Trip Recap: Utah and Arizona, May, 2008

"The Utah deserts and plateaus and canyons are not a country of big returns, but a country of spiritual healing, incomparable for contemplation, meditation, solitude, quiet, awe, peace of mind and body. We were born of wilderness, and we respond to it more than we sometimes realize."

- Wallace Stegner, Wilderness at the Edge, 1990

This past May, my friend Brad and I traveled through Nevada, southern Utah, and northern Arizona. We visited 11 National Parks, Monuments or Conservation Areas, 2 state parks, Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, and the Navajo Indian Reservation. We hiked about 56 miles during the trip, which might be unimpressive compared to what a certain percentage of the population would do, but almost certainly exceeds the average traveler’s efforts in those parks. We didn't just pop in and out of the car, anyway. This total included most of the signature trails in those parks - for example, we hiked to the top of Zion NP (the Angel's Landing trail, a hellish ascent) and to the very bottom of Bryce Canyon NP (the 8 mile Fairyland Loop, weaving and winding through sandstone hoodoos to reach the canyon floor). We hiked a slot canyon at Capital Reef NP and another in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. We also hit pretty much every single natural rock arch in Arches NP. In other words, we hiked a LOT.

After arriving in Las Vegas and snagging a 4WD Nissan Xterra at the rental agency, we headed to our first stop, Zion National Park. We had intended to do the famous Zion Narrows hike (a spectacular slot canyon hike through a river between towering canyon walls), but a late snow melt this spring forced the park to close off the river to hikers. We ended up doing the Emerald Pools Trail and the trail to the top of the Watchman instead, and then hiked Angel’s Landing and Hidden Canyon on the second day.

We used the time that we had budgeted for the Narrows to visit a unique local state park - Coral Pink Sand Dunes - and climb to the top of a 110 foot tall sand dune, one of many dunes wedged into a narrow "wind tunnel" formed by two sheltering mountain ranges.

After extracting the sand from our eyes, we continued on to Bryce Canyon, arriving just in time for sunset over the famous hoodoos. We camped overnight, woke early, and spent the bulk of the following day hiking the Fairyland Loop through the various rock formations and hoodoos that Bryce is renowned for.


After taking dozens of pictures of the most famous Bryce feature - the vast, spiraled Amphitheater - we decided to make a spontaneous visit to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Grand Staircase-Escalante was spectacular. It's an enormous (second biggest chunk of public land in the country) and VERY remote (the last place in the continental US to have been mapped) piece of land that essentially dominates the entire span of southern Utah. It's run by the Bureau of Land Management rather than the National Parks Service, so luxuries such as Rangers or roads or people or facilities are essentially nonexistent; you just kick it into 4WD and take a dirt/rock road to where the trails begin. Needless to say, it was awesome. The Xterra performed admirably, and we had no problem finding the entrance to our chosen hike, the Willis Creek Narrows, a deep, twisting and swirling ribbon cut through the yellow and black sedimentary rock of the canyon walls.

The next morning took us along scenic Highway 12 to Capital Reef NP, a spectacular park filled with slot canyons and beautiful, towering rock features.



From there we swung by Lake Powell, breezed through Natural Bridges National Monument for a look at the three famous (but somewhat underwhelming) rock bridges, and proceeded to Canyonlands NP, one of the most rugged parks in the parks system.



Two-thirds of Canyonlands is relatively inaccessible (4WD only, and rough trails at that), so we spent our limited time touring the portion of the park known as Island In The Sky, a giant "island" mesa towering above the two converging canyons formed by the approach and confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers.


A future trip to raft one of those rivers and explore this amazing park further is definitely on my list. We also breezed through a state park, Dead Horse Point, for another look at the winding Colorado River on our way out of Canyonlands.


It rained that whole day, which was actually sort of cool - they only get about 9 inches of rain a year, so not many people are around to see it when it falls. Up through this point in the trip, the temperature had exceeded 90 almost every day, so the colder temperatures were quite refreshing (and foreshadowed what would eventually greet us at the Grand Canyon a few days later).

Following our day in Canyonlands, we traveled to nearby Moab, where we bought some souvenirs and explored the town for an evening. We spent the following day hiking through Arches NP. We started off with Delicate Arch, the park’s signature feature (it’s depicted on the Utah license plates), and managed to arrive at a time when we were the only people there - not an insignificant achievement, given the vast number of people who venture up the long, steep trail to see it.

Although we passed two busloads of tourists coming down as we were on our way up, and two more busloads on our way back down, we somehow had the arch to ourselves for an hour or so in between. Exploring and photographing the area around Delicate Arch without a million people walking around and mucking things up was a major highlight of the day. We eventually managed to hike to nearly every named arch in the park throughout the course of the afternoon.

After Arches, we spent the following day driving through the Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley, two stunning drives that have formed the standard "wild west" backdrops for old movies and car commercials for decades, en route to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We reached the Canyon in early afternoon to be greeted by . . . a huge snowstorm. Seriously, snow falling like crazy. Given my lifelong love of snow, I was probably the happiest person in the park. We were moderately well prepared (snow is rare in May at the Grand Canyon, but not unheard of), so we just threw on some extra layers and enjoyed seeing the park in a way that many people don't. Sleeping in the tent was frigid, but we started a nice fire, cooked dinner and breakfast over the firepit, and tried to stay moving. We didn't hike all that much, as the snow and fog largely obscured the view into the canyon, but managed to steal occasional glimpses of the canyon floor and Colorado River during breaks in the weather.

We drove back to Vegas that afternoon and spent an evening at the casinos before driving down for a quick look at Hoover Dam the following morning, our last. The traffic across the bridge was terrible, so we ended up taking a helicopter ride over the dam instead of driving over it, an incredible experience (and spectacular view).

Finally, we spent the rest of the afternoon at Red Rocks Natural Conservation Area, a popular rock-climbing park on the outskirts of Vegas, before pulling into the airport and heading for home. It was a fantastic trip, and I look forward to visiting many of those areas again soon.