Arches National Park – July 18th & 19th

Arches National Park was next, after a 5 or so hour drive… We drove to the awesome town of Moab, where we sorted out hire of mountain bikes for the next day, and then we headed to Arches National Park for the rest of the afternoon. It was HOT, once again! But really awesome J

We saw some of the famous landmarks like Balanced Rock, The Windows (massive rock arches that you can climb up and look through), and Landscape Arch (skinny looking arch that spans over a football field in length), and we did quite a few short little walks between the different spots.

The famous 'Balanced Rock' - a little bigger than I've always thought!

Because it had to be done...

Looking strange from a different angle

One of the two 'Windows' - massive rock arches

Mini people under the North Window

Tiny Lawrie underneath the South Window

Daggy me in the HOT sun in front of Turret Arch

What I at first thought was snow on the nearby La Sal mountains - just slate

Landscape Arch - spans over an American football field in length, and is rather skinny compared to the rest of them!

We were planning on hiking to the famous Delicate Arch for sunset, but we soon changed our mind after the rather large thunderstorms that were heading towards the park, and were pretty glad for that when the rain hit! So we settled for running about 100m to a viewpoint of the arch, and planning on heading back for sunset the next day…

And the storms roll in...

Amazing sky at sunset

Full rainbow in a purple sky

Then we discovered Denny’s 24 hour diner – we’d seen them everywhere, but the one we walked into ages before looked kinda run down and dodgy, so we’d bypassed it up until now – it was delicious, and awesome! So we may have tried it out twice more while in Moab… (Breakfast any time of the day, or whichever cheap but delicious meal you prefer!)

After a fantastic sleep (thank you thunderstorms for cooling down the night!) and an awesome but exhausting day the next day mountain biking in Moab, we headed back to Arches National Park and walked as fast as we could to Delicate Arch (didn’t want to miss the sunset there like Megan and Justin did!) – quite a walk when it’s still 37ºC through most of the night, but wow! When we got to the top after a few km and saw the awesome arch on the edge of the big rock bowl it’s on, we also saw over 100 other people there for the sunset too! So it was pretty funny watching all the people take turns lining up under the arch to have their photo taken, and getting in each other’s way and photos! Pretty nice spot though, and great sunset back the other way too J

Some American boys posing under Delicate Arch, with a clueless lady sitting in the middle of the photo

Crowd gathered for sunset at Delicate Arch

Lawrie under Delicate Arch

Then we headed back to Moab for a rather warm night before heading to Canyonlands National Park (also very nearby) in the morning.

Bryce Canyon – July 17th & 18th

After our very relaxing night and much needed sleep in the tiny town of Glendale, Utah, we took our time before getting going at about lunchtime, and headed towards Bryce Canyon National Park.

ON our way to Bryce Canyon we passed through the Red Canyon area where there’s supposed to be some pretty cool (or hot actually!) mountain biking trails – but as there’s no town of any sort there and we didn’t have bikes (not to mention it was HOT!) we had to bypass that.

Red Canyon

So we headed on to Bryce Canyon to see the canyon from the different viewpoints – Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce Viewpoints – all pretty amazing!

We went on a short walk to the ‘Queen’s Garden’ part of the canyon, and discovered just how much harder things are at over 8000 feet altitude, the highest we’d been yet! The canyon is quite steep… J Lawrie jogged on the canyon rim trail from one viewpoint to the next one, a couple of km, and it was significantly harder than usual! (although possibly lots of sitting in the car didn’t help either…?)

First view of Bryce Canyon

How trees grow in Bryce Canyon

Another gorgeous little chipmunk

Some of the hoodoos up closer

Before heading back to Inspiration Point for the sunset, we drove around the park a little more, and saw some adorable little fawns, as well as a whole bunch of Pronghorn Antelope! So that was pretty cool!

Two adorable little mule deer fawns we saw from the road

Pronghorn Antelope

Then sunset at Inspiration Point, after struggling up the hill to the lookout again J and although the sun set behind the lookout rather than over the canyon, it was beaut!

Sunset from Inspiration Point

Then we got up to see the sunrise in the morning, over the canyon this time! So back to Inspiration Point it was… Except the clouds were strategically placed right over the horizon/edge of the canyon, so there was no lovely sunrise or morning sun over the red rock canyon! All the same, it was great J Then while Lawrie slept in the car, I walked the Navajo Rim Trail down into the Canyon – LOTS of switchbacks down and back up, and lots of cool parts to see! On the way there we also saw a rare Utah Praire Dog, which was cool – pretty different to what we’d seen so far, sort of a mix between a squirrelly sort of thing and something more slow and waddley…

Utah Prairie Dog

The 'Sentinel' from the Navajo Loop Trail

'Thor's Hammer' from the Navajo Loop Trail

Looking down at some of the switchbacks on the Navajo Loop Trail

Horseshoe Bend & Zion National Park – July 15th & 16th

From the Grand Canyon we drove to the town of Page, and the nearby bend in the Colorado River (which is the river in the Grand Canyon), called Horseshoe Bend for its shape. It was pretty amazing, although a little too windy to get too close to the edge! It was definitely worth the stop by and walk there though! Looked like some people were having fun rafting on the river way below too!

Horseshoe Bend in Page from above (thanks Google!)

Due to the scary wind at the top of the cliff, this was about the best shot we got...

When it can sometimes look like this! (thanks again Google...)

Then we managed to find a drive belt for the car so were prepared if the old one dies when we’re in the middle of nowhere… And headed out of town again before discovering that our car charger for everything had carked it, so we raced back to get another one of those (now needing our US power adaptor for everything even in the car though) before heading out of town again. Passed by Glen Canyon Dam just out of Page, which is the dam at the other end of the Colorado River where it comes from a lake – pretty impressive sight, but we needed to make it to Zion National Park that night and so didn’t stop.

The road into Zion National Park has a Canyon Overlook Trail which we headed down, and saw our first rather spectacular view of one of the canyons in the Zion National Park – wow!

First view of Zion National Park, from the Canyon Overlook Trail

We got into the campground and found that all of the campsites were taken, and the manager was nice and let us squeeze into a handicap only campsite, at around 10pm (we didn’t realise that Utah is an hour in front of everywhere else we’d been!) – so cooked our dinner and went to bed very late, before not being able to sleep – we saw a coyote (we think, it was pretty dark, but they were some serious eyes glinting in the dark!) in the bush next to our van, and in the middle of our hot and sleepless (almost) night there was a massive male deer eating from the tree in front of the van, so that was pretty cool!! We saw some more smaller ones in the morning too :)

Mule deer in the campsite

We got up at around sunrise to catch the early shuttle bus (you can’t drive through the whole park, so there’s a free shuttle instead) and walk up to Angel’s Landing – the scariest hike I’ve ever done! The walk is up, up and up a series of switchbacks called Walter’s Wiggles, until you get to Scout’s Lookout, looking over a pretty impressive view of the Zion Canyon!

However, the scary bit was yet to come – walking over and up a skinny but very very high ridge to ‘Angel’s Landing’, the top of which is over 1400 feet above the valley floor – so over the ridge there is an 800 foot drop on one side (about 250m) and a 1200 foot drop (about 350m) on the other. NOT cool. So it was a pretty massive achievement for me being pretty scared of heights (did it not so much for the view, but to make myself do it…) – there were some pretty seriously hairy parts, and it was not necessarily my favourite moment! We took a fair bit of time to climb the ridge (over the horrifying drop parts, then up the even scarier steep parts which still had the massive drop offs!) and then relaxed at the top for a while – the squirrels and chipmunks up there are SO cute! It was surprisingly MUCH better on the way down, unlike what I was imagining! Maybe because we couldn’t directly see the massive drops…

Angel's Landing looking deceivingly non frightening

The lovely switchbacks that are part of the way up - Walter's Wiggles

The part that gets super scary, heading over and up that ridge! (zoom in to see the hikers going up)

Not so much a happy camper at this time... But man was that chain appreciated!

Gigantic drop down BOTH sides - lovely!

Made it to the top!!!

Adorable tiny little chipmunk at the top - one of many :)

The view back up the canyon from the top of Angel's Landing

Looking further up the canyon from the top

The ridge ready to be crossed again on the way back down...

Somehow much more bearable on the way down, unlike what we expected!

Anyhow that was our morning, glad we left super early so there were less people (NOT fun to pass people on that trail!). Then Lawrie had a sleep while I wandered through the gift shop, and we had a quick trip on The Narrows trail, which is an awesome walk through the Virgin River bed, mainly through the water. It maybe wasn’t the best day for it as we were pretty worn out from the intense walk in the hot morning, and there were SO many people in the water as it was pretty warm by then! So we didn’t go up nearly as far as we planned, but we enjoyed it all the same!

The Court of the Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac & Jacob - further up the canyon

Part of The Narrows

The Narrows

On our way out of Zion National Park we finally saw some bighorn sheep, which was cool! Still didn’t see any mountain lions/cougars, but sort of glad for that all the same! Oh and we also disovered how cool hummingbirds are!! SO tiny and SO quick, and they just hover in the air for a couple of seconds, long enough to realise it’s not just a big insect! No photos of that though!

Bighorn sheep just outside the canyon

Majestic bighorn ram looking down on everything

We stopped by Coral Pink Sand Dunes state park on our way (ish) to our campsite at the tiny ‘town’ of Glendale near Zion National Park (had to stay somewhere with a shower after the hot day and walks!) – didn’t go into the park as it was raining by then and we found an overlook where we could see most of the park anyway – pretty cool colour for sand! I would probably call it orange rather than coral pink though…

So we had a much needed relaxing and long sleep on a much cooler night, and didn’t do much in the morning…

Lawrie at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes

Our lovely quiet camping spot for the night