An "All American" Road Trip

From the bright lights of NYC we got on a long flight, with multiple stopovers and headed for Vegas, where we picked up a rental car and got started on our National Parks Road Trip!

We had planned on Michael driving and me directing - those are our preferred roles - but due to a booking mistake I had to be the driver, sigh! It was a nervous start but driving on the 'right' (aka wrong) side of the road was actually not too stressful!

Trying to put on a brave face in the first few hours of driving. 

Let the road trip begin!

First stop was Hoover Dam - simply because it was on the way! 

The Hoover Dam is the largest water reservoir in the USA and is a pretty amazing feat of engineering - especially considering it was built during the 1930s.

Our Airbnb host told us that there is so much concrete in the Hoover Dam that you could pave a road all the way from San Francisco to NYC (in other words, an obscene amount of concrete). We didn't stay long but it was still a pretty cool place to check out. 

That night we stayed in a really remote little town called Dolan Springs in Arizona. It was quite literally the middle of nowhere but they had an awesome BBQ and a pretty nice sunset!

Grand Canyon National Park

The next day we were ready for some driving - first stop: Grand Canyon National Park. 

There are quite a few different ways to access Grand Canyon NP but we only had time to head to the south entrance (not much in the way of hiking here unfortunately but still pretty cool views.

Our first view point was Eagle Point - I actually came here when I was last in the States in 2012.

Eagle point got it's name from the rock formation behind me - if you look at the darker rock behind me it is supposed to look like an eagle with it's wings spread out.

Selfie practice at Eagle's point.

Obviously this is a pretty small area of the Grand Canyon, hence all our photos look relatively similar but the view from Eagle's landing is pretty incredible. This section of the Grand Canyon has a glass 'bridge' so that you can walk over the Grand Canyon and look at the bottom - it's pretty expensive and touristy so this area was swarming with people.

Next stop: Guano Point.

Above: Michael standing on the 'edge' of the Grand Canyon.

This section of the Grand Canyon is slightly less crowded so we had plenty of opportunities to walk around and check out a few different views of the Grand Canyon.

Amazing view of the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon.

The closest I was willing to get to the edge - it's no secret that I am totally afraid of heights so I spent most of our time at the Grand Canyon telling Michael to be careful and stay away from the edge!

Michael's favourite view of the Grand Canyon - overlooking the Colorado River.

We only had time to spend a few hours looking around here before we got on the road for a four hour (ahhh) drive back through Arizona and Nevada and to a small city in Utah called Cedar City - this would be our base to explore some national parks in Utah for the next few days. 

Bryce Canyon National Park

Our plan, while staying in Cedar City (Utah) was to explore and do as much hiking in National Parks as possible. 

We set out for Bryce Canyon National Park mid morning and it was a bright sunny day.... until we reached the National Park, where it was POURING rain. It actually hailed at some point. 

Rained out - we were stuck in the car waiting... I am not really sure what for... we were somehow hoping that the rain would clear although it was pretty obvious that that wasn't happening.

We decided that since the rain was going nowhere and hiking was no longer an option that we would drive to the opposite end of the park and do the scenic drive - which basically meant driving along the main roads and stopping at all the view points. This is definitely not my favourite way to explore a national park - I love to get out and actually walk / hike / explore the park but with the rain not easing up it was the only real choice :-(

After driving to the very end of the park, we stopped at Inspiration Point - it wasn't actually raining here but the weather was very ominous!

Despite the horrible weather, it wasn't actually cold and the views of Bryce Canyon were still pretty amazing!

From here we went to Ponderosa Point - another scenic look out.

Natural Bridge - this was a pretty cool lookout point and, you guessed it, completely naturally formed. 

Michael trying to steal the selfie spotlight.

Natural Bridge - a pretty cool rock formation.

We made several more stops along the way but I honestly cannot remember the names of all the look out points. At one stage we got out of the car and went for a short walk, which is where I took the photo below.

The weather was definitely our enemy as is got pretty bad again pretty fast and we had to retire back to our car for lunch. 

Michael's end of the world style photo (above left) definitely summaries the weather at Bryce Canyon!

Unfortunately, we missed out on some amazing hiking and scenery thanks to the awful weather - might have to put it back on my travel list ;-)

Zion National Park

The Narrows

Next stop was Zion National Park and finally some beautiful sunny weather. With tops of 40 degrees we definitely felt like were were in the desert!

After driving into Zion, parking the car and all that fun stuff, we caught the shuttle bus to the very end of the park and got prepared to hike The Narrows. This is one of Zion NP's most famous hikes - it's through the narrowest section of Zion Canyon (hence the name) and mostly filled with water from the Virgin River. Which means you are hiking in water that can get up to waist deep!

The Narrows is one of the most well known / popular hikes in Zion but also one of the most challenging - on the day in one of the ranger's told us that broken toes and other bones are very common! As you can see, you are hiking in the water (on a really unpredictable and rocky river bed) right from the beginning. The water was actually pretty cold but definitely refreshing given how hot it was. 

As you can see (behind us) the hike started out pretty packed but as we got further and further in there were less and less people hiking and only the intrepid hikers were left. 

Apologies for using the imperial system... I have had to learn to function using miles here!

You can hike up to 4.5 miles in (and back out) of the narrows, this supposedly takes around 6 hours. Instead of hiking the full length we hiked for about 2.5 hours in and 1.5 hours back out, although I am not really sure how far into the Narrows we actually got (there are no markers or signs here).

The river bed of the Virgin river alternates between rocks (left picture), which are really difficult to walk on, and sand beds. Most of the time the current wasn't moving too fast and didn't pose much of a problem but as we got further in there were certainly some more challenging sections and the only people left were avid hikers!

As we got further into the Narrows, the walls of the Zion Canyon seem to get more and more narrow - this hike is definitely appropriately named!

Some near misses! Michael took a pretty big stack here, according to him it wasn't too much fun but luckily I was there to catch it on camera! On the right is one of my near falls - I was smart enough to stay far away from the camera while doing this!

Muddy shoes, wet clothes and tired legs but definitely worth it!

The Narrows was one of the most unique and beautiful hikes I have ever been on - I loved the concept of hiking through the water and I am really thankful that I got the opportunity to do this.

Observation Point

Day 2 in Zion Park = hiking Observation Point. 

We hadn't really paid too much attention to distance / difficulty when choosing this hike, honestly, I just liked the pictures I saw on the internet.

Little did we know that we had chosen the longest hike (8 miles) and highest ascending hike (2,100 feet). Having said this, this meant that only serious hikers were on this hike - one thing I cannot stand is having to navigate through crowds of slow moving people who are dressed for a day in the city, not a day out hiking!

It doesn't look like it here but the hike got pretty steep pretty quickly as we started hiking up the walls of Zion Canyon!

In the above photos we had hiked into Echo Canyon, we were surrounded by the walls of the canyon and it was much more shady and cooler.

Michael looking out over Zion Canyon about half way into our hike. 

The last few miles of the hike was along a pretty thin ledge (from my perspective) and along the side of the canyon - as you can see I wasn't too keen to get too close to the edge. It was steep and challenging so I was happy to have something to take my mind off the very steep drop off!

As we got closer to the top of the Canyon and Observation Point, we began hiking on really deep red dirt - it reminded me of Kakadu and Central Australia.

Finally, after about 2 hours of solid uphill hiking we made it to Observation Point!

The view was absolutely stunning.

You can see the entire of Zion Canyon (straight ahead) and the Virgin River far below. 

Michael at the top of Observation point. 

We stopped here for about half an hour, had a lot to drink, some lunch and enjoyed the views before heading back down.

This hike, although really challenging, definitely made me realise how much I love to get out and explore National Parks by foot - I love the challenge and the reward!

Also, had to include this point - Michael does not love the desert heat!

After a long and strenuous hike (4 hours round trip) we decided to do a really short hike before heading home. This hike was called the Emerald Pools and included a path and ran alongside the Virgin River - which was a really nice view!

Me along the Emerald River Hike - this wasn't a bad hike but because it was pretty easy it was filled with people who weren't really the hiking kind. My style is definitely to do the difficult hikes with less people!

Zion  NP was definitely my favourite National Park on this trip - I loved the challenging, unique but also really rewarding hikes! I would absolutely recommend this National Park as a place to put on your bucket list!

Arches National Park

National Park number three on our circuit was Arches National Park.

From our apartment in Cedar City, we drove about 5 hours to the small town of Moab, which is located only about 20 minutes outside of Arches National Park. We only had one full day to spend here but luckily the hikes we wanted to do were only moderately long - having said that we had to get up early and pack a lot into one day!

Delicate Arch

The first hike we were keen to do was the Delicate Arch hike - compared to the Observation Point hike we had done in Zion a few days earlier, this would be super easy! This hike was only 3 miles long and only climbed 480 feet. Although, this seemed to be enough to discourage a lot of people who simply drove to the car park and took photos from there - not my style!

The start of the ascent for Delicate Arch.

It was a reaaaallly hot and sunny day in the desert (not Michael's favourite weather conditions but I was loving the sunshine).

This trail actually had markers to let you know where to go - something we didn't see in Zion!

Delicate Arch = spectacular.

Panorama photography = first class (well done Michael). 

Random fact: Delicate Arch is featured on most Utah car number plates. 

As you can tell, when we are standing in / around the arch, it's absolutely enormous!

We spent some time around Delicate Arch taking some random photos of the surrounding scenery.

One of my favourite fun shots :-)

Tower Arch

After Delicate Arch, a very popular hike, we headed for one of the least visited arches - Tower Arch. 

In order to get to the actual hike you have to drive about 30 minutes along a dirt road (the rest of the roads in the park are sealed) into what seems like the middle of nowhere! After driving all this way we reached a small car park with only one other car in it - I was stoked at the small number of people we would be sharing the hike with!

This hike was super isolated and only marked by small piles of rocks - you can see one in the above photo on the ledge to the left of Michael, they aren't super obvious but they did the job and we made it there and back unscathed. 

This hike was roughly 2.5 miles (each way) along really isolated desert terrain - in the time that it took us to hike there and back (about 2 hours) we only saw 6-8 other people (loving it!).

There were lots of really fun ledges and rocks to climb up and around along the way.

The reward at the end of our hike: Tower Arch. 

It's hard to tell but Michael is actually standing in the centre of the arch in the above photo - it gives a little perspective as to exactly how huge these arches actually are!

We took a break here and had some food and snacks.

The around surrounding Tower Arch - yep, this really is the desert!

This was without a doubt my favourite part of Arches NP - I really loved the small number of hikers on the trail and the trail itself was filled with amazing and secluded desert scenery - another bucket list recommendation!

Finally, after two moderate hikes we decided to drive to a few other arches located within a short walking distance from the car - this isn't really my favourite mode of exploration but we were both pretty tired.

Above: Balanced Rock

This is one of the most famous features of Arches NP.

Above: Skyline Arch

Slightly less impressive after seeing such a huge Arch, such as Tower Arch, up close but still kind cool to visit. 

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Well, that concludes what has been quite a marathon blog post - it was really difficult to narrow down the photos, the scenery was so incredible that all the photos we took came out perfect!

We had an absolutely amazing time exploring the great outdoors and National Parks in Utah - there really are some fantastic natural things to see and do in this big wide world of ours.

Next up: Jackson, Wyoming