Friday, March 30th: We took off right after school and drove straight to our friends house in Mapleton, Utah. We had to stop in Ontario, Oregon for the Thai food truck.
Saturday, March 31st: We spent the day hanging out with our friends Richele and Greg and their kids.
Sunday, April 1st: We spent Easter driving down to Zion National Park. We found a free place to camp out on some BLM land just west of the park. There were plenty of places to roam around and explore. Matt and the kids decided to go for a hike and ended up climbing up to the top of a mesa. The temperature was in the high 70's, but if you listened to the kids you would have thought we were melting in the Sahara Desert.
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| Dinner time |
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| Free camping. Zion National Park in the background. |
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| We climbed to the top of this mesa. |
Monday, April 2nd: We tried to get an early start and beat the crowds in to Zion NP. Even though we got there around 9am, there was already a line-up of cars at the entrance. Every parking spot was taken so we ended up paying $20 to park just outside the park. Once we went over to the shuttle bus area we found the line to get on the shuttle. The line was several hundred yards long and took almost an hour to get through. Fortunately the line moved at a decent pace, but we vowed we would never come back to Zion during spring break!
We finally boarded a shuttle bus and made our way over to the trail head for the hike up to Angel's Landing. The hike gains about 1,500 feet in about 2.7 miles. There are two sets of switchbacks that you have to go up to get to Scout Lookout, which is at 2 miles.
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| Angel's Landing is at the top, 1,500 feet up. |
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| Angel's Landing |
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| Trail switchbacks through picture |
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| Second set of switchbacks, called "Walter's Wiggles" |
The last 1/2 mile from Scout Lookout crosses over a thin fin of rock and climbs up to the top of Angel's Landing. Most people stop at Scout Lookout. The last half mile is pretty steep with very steep 1,000 cliffs on either side. Some parts of the trail are only a few feet wide. The Park Service has added chains for people to hold on to.
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| Last 1/2 mile to the top (the trail goes right up the middle of the fin) |
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| Almost to the top |
Once we made it to the top, the scenery was spectacular! The only issues we had with the hike was that there were way too many people up there. Some were not very patient. Since many parts of the last 1/2 mile are narrow, it takes some time to pass people heading the opposite direction. The most outrageous comment I heard was from a lady that came up to us and said, "Excuse me, can I pass you guys? I have a plane to catch." Really? You have a plane to catch and you are at the top of Angel's Landing? Sure, go ahead and pass us...I don't think you are going to make your flight though.
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| View downriver of Zion Canyon from Angel's Landing |
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| View upriver |
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| Don't turn around, it's only 1,000 feet down! |
After a snack at the top, we turned around and made our way back down the trail. We then drove through the Zion tunnel and headed toward Bryce Canyon National Park. We stayed with our Bishop's parents at their house in Tropic, Utah, just east of Bryce Canyon. It was great to stay inside that night, especially since the temperature dropped to the low 20's with 30mph wind!
Tuesday, April 3rd: We drove back over to Bryce Canyon and there weren't a ton of cars at the entrance. We drove the 18 miles to the end of the road and got out and did a short mile or so hike around the rim to go see the Bristlecone Pine trees. Some of these trees are over 1,600 years old and are some of the oldest living things on the planet.
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| Bryce Canyon National Park |
We drove back down to the main part of the park, which by this time was completely crowded. Since we had been to Bryce Canyon several times, we decided to head out and keep heading east. We drove over to the small town of Escalante, Utah and checked in at the Grand Staircase National Monument Visitors Center. I asked how the Hole in the Rock Road was and the slot canyons and the ranger asked me, "Do you like people? If you do, then go there. If you don't, avoid it." Since we tend to prefer the outdoors to ourselves, we decided to go somewhere else. I asked her about the Burr Trail, a road that has been on our bucket list and she said there were few people that way. The Burr Trail was very scenic and indeed, had few people. We stopped at a very short and pretty slot canyon and watched some people repel down the cliffs.
We found a campsite in the middle of nowhere. We told the kids to go run around for awhile. The next thing we knew they were halfway up a cliff trying to climb on loose rocks. We had to tell them that the closest hospital was over 100 miles away and to come down a bit. It was nice having the whole place to ourselves.
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| This is what happens when you tell your kids to go play and explore (red arrows point to kids) |
Wednesday, April 4th: When we woke up in the morning the thermometer said 28, but it felt colder than that. We continued east on the Burr Trail and entered Capitol Reef National Park. We then drove down the Burr Trail Switchbacks, which are at a 12% grade dropping 800 feet in a mile.
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| Cold Sunrise |
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| Capitol Reef National Park |
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| Coming down the Burr Trail Switchbacks |
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| Bottom of the switchbacks |
We drove back to the main entrance to Capitol Reef National Park. Again, the Visitors Center here was jammed pack with people. We decided to go skip the crowds and head out to the Cathedral Valley area in the northern part of the park. Cathedral Valley is remote and doesn't see a lot of visitors. This area has been on our bucket list for awhile and this seemed like a great time to go. The road out there is a somewhat rough 28 miles through desert. We only saw less than 10 cars the whole day out there. We first drove over to the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon. These monoliths are a lot larger than they look! Next to them was the Glass Mountain. The Glass Mountain wasn't really a mountain, but more of a mound of gypsum. It really does look like a large mound of glass.
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| Temple of the Moon |
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| Temple of the Sun (Temple of the Moon in background) |
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| Glass Mountain with Temples of the Sun and Moon in Background |
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| Glass Mountain |
We then made our way up a somewhat steep set of switchbacks that had some decent sized rocks. Not sure if the mini-van was made to drive on roads like that, but we made it, only scraping the bottom a few times. At the top of the mesa we stayed at the Cathedral campground, which had a great view of the whole Cathedral Valley. The campsite is free and there were only two other groups camped there.
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| Coming up the switchbacks (this was the better part of the road) |
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| Cathedral Valley |
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| View of Cathedral Valley from campground |
The nice thing about being in such a remote part of Utah is that the night sky is very clear, since there is little light pollution. We stayed up and watched the stars for a bit before it started getting too cold.
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| Orion (the picture doesn't really show how bright the stars were) |
Thursday, April 5th: We got an early start and decided to take a forest service road and headed west out of the park. Fortunately the road was open and not covered in snow, though some parts were pretty wet from spring runoff. We climbed to over 9,500 feet and made our way back to the paved highway. We then made our way up to visit some friends in Provo. From there we continued driving north and west until Meridian, Idaho. We splurged and got a hotel and drove the way back home on Friday.
