South Utah Trip

April 30, 2024

Arrived in Zion today about 2:30PM.  Uneventful trip.  Great weather and no issues along the way.  First stop was to enter Zion through the east entrance.  We were told it is the best way into the park and I have to say it was very easy.  Great start to our trip.  Here are some pictures of the park.

We travelled from the east entrance to the west entrance. Had to go through a 1 mile tunnel that was pretty interesting.

Made it to our hotel accommodations.  We are staying in a trailer park filled with Airstream trailers.  Pretty cool really

Did our first hike of the adventure.  A short easy one but a good start.  We needed to get out and stretch our legs and I could not imagine a better place to wonder.  The trail was called Timber Creek Overland.

May 1, 2024

We did a bunch of hiking today.  Long day be very exciting to see all that Zion has to offer.First was The Riverside Walk.  A short hike to start off but very nice.

Next was Scout Lookout

And finally, Watchman Trail.  This is our favorite of the day.  Really tough to take a bad picture.
As you can see we saw a lizard.  I saw a bunch of lizards and they all looked slightly different.  I had no idea there were so many lizard styles.  May have to read up on that.  Not much other wildlife to speak of other than a squirrel every now and than.... Oh and the chip monks.  They are everywhere.  I dont like them enough to take a picture.  We have found a couple of peaks with snow still at the top.

May 2, 2024

Today was an outstanding day.  We did some more hiking today.  We hiked what turned out to be the best Zion hike and we hiked another trail that turned out to be the worst hike.  In fact, we did not finish it.  More on that later.  We also found an attraction we did not know about, the Coral Pink sand dunes.

First for the best hike of Zion.  Emerald Pool trail.  It was a one hike that stopped by 3 water falls.  A lower falls, middle falls and upper falls.  If you're thinking Oh! can't wait to see the great pictures of water falls you won't find any.  The actual falls were blahhhhh.  The beauty was in the trail and the surrounding mountain ranges. I never knew there was so much sand in Utah but it covers the trails.  All of them.

The next trail hike was not as nice.  Called the Court of the Patriarch trail.  Apparently, the trail leads you to 3 mountain peaks that are named after religious icons.  The 3 wise men, Abraham, Issac and Jacob.  The trail was more intended for horses than people.  There was horse shit everywhere.  Worse than that the entire trail was soft sand.  You know, the stuff you find at the beach.  This trip however was no "Walk on the Beach".  We got about halfway around, saw the mountain peaks, took a picture and headed out.  It was just not a very enjoyable hike mainly because you were walking in sand for 5 miles but also because you had to dodge the horse shit and flies.  Would not recommend this one. 

On to the final trail for us in Zion.  Actually, I think the final trail.  We are pretty sure we hiked all trails that are advertised in the Zion brochures.  This trail is the Canyon Overlook trail.  This too was a wonderful trail, and we highly recommend it.  Actually, this trail takes you over the 1-mile tunnel we talked about earlier in the trip.  Turns out, right after we went through the tunnel, they closed it due to a RV that was disabled in the tunnel.  They closed both ends of the tunnel for about 2 hours while they tended to the RV.  From the top of the mountain, we could see the cars on either side of the tunnel entrance turning around and going back the way they came.  We were pretty lucky.

And finally, the desert we did not plan on ordering.  The Coral Pink Sand Dunces State Park.  Because the tunnel was closed, we could not go back through it after are hike so we took the longer 2 hour drive back to our Air Stream accommodations.  On the way we saw a sign for the State Park.  You have to check this out.  I kept thinking I would see a body of water on the other side, which I didn't but still WOW.  There were dune buggies out on the sand and some younger people basically snowboarding on the dunes, in the sand.  Not for me.

We leave Zion tomorrow.  It was a great trip with spectacular views.  We can not decide how it compares to Glacier which had been our favorite park.  I think we will need to go back to those pictures to truly compare.  Not really fair to compare though, we know they are so different.  I can say that Zion is much easier to get around in.  first of all, the park is much smaller than Glacier so you can move around much more quickly.  With the shuttle system you don't have to worry about parking which was a huge plus.  We just got to the visitor center by 7am each day, parked our car and used the shuttle the rest of the day.  We would come back for lunch in our car or to refill our water bottles, then head out again.  Really a nice way to do it.  Just like most (or all maybe) national parks the restaurant options are quite limited but we had a reasonably good meal each night.   Now on to Bryce!

May 3, 2024

Well, we arrived in Bryce today around 10:30 AM.  A very simple trip.  After arriving we rode around the park for a bit then took in some hiking.

Before I share todays pictures with you I thought I would add some color commentary to my earlier statement that we thought Zion was fantastic, almost or maybe better than Glacier.  Well, we have answered that question.  Zion was wonderful but it is still not as amazing as the Glacier trip.  Bryce on the other hand is a completely different story.  I cannot even begin to describe the sights we have seen in Bryce.  I think in part because I can't really explain how the formations we are seeing even came into existence.  This place is truly UNDESCRIBABLE!  In fact, our conclusion is that Bryce could be our number 1 National Park that we have visited, except for one minor thing missing.  There is no water at Bryce.  Every time we round a bend or look off into the horizon we are expecting to see some water.  A large lake, ocean, pond, something.  I think because when driving around through the tree lined roads we imagine we could be in WI or maybe the east coast.  But there is no water.  For me (and Teresa ) just the fact that Glacier has an abundance of lakes and rivers we are still giving the edge to Glacier but if you are a person who does not care so much about the water aspect of your site seeing Bryce is hands down number one.  As Teresa said, it is simply magical.  Nothing we have ever seen compares to this.

Now, let me share some pictures from today.  First off, we are staying in a log cabin this time.  Small but larger than the Airstream.  Im ok with this choice.

These are just pictures driving into the park area.  We have not even gotten to the park entrance yet.

First activity of the day was to hike Bryce Point.  Its about 5 miles.  Problem is the first 2.5 are down into the canyon so you have to hike back up at the end.  I hate these types of hikes normally, but this was spectacular.

Next we stopped off at a bunch of scenic lookouts.

Then we hiked our last trail of the day.  Sunset Point, elevation 8,000 ft.

Oh, and we ended the day with dinner.  It really boggles my mind that in all the National Parks we have been to there are very rarely any good restaurant accommodations. Tonight was no different.

May 4, 2024

Second day at Bryce Canyon NP.  Two hikes today.  First is a shorty but worth the time since we were driving by.  The second was a 9-hour hike that basically went around the entire canyon or so it seemed.  More on the second one later.

These pictures came from the Mossy Cave Hike.  And no comments about the water.  I know I just said yesterday there was no water.  This little bit of water does not count but it is nice to see.  In fact, this water come from a water diversion project in the early 1900's so the people who live in Tropic (which is where we are staying) would have access to water in order to survive.  It really helped grow the population to 486.  You can imagine how small the town would be without the inflow of water to support their livelihood.

The cave!  Now if that doesn't get your attention.  Like I said, we were driving by.  Before our long hike we took a few pictures at Inspiration Point.  We missed that on our travels yesterday.

Next up, the 9 mile hike.  Could have been a 8- and 1/2-mile hike but I forgot to bring my phone to take pictures, so we had to go back to the car and get it.  Thats ok.  We considered it a warm up.

Headed out to dinner soon.  We are going to the best restaurant in Tropic.  Top 1 out of the 4 there are.  Looks good.  We called for a reservation, and they said they are short staffed so they cannot accommodate us.  Fuck it! we are going to stop by and see if we can get in anyway.  If not we will end up at the 2nd best restaurant which we went to last night.  Pray we get into the first place.

May 5, 2024

Headed out to Capital Reef National Park this morning.  It takes somewhere between 2 hours and 2 days to get there from Bryce Canyon.  We are travelling on highway 12.  A very scenic highway.  They say there are so many places to stop and take in the scenery that it literally could take days to make the treck.  Well, we made it in about 3.5 hours because they are right.  There are some great places to stop off.  We would have gone on a hike during one of the stops but the weather did not look good so we opted to keep going.  Check out the pictures.

Now a little about Capital Reef.   It is a small Park.  Smaller than both Zion and Bryce.  It is also quite different as you would expect.  There is one road in.  You can get to the end in about 10 miles.  Then turn around and go back.  We did that today when we arrived.  Good thing we did.  When we were sitting through a geology class in the afternoon, we were informed that the road would be closed tomorrow about halfway into the park.  It will be closed for the rest of the year for maintenance.  Holy shit.  Anyway, we did some investigating and think there are still some good hiking trails we can take tomorrow.  UNLESS there is too much snow on the ground.  Yep, started snowing while we were at dinner.  Tomorrow is supposed to be about 60 but with 30 mph winds.  That would not be good for hiking.  We will let you know tomorrow.  As for the park.  It is nice.  You can see by the pictures it is somewhat unique.  Not sure if you can tell by the pictures but the rock is like a chocolate brown color and looks as though it is eroding in front of your eyes.  Like by the hour.  Just seems very fragile.  More so than the other parks.  Glad we came up here while in the area, but I would not tell folks to come to this park specifically.  Maybe our impression will change tomorrow.  Who knows.

May 6, 2024

Today we hike!  This is our last day at Capital Reef National Park.  Before I share our adventures, I thought I would pass on some critical knowledge related to the state of Utah.  While Utah is not a dry state it is not as easy to get a drink as it would be in say WISCONSIN!  There are Bars in Utah, or so they tell me, but finding one is very difficult.  You are much more likely to find a restaurant that has a bar in their establishment.  Problem is, the only way to get a drink at a restaurant that has a bar is to purchase food too.  One night we went to a restaurant and ordered chips and salsa just to get a beverage before we went to a different restaurant for dinner.  Also, the restaurants that serve liquor have very limited selections.  Most serve Jack Daniels if you like that along with 1 scotch selection, 1 rum selection and 1 vodka selection.  So, keep this in mind if travelling to a NP in Utah.  Make sure you bring some supplies along so you can drink what you like.

Our first hike was on Chimney Rock trail.  We started first thing in the morning and it was pretty cold.  Never been hiking dressed like this.

Next up was Cohab Canyon trail.  This hike was long.  Technically, this was two hikes.  We actually traversed over one mountain then had to cross the road to get to the second hike which included a natural rock bridge which we really wanted to see.  The total elevation was one of our highest hikes.  We made it though.

Tomorrow, we head home.  We had a great first trip to Utah and intend to come back.  Earlier I mentioned that Capital Reef was not our favorite NP and I stand by that.  I would not recommend someone travel to Utah just to see Capital Reef but if you are here visiting other NP's you should certainly check it out.  Especially if you are a hiker.  The hiking at this park was everything we wanted it to be.  A portion of the park closed while we were there because they are planning some renovations, so we did not get to all the trails we wanted to but the trails we hiked were wonderful.

That concludes our Utah NP adventure.  Next up, a trip to Palm Springs for our anniversary.  Looking forward to blogging about that in June.