The arches of Arches

My fifth and final of the “Mighty Five” was Arches National Park, known for the many beautiful natural arches. I got an early start to try and avoid both the crowds and the afternoon heat and was able to see/hike everything that was open in about 5 hours (and then it was ay too hot for me!)

My first stop was the most famous of the arches, Delicate Arch, reached by a 1.5 mile crowded trail (even at 7:30 AM). The arch was stunning, but it was almost impossible to get a photo of it without tourists in it- there was literally a line to take a picture under it. I figured if everyone else was doing it, I’d get one too :) 

Hate myself for doing this.

After that, I visited….all the other arches which are very cool in real life but these photos will probably be kind of boring because they’re well, just a bunch of pictures of arches!

Broken Arch (because it has a crack at the top, but I think it's only visible from the other side)

Tapestry Arch featuring the most annoying person I saw all day. His friend was making multiple videos of him running down the arch and then yelling something at the end. Even from how far away I was, I could hear him. Ah, nature.

Sanstone Arch- the hike to get to it is super short, but I liked it a lot, you hike through a narrow canyon. It was like The Narrows, but in the desert.

One of "The Windows." See the teeny people in this photo? That's how big the arch is! 

Overall, I loved the arches, but the hordes of tourists kind of ruined the mood. The park is really easy to get to from Moab and the trails are very accessible, which means lots and lots of visitors. It’s great that so many people can experience the beauty of the park, but the crowds and all the silly photos they were taking got very tiresome!

I also made it to one other arch that isn't part of the park: Corona Arch. At the trailhead to that arch, there are two different trails: one that goes to the arch and one that actually seems pretty well traveled but goes....NOWHERE! The first time I went, I hiked to the nowhere trail. It was very sweaty and disappointing. But my last morning I was determined to make it to Corona Arch, and this time got on the right track! It was an easy mile hike, and the arch was stunning. Of course, some annoying person ruined the moment by having a drone flying around. 

My trip to Utah was amazing, and now I'm back at work, womp womp :( So long for now, stay tuned for my next adventure!

Two sides of Canyonlands

On Friday, I hit the road early for a long and packed day visiting two state parks and Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands actually has three different sections, I visited one of the other two on Sunday, so will share some pictures of both in one post!

In between Torrey and the Moab area is a small state park called Goblin Valley, so-called because of the weird rock formations that look like goblins. I swear, Utah has more interesting rock shapes than anywhere else in the world. It wasn't actually all that interesting, and ultimately probably not worth the detour of ~an hour, but hey, YOLO.

The big one in the middle looks like a dog-goblin to me

After a couple more hours of driving (and completing the very excellent audio book Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah) I arrived at Dead Horse Point State Park, a destination I'd really been looking forward to! I've read a couple different explanations of the name, but the one from the park itself is that legend has it that the point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa. Cowboys would choose the horses they wanted, and (for reasons unknown) leave the others corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst.  Not a very pleasant story for such a beautiful place!

You can drive to the major viewpoints, but I chose to do the easy hike to them and even found a Norwegian couple to take a photo of me.

After my little hike, I carried on to the Island in the Sky area of Canyonlands National Park. I actually didn't know what to expect since I hadn't done much research on this park, but the friendly ranger helped to suggest several short hikes for me to do some sightseeing. The park is another HUGE canyon, with views that are easy to glimpse without very rigorous hiking involved. I did three short hikes: Mesa Arch, Grand View Point, and White Rim overlook, each offering different viewpoints over the impressive canyon.

Mesa Arch: supposed to be most impressive at sunrise, but I can't wake up that early, so this midday view will have to do.

Views from the Grand View Point hike

End of the White Rim Overlook trail. Sheer drop into the canyon at the edge, eek!

A couple days later, I visited another part of the park called The Needles, which is about an hour and a half drive from Moab (Island is the Sky is about an hour drive in the other direction). Here, I did the biggest single trail of my trip, the 11 mile Chesler/Joint Trail hike. 

Man, 11 miles is a long time! It took me about 5.5 hours to finish it, and it. was. HOT. Over 90 degrees the whole time! At the beginning of the trail I met some other hikers, but once I was past about 3 miles in, I literally did not see another person. It was peaceful, but also made me paranoid that maybe I was on the wrong trail and also about getting attacked by a mountain lion (even though they don't have those here).

The trail featured lots of difference desert scenery: rocks to scramble up, the big rock formations that give The Needles its name, and even a couple of sections where you walk in between giant rocks through openings only about 18 inches wide (a little scary, but the shade was amazing). Here are a few of my favorite views from the day:

Viewpoint of the "Needles" 

It looks shady in this photo, but it was not shady. Anywhere.

Walking through a tiny space!

Mile 9 (which is also mile 2) where a nice family took this picture for me. 

The cutest rock you ever did see ;)

The Needles was my last stop on my trip, and it was nice to accomplish such a challenging hike on my last day! Tomorrow I might actually do one more small hike (one that I got lost on the first time I tried it!) since my flight doesn't leave until the late afternoon. Then, back to the real world!

Rad rocks and rainclouds in Capitol Reef

There are five National Parks in Utah aka “The Mighty Five,” and I’m going to hit all of them in my weeklong road trip (aka “the best week of your life” according to the Visit Utah website). The least-visited of the five is Capitol Reef, conveniently located in between the Zion/Bryce Canyon area and Moab. So that’s where I spent the day today! 

I expected it to be super hot and sunny here, because I am an idiot who never checks the weather. So imagine my surprise when the rangers at the visitor’s station warned of the risk lightning storms and flash flooding. This meant any hikes in a canyon or exposed would be too dangerous. They recommended a couple where I would probably not die of a natural disaster, and I set out to explore them.

It might look sunny in the photo- but look at those rainclouds in the background!

But then it started raining. So, I took cover and ate my sandwich. But then it started POURING. So, instead of the hike, I turned to Plan B: the scenic drive. What could go wrong on a lovely scenic drive, right?

It really is quite scenic.

Well, what can go wrong on a lovely scenic drive is that the rain can create flash floods, which create mini rivers that block the road and that you have drive through, like in the Oregon Trail days but with more risk of wrecking your rental car! 

So, that was kind of scary. But I remembered that I have this great HDR photo app on my iPhone and, since I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, this seemed like the great opportunity to try it out. As a result of the app, and the awesome light from the clouds and sun, I got some great photos. 

Don't you love my attempt at an artsy photo, featuring all those people down below gawking at the mud river in the road?

It finally stopped raining, and I REALLY wanted to get out of the car, so I hit the Colob Canyon trail. It starts out with a short climb, where you can get amazing views of the area, and then goes into the canyon, where there are all kinds of interesting rock formations.

View from the top of Colob Canyon trail

More rocks inside the canyon

I made it about halfway as far as I wanted to go, and then heard the sound of thunder in the distance. Not wanting to hike in the rain, or worse, hike on a flooded and muddy dangerous trail, I decided to turn around. Just as I reached my car it started raining again, so I think I made the right choice!

After chilling at my motel for a little while, I ended up going back to the park to try one more hike, the Fremont Gorge Overlook. But then it started getting kind of cold, and the trail was a little boring, so I turned around about half way, opting to get dinner instead of seeing what the viewpoint had to offer. Very adventurous, I know!

Despite the bad weather and stressful driving, I really enjoyed Capitol Reef. It was blissfully un-crowded, and the views were spectacular- even from the road! Next stop on The Mighty Five: Canyonlands!

Hanging with the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon

Greetings from Torrey, Utah! Yesterday, I spent the day exploring the other-worldly Bryce Canyon (about a 2 hour drive from Zion).

Like Zion, it has a convenient shuttle in town, so I hopped on and stopped at the visitor center to get a map and some hike recommendations (and also to accidentally leave behind one of my two phones, which someone turned in to the lost & found #blessed).

The unique feature of Bryce Canyon are the insane rock spires called hoodoos (thank you to whatever insane person named those); the canyon is full of them! The rim of the canyon at Sunset Point is super accessible, which means hoards of tourist busses, but the views are worth it, despite the crowds. 

First glimpse of the canyon!

Sunset Point is also the place where some of the trails down into the canyon start. I told the ranger at the visitor center I wanted an un-crowded trail, and she recommended the Peek-a-Boo Loop, so that’s where I headed. While the views from the top were cool, being down in the canyon was even better. The trail meanders in and out of the hoodoos, with more interesting scenery around every turn. 

On the trail!

The "Wall of Windows" on the Peek-a-Boo loop

Following that hike, I hopped back on the shuttle to Bryce Point, which has a view of…you guessed it: EVEN MORE HOODOOS. After taking 1 million more photos, I set out on an easy, flat trail around the rim, stopping at a couple more lookouts, and ultimately making my way back to Sunset Point.

Look at dem hoodoos.

After hiking 10+ miles among the Hoodoos, I was so ready to get some dinner. I stopped off at my very unglamorous motel in the nearby town of Panguitch, then headed to the guidebook-recommended Cafe Adobe where I scarfed down one of the best burger & fries I’ve ever had. Next stop on the national parks tour: Capitol Reef!

Hiking around Southern Utah Part. 1: Zion!

I've been back at work for almost two months now post-sabbatical, and overall it's good to be back, but traveling is so much more fun! I wanted to take advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to hit the road again. Lame as it sounds, I'd been seeing a lot of awesome Instagram photos of Southern Utah, and it looked like I place I wanted to visit! So a couple of weeks ago I booked a somewhat last minute trip to drive and hike around, from Zion to Moab. 

I flew into Las Vegas and rented a car for the ~3 hour drive to Springdale, where Zion National Park is located. I made my first ever visit to a Del Taco along the way, where I promptly squirted hot sauce all over my new pants. For some reason I thought I'd get to Zion by noon, which was delusional, because I actually arrived around 3. After checking in to my hotel, the completely satisfactory and very expensive Holiday Inn Express, I hopped on the free shuttle over to the park (doing nature stuff in the USA is like visiting Disneyland: shuttles, narration, lines!)

I decided to do a couple of easy/moderate hikes, since there was still a lot of daylight left, but not quite enough time to tackle one of the really long and well-known hikes. So I hopped off the shuttle at the Emerald Pools trailhead where you can stop at three natural pools. It's a very easy hike to the first pool, and then you can keep going about a mile to an upper pool. Even though the hike was not very challenging, it still offered some beautiful scenery and was a nice introduction to the park.

Walking to the Emerald Pools trail

That's the Emerald Pool in the background :)

Next I took the shuttle to the museum to pick up a super short and flat trail called the Pa'rus Trail, which was very nicely devoid of any other tourists and very peaceful at that time of the evening. I followed it back to the visitor center, which is where The Watchman Trail begins. It's about a 3 mile loop, and is supposed to have great views at sunset. But I left the top before the sun fully set because I realized I didn't want to hike down in the dark, and also because the sun set at 8:45, and most of the restaurants in town are closed by 9!

On The Watchman trail

It's kind of sunset-y in the background, right?

On Day 2, it was time to tackle The Narrows, one of the two most famous hikes of Zion. Arriving to the park in the morning was a totally different experience than the previous afternoon. The crowds were HUGE, it was a 30 min+ wait just to get on the park shuttle, so I ended up not getting to the trailhead until about 11:00. The hike to The Narrows starts with an easy, paved 1 mile walk. Then, you arrive to the river, which is where the whole hike takes place!

I changed into my rented river shoes/boots, neoprene socks, and waterproof pants, and got my river stick ready! I was terrified that I'd be freezing in the water, but whether it was the pants or just that the water was a nice temperature, I ended up not being cold at all.

Check out the waterproof pants and stick: essential Narrows gear! (actually not because some people were hiking it in jean shorts and barefoot...)

The Narrows is unlike any other hike I've done, you're hiking IN the river for about 80% of the time- sometimes up to your waist.

You can hike as much or as little as you want. At the beginning there are lots of people, even some people carrying babies in backpacks! But of course, the further you go, the fewer people there are. I ended up walking out for about 3 hours. At that point I was starting to get pretty tired, and wanted to make sure I had energy to get back. And, since there were fewer and fewer people, wanted to make sure I wasn't walking back all alone.

One of the areas with some dry land, perfect to get out and snap a picture!

The scariest parts were when you had to walk across the river, because the current was pretty strong. To avoid crossing at one point, I ended up in water that was a little bit too deep, lost my footing, and did some kind of freaked out doggy paddle downstream- but it must not have been as bad as it felt because none of the stuff in my backpack ended up getting wet!

One of my favorite parts of the hike with crazy rock walls (also you can see how deep the river is on that person!)

Also worth noting, it's REALLY hard to get good pictures of The Narrows, because you're in rushing water most of the time, so it's always a risk to take out your phone.

The Narrows was incredible, but afterwards I was EXHAUSTED, so had some dinner, ice cream, and caught up on bad reality TV back at the hotel. Up next: Bryce Canyon!