made a slower itinerary…but looking back, it’s really amazing all the stuff we saw, all the places we went, and what we were capable of! Does that sound crazy?

(And next vacation we are spending like 3 days minimum at each place…Winking smile  and I suppose I should stop complaining about something that I brought upon us myself!)

Nights Camping: 8

Miles Hiked (estimate): 55

Entering the Fiery Furnace

You probably thought I’d forgotten about my trip (or hoped, just kidding, or why would you be reading at all?) but the truth is that work is CRAZY right now—scheduling, meeting new students, practicing, rehearsing, running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I’m on day 14 of over 40 straight days of work, and at least today ended up just being two students…and of course the inevitable practicing, which never stops, but is especially important right now.

So, where were we?

Previous posts:

And so it begins…to Aspen

Bear Necessities

Leaving Aspen…Good Riddance

Moving Along

No Such Thing as a Dead Horse

Feeling at home in Arches National Park

We left off in Arches National Park on the morning of Friday, August 5. Whoa, that’s a long time ago! But, this was the morning we had tickets for the Fiery Furnace Tour. The Fiery Furnace is an area of the park that you are only allowed in by permit, either on a ranger-led tour, or on your own. We didn’t want to get lost so we opted for the ranger-guided tour. It cost $16 each and like everything in the National Parks, had to be reserved in advance. They warn you that the hike is strenuous and challenging, with small spaces and drop offs, so I was both overconfident and a bit nervous.

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The tour was great. The guide was really knowledgeable and interesting, and he led us for several hours, with a good balance between hiking and learning about the geology, biology, and ecology of the area. Zoology also, perhaps?

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The day had started overcast and cool, but by the time the tour was done (and I totally recommend it, by the way) it was hot! The Fiery Furnace area was pretty shaded actually, since the formations are so close together, but we finished the hike around noon and it was definitely hot.

We headed back to the Devil’s Garden campground to find our new spot. As amazing as site 18 had been, our new site, site 3 was less good. It was fine, in that it was still in a gorgeous location, and it was near the bathrooms, but it looked like we were in half of a pull through RV driveway and there wasn’t anywhere great to the put the tent. There were also loads of ants everywhere! We moved the picnic table and had lunch, and plotted out a place for the tent, but it was really hot and we decided just to set it up later.

It was time for more hiking. We wanted to see parts of the park we hadn’t gotten to the day before so we headed for the Windows area. There are several arches there with a short trail around them. We were drinking a lot of water, and the parking lot was super crowded. People really like posing under the arches, but they don’t really like following what the park called “primitive trails” so we took that one back. It wasn’t in any way difficult, but it wasn’t paved and you had to watch for cairns, and it was nice to avoid people, as usual Winking smile

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Next we decided we should hike to Delicate Arch. This was a more strenuous hike, but we thought we had enough energy. It was really hot, over 90 I think, but we loaded up our packs with water and hid the trail. This trail was pretty crazy. There was a part where we just hiked basically straight up a huge slickrock.

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It wasn’t too steep, but was a bit overwhelming looking too far in the distance, up or down, so I just tried to focus on my steps. It was difficult in the sun, and steep enough that it was exhausting. We had a few places with shade where we stopped to rest but mostly kept going. The end had a little bit with a drop off but I hugged the wall and we made it to the top. The arch was pretty impressive.

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Though we were larger than it.

Side note: not everybody who takes your picture is a great photographer. Sometimes the selfie stick is best…this might have been one of those times, because, we were not in fact larger than the arch.

Anyway, the arch WAS still a little ways away, but I’d had enough hiking across slickrock and I felt I’d accomplished my goal. Louie went over to get a better look and I hydrated. I was pretty convinced he was going to fall off (my constant fear)but after a little while he made it back. The hike back down was far easier.

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If you look closely you can see Louie in this picture.

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And this one.

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Hiking back down the slick rock.

Anyway, after that hike we were totally beat and headed back to the campground to relax and have dinner.

We initially set up our tent up here:

We set it up, made dinner and were starting to enjoy the campfire and relax when the winds started to pick up…and practically blew the tent away. We had staked it the best we could but it was a bit rocky and it just wasn’t enough. Luckily we were there to catch the tent and we moved the whole thing down the hill a bit and set it up in the driveway (you learn WHY the previous night’s campers did things a certain after the fact) and even tethered it to the picnic table, just in case…and then the storms came and we eventually just went to bed on the early side, hoping to not wash away in a flash flood.

The next day we woke up and again, packed up. We went to hike the Devil’s Garden trail, at least part of it. I didn’t want to spend too much time since we had to drive a couple of hours still and do some errands in Moab before we left, so we saw a few arches and some deer, IMG_5825

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This was called Landscape Arch. One thing to know is that the arches are constantly changing, and do fall sometimes, and this particular one had had a huge chunk fall off in 1991—you used to be able to hike underneath it but the park service decided that was too dangerous. Our guide the day before warned us, before you rest somewhere, look up and make sure it seems like nothing is going to fall on you!

After that hike, we hit up the town of Moab again, got groceries (weren’t sure if the next place would have a nice grocery store) and an early lunch at a place called the Love Muffin Café.

Next stop: Capitol Reef National Park

Nights Camping: 8

Miles Hiked (estimate): 47

Feeling at home in Arches National Park

Next up: Arches National Park!

Previous posts:

And so it begins…to Aspen

Bear Necessities

Leaving Aspen…Good Riddance

Moving Along

No Such Thing as a Dead Horse

Day 9 of our trip, according to the itinerary. We finished up looking at Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse State Park and hit the road back towards Moab. It’s about 30 minutes to Moab, which is right near Arches National Park. We decided to make a quick coffee/gelato stop in Moab first before heading back into the wilderness. We also wanted to check email and things like that. In this day and age, it’s hard to go 3 weeks without responding to people, so at least every couple of days we needed to check in! And honestly, after a few straight days of only talking to each other, it’s nice to look at other stuff Smile We had an “incident” later where we’d asked a restaurant if they had wi-fi and the woman said, somewhat self-righteously, “no, we don’t, you’ll just have to talk to each other.” Haha, right? Except get over yourself, we’d been doing nothing but talking to each other for 3 days, and you work in a deserted tourist area where maybe people need to check in for work or just to let their friends and family know they are still alive. But I digress.

We finished up our gelato at a delightful shop that DID have wi-fi and then drove up to Arches. We needed to stop by the visitor’s center to pick up tickets for a ranger led tour we were doing the following day, and whoa, the center was packed! It was a definite change from Canyonlands and Colorado National Monument. We knew Arches was more popular (I guess the beauty is more obvious and you can see more within 10 feet of your car?) but it was still a bit of culture shock.

We had a reservation at Devil’s Garden campground, which was at the very back of the park, about a 20 mile drive, so our plan was to slowly head there while stopping and seeing what interested us. We had the whole day in the park the following day so we knew we’d get to do most of things we wanted.

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Since blogging about this trip has, more than ever, become entirely ridiculous and overwhelming YET I know that I will want this all down in writing to look back at in the future…I’m going to do a lot of photo sharing!

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Many of the rock formations are named. This was called the Three Gossips.

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We took a short walk to get closer to Balanced Rock. The mountains in the background are spectacular. Another thing that really struck us both was how different Arches looked than Canyonlands and Dead Horse even though they are relatively close to each other. What a crazy planet we live on!

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The advent of digital cameras makes this sort of ridiculousness easier. Louie, holding up Balanced Rock.IMG_5739

Seriously, what is this madness??

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Various arches. After checking into the campground we set up the tent and then went on a hike that left from the end of the campground. Oh, we’d hoped to buy firewood to have a fire since we hadn’t been able to for a few days, but they were out! The camp hosts were really great though and told us we could stop by their site and have a few pieces, so we did that. We also found out the campground had had lots of flash flooding the night before, just like at Dead Horse and we were warned to be aware of where we set up our tent. Apparently this was “monsoon season” and flash floods were somewhat common, though the night before had been much more than usual, and some campsites were washed away. We made sure to stake our tent carefully.

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Every arch had a name, but I am bad with names. I think this was Broken Arch though. We also might have seen Tapestry Arch. The hike was a little hard to figure out at first, because it was lots of cairn following, but we managed! We almost got lost at more than one point, but did I mention that it was a lovely cool day in the desert so we probably wouldn’t have died. Just kidding, we only weren’t sure which turn to take and were never too far off from being correct.IMG_5756

This is the view of our campground. Devil’s Garden Campground is one of the most beautiful National Park Campgrounds that I’ve ever seen. Our site (Site 018) was gorgeous too, even though we had trouble finding a flat spot to set up the tent.

Anyway, we finished the hike and then went to relax at our campsite and make dinner.

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We had a lovely fire and relaxed. At one point a small fox (we found out it was a kit fox) came through our campsite, just like one had at Dead Horse! This time we were sort of ready, and Louie took a short video. It was dark though, and you can’t see much. We made a lot of jokes about how the fox didn’t say anything.

We decided to try to wake up to watch the sunrise. We had an amazing view from the tent, and figured this was the time!

Even though I hadn’t slept great because the tent was more slanted than we’d realized and I kept sliding off the pad (oops) I was happy to be awake to get this picture! We also saw several deer who walked non-chalantly through the campsite. It was a beautiful site, but unfortunately we had to move to a different one for the next night (same campground) so after watching the sunrise and breakfast, it was time to pack up. As usual…

Next up: Fiery Furnace, Delicate Arch and more storms!

Nights camping: 7

Miles hiked (estimate): 37

No Such Thing as a Dead Horse

 

Or is it, the only good horse is a dead horse? I get all those sayings mixed up.

And so it begins…to Aspen

Bear Necessities

Leaving Aspen…Good Riddance

Moving Along

(Previous blog posts about my August 2016 road trip)

Louie and I headed to Moab next. We had three nights booked in the area, unfortunately all at different campsites. The first night was at Dead Horse State Park. (I’d wanted 3 nights at the Devil’s Garden Campground in Arches National Park, but I booked too late. I got two nights there but different campsites…)

We drove via 70 west and then route 128, per a wonderful ranger’s recommendation. Google tells you to take a slightly different route, but we were told this was the scenic route, and that was true! It was a gorgeous drive with lots of stopping for pictures.

Right off the bat, the difference between Utah and Wyoming seemed to be that while there were no restaurants/services for miles in Utah, there were lots of other cars. Maybe because in Utah we were actually within 1-2 hours of various national parks, but Wyoming just seemed so much more desolate once you got off any interstate, except right near the Tetons and Yellowstone. But I digress.

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Our road traveled alongside the Colorado River. The theme of this part of the trip was definitely, stuff the Colorado River has helped make.

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We watched scenes like this for an hour. More, really, when you consider that for the next 7-10 days we’d be in this sort of country.

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Louie has tons of pictures of me on his camera, but he’s not as prompt at uploading them to his computer as I am. Therefore, in approximately a year you can see them!

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We decided to eat lunch in Moab, since we hadn’t been in a town for some time. Well at least since the day before…in any case, what I was really craving was fresh vegetables, so we found a place called Peace Tree Juice Café and I got a tuna wrap with lots of lettuce and cucumbers, and then we split a delicious espresso milkshake. It was HOT in Moab, and eating ice cream or gelato became a daily habit…Louie realized after a few days that eating ice cream was making him have a mid-afternoon crash, but I still maintain it was worth it.

We got some supplies in town and then headed to Dead Horse State Park. Moab is a town of about 8000 located near Arches National Park. Dead Horse and Canyonlands National Park (Islands in the Sky District) are about 30 minutes away and receive way less visitors. We set up our tent at the park in a lovely site (KA03) with a gorgeous view—the picnic table had a cover as well and some cabinets to store things in—not bearproof, but critter proof.

This sign was in the bathroom (single stall with lights and fans and they flushed!) We’d already had a raven or magpie eat part of a sandwich so we knew.

Then we headed to Canyonlands, which took 10-15 minutes tops. We’d hoped to do a hike but the sky looked really ominous, like it was going to storm. We could see that it was storming in the distance, and I for some reason started getting really concerned about flash floods. Really it all boils down to the bear. Once something like that happens, you start worrying about all the other things that you wouldn’t normally worry about!

We drove around and did some short hikes though. Canyonlands is quite desolate, but amazing and beautiful.

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There are a lot of roads that you can take if you have the proper vehicle-high clearance, 4wd-and a permit. The area was used by gas and oil companies for some time before it because a national park, and the roads are from that time. I guess the park service decided to let people use them because some parts of the park are impossible to get to otherwise, unless you want to hike for days and days. The park is divided into several districts, and only two are accessible by regular car: this one called Islands in the Sky and another we didn’t make it to which was about 2-3 hours away called the Needles District. Next time we’ll try to get there as we hear the hiking is phenomenal, but Islands in the Sky was pretty fantastic. IMG_5577IMG_5578IMG_5585

You can definitely see the rain!

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This looked even crazier in person—all those canyons. And it looks small here, but of course it’s really massive.

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Mesa Arch

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We just kept taking pictures! It was gorgeous with the clouds, the rain, and the beginning of sunset. And was gorgeous without those things too.

We walked partway to Grand Upheaval Dome, hiked around Mesa Arch, and took lots of pictures. It was raining lightly off and on and there was lightning and thunder in the distance, but it didn’t seem to do much while we were there. Finally we headed back to camp to make dinner.

When we returned to camp we realized there had been flooding. Luckily our tent was fine, but some water had gotten in the edges and we had a bit of dampness. I realized a huge river of water had washed through the side of our campsite and I just started freaking out that we needed to pack up and move…I pictured us getting washed away over the edge of the canyons during the night and I was just really terrified. Louie went to try to find a camp host to talk to to see if the flooding was normal or very unusual or what we should do but there wasn’t anybody working at the campsite, which worried me more. Finally he helped me to calm down and we decided to stay (because other options weren’t great and we were set up already and the tent hadn’t washed away yet and obviously there had been quite a storm). We made dinner (Indian food and rice from Trader Joe’s) and went to bed. It did storm over night and I was scared at first but was also exhausted so I fell asleep easily enough.

We woke up pretty early and packed up the tent. While packing up a small fox walked RIGHT through our campsite. Neither of us had a camera on us and by the time Louie got back from getting one the fox was gone. I vowed to always keep my phone in my pocket from that point on…

We’d picked out a hike to do in Canyonlands called the Neck Springs Loops that was about 5 miles long. We parked at the trailhead around 8 am and were the only people there. What was really cool was that it seemed we were the first people to hike on the trail that morning. The other great thing was that all the rain had brought cooler temperatures!

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Parts of the trail had definitely seen heavy rain overnight, but we’d chosen a trail that didn’t have a whole bunch of slickrock, according to the description.

I love getting off the beaten path at National Parks and taking hikes, the longer the better as you typically see less people. In this case, we ended up not seeing another person on the whole trail—we did hear people at one point who were likely a mile or more behind us, and we saw LOTS of evidence of various animals, definitely bighorn sheep hoofprints, and some small pawprints of various sizes.

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The views continued to be fantastic. It felt like you could see forever.

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There was a point towards the end that involved a frightening amount of slickrock. We realized we had to basically climb upward, and I had a little trouble…I was struggling to bring my leg up and the thought that pushed me through was “do you walk to backtrack over 4 miles?” I am so glad we did the hike though, because later many of the things we did in Arches were easier in comparison! We had a little trouble at one point following the cairns—we lost them!-but we got back on track. (Cairns are little stacks of rocks to show you which way to go.)

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The end of the trail followed along the road to get back to the parking lot, which wasn’t quite as fun, but the views continued to be amazing.

In any case, like everywhere we’d been (with the possible exception of Aspen) we would have liked to stay longer at Canyonlands, but we needed to move on. We decided to stop at Dead Horse State Park one more time to check out Dead Horse Point.

We were blown away by the views! It was just on the other side of Canyonlands National Park and was amazing in its own way. (We also had a lovely picnic on our way to the point—hummus and pita chips and apples. Vegetarian’s delight!)

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There were several miles of hiking trails around but we had to get to Arches! That’s where I’ll leave you for today…part way through a very wonderful day of gorgeous scenery and excellent hiking.

Nights camping: 6

Miles hiked (estimate): 34