Utah Rocks!

When planning this US roadtrip, with the knowledge it was the middle of winter, we thought long and hard about whether we could realistically rise into the high elevations of Utah and visit their epic ‘Mighty 5’ National Parks, or if we should stay further south in the guaranteed warmth of Arizona, and save this bucket list for a future visit in another season. We kept options open, religiously checking the forecasts and road conditions, and when in the town of Kanab, we finally decided to commit to driving the Scenic Byway 12, from Bryce Canyon through to Capitol Reef and up to the Moab region of parks. It was the best decision we could’ve made, and we’re so glad we didn’t miss this stunning region of the country.

First stop was Bryce Canyon, and wow! What a spectacular sight. After driving through plain looking forest and flats, we reached the edge of the ‘canyon’ (apparently not a canyon but more a series of amphitheatres) and looked down on top of the 'hoodoos', still covered in snow. It was a super special moment. The landscape was a little like New Zealand's Omarama Clay Cliffs, but on steroids and orange.

With our microspikes in hand, we set down the more trafficked Queen’s Garden trail, over to the icier Peek-A-Boo trail, which we had near to ourselves, before the climb back up the Navajo trail to the rim again. It was really cool to be at the base of the towing hoodoos (monolithic rock formations), spotting various lookouts through the rocks and views across the Grand Staircase-Escalante for miles.

Our last minute accommodation for the night was a cute villa with everything we could need (including a fireplace!), and we treated ourselves to pizza before continuing our journey along 'Highway 12’ the next morning.

Being winter, there was not a lot open along this drive, and all the local Mormons were probably at Church on a Sunday morning. However, the drive over the 12 was extraordinary and often left us wondering "how on earth did they get a road through here?". We broke up the drive by stretching our legs at the Lower Calf Creek Falls track midway through to take a look around. Not expecting a lot, we were amazed by the scenery (again all to ourselves) through the canyon along to a towering and ice-cold waterfall at the end. Jelley spotted a set of petroglyphs on the return quite far in the distance. This was a really enjoyable walk for us, another 12km to the round out our big week of hiking!

The road took us up to a peak of 9600 feet (or about ~3000 metres.) By comparison, Arthurs Pass reaches 3,000 feet (920metres)), which was a concern of ours heading into this part of the trip in our 2wd without tire chains. Luckily the road wasn’t too sketchy, and it was well worth the drive over to Capitol Reef. We were greeted with epic views at the summit, which we didn’t realise at the time were many of our next destinations from very high above.

The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument area (which highway 12 passes through) covers 1.8 million acres and was one of the last places in the continental US to be mapped due to its vast expanse and rugged landscapes. While there is not actually a physical staircase to climb, the name refers to the various different layers of rock formations and unique layers created over hundreds of millions years, with the Escalante river exposing the sedimentary rocks and diverse stages of rock development. Geologists would froth on the area, and while we are no such scientists, we can confirm this area rocks!

It was truly amazing to see the geology of the area (or geography according to Luke haha), with the different layers of the earth from the peak at Bryce downwards to Zion and Kanab through both our driving and hiking amongst canyons. Diagram below to show the scale and size of the area, and explain it better than we can. Thanks NPS.

A perk of off-season travel is being able to book last minute, and places that would normally be 200-300 per night right by national parks, being more in the $40-60 / night price bracket! We treated ourselves to one such place at the Capitol Reef Resort, and enjoyed a hot tub under the stars , soaking out legs that were starting to get a little fatigued from the many miles hiked to date.

We hadn’t considered stopping into Capitol Reef National Park, perhaps because it’s not known for any iconic monument and we hardly heard it mentioned before. This was the biggest surprise park of the trip, and we were blown away by the landscapes along our hikes, where we were (once again) the only car in the carpark. A ranger suggested adding Capitol Reef’s own dry version of ‘The Narrows’ along the Grand Wash to our hike up to Cassidy Arch, which was a particular highlight for Luke. It was unreal to stand on top of a freestanding arch with no one else around. It invoked a little bit of vertigo knowing the consequences would be deadly if we took a wrong step, but we thoroughly enjoyed the serenity of the area. We would love to return to the park in the summer, when the local orchards in Fruita produce many fruits and the locals serve their homemade pies to hungry hikers.

We continued towards Moab, a mountain town which would be our home base for the next 3 days. We were looking forward to having the home comforts of a kitchen and laundry, and exploring the surrounding parks - Arches & Canyonlands. Luke had always wanted to visit this outdoor-lovers paradise town and region, and had it highly recommended by many friends. It is likely more of a bustling place in the summer months, we found it a bit of a ghost town, but could see the appeal surrounded by the towering mountains and endless adventures to be had.

Something interesting about Moab and Utah in general was the amount of ongoing remediation work to the environment due to decades of uranium mining in the area. Many of the National Parks we went through had been mined throughout their history, and their National Park protection may have been what has saved them from further devastation in recent years.

When we arrived in Moab, we experienced our very first cloudy day in our otherwise perfect blue skies since starting the roadtrip! As we entered Arches National Park and walked amongst around 30 of the 2000 odd arches the park had to offer. 'Delicate Arch' is the most recognised arch of them all, and features on Utah’s license plates, making it a heavily visited spot. The track is quite icy at this time of year, winding around the side of a mountain with steep drop-offs, but once we arrived at the amphitheatre to see the famous free-standing arch we could see what all of the fuss was about. It is very impressive. Standing tall, alone, and indeed delicate, and it was special to have the spot to ourselves for 4-5 minutes before the next groups arrived behind us.

Arches is one of the many U.S. National Parks that has surged in popularity post lockdowns in the pandemic and from April they’re trialling a pre-reserved timed entry system to the park, as it usually fills before 8am daily in any time outside of winter now. We felt really lucky to visit outside of the chaotic period, although this was the first spot we felt very, very cold, with the wind chill picking up dramatically.

A highly recommended hike to us was The 'Fiery Furnace', which requires a permit 7 days in advance and sitting through an informative ‘please don’t damage the fragile environment’ ranger video and briefing. Unsure what to really expect, we set out at sunrise to see the rocks glow in the rays before entering nature’s maze. Tiny arrows which are near impossible to spot have recently been added to the area to give some sense of order to the chaos, and probably to prevent as many rescues from rangers at the end of the day finding missing hikers. We were encouraged to get lost amongst the rocks, and the ‘path’ itself involved many squeezes through tight canyons, using all 4 limbs and manoeuvring to get through what looked like impossible spaces. It was a lot of fun!!

The final of Utah’s ‘Mighty 5’ National Parks was Canyonlands, which immediately became Luke’s favourite in this stage of the trip. Similar to Bryce Canyon, the long drive into the Island in the Sky portion of the park was somewhat bland and uninteresting, before reaching the end to the ‘Grandview’. It truly was a grand view that awaited us, with deep canyons as far as the eye could see.

It didn’t reach above freezing temperature on this 3rd day in Moab, with a high of 28F/-2C, and the wind going straight through our 5 layers of clothing. This didn’t deter Luke from falling in love with the scenery, and wishing we had a 4WD to drive down into the canyons.

We had to stop at one last arch within Canyonlands itself, Mesa Arch, which perfectly framed the valleys below, and appeared to be close to detaching from the cliff and tumbling down.

It was another chilly morning as our time in Moab came to an end, and we headed south via another part of the enormous Canyonlands national park, The Needles District. We managed to get a few short walks in which offered more spectacular scenery of deep canyons which took Luke's breath away (probably because he was so cold).

Our next stop was to stay with a friend of a friend named Molly in the tiny rural town of Bluff, Utah. The town is home to no more than 300 permanent residents and has very sparse amenities (i.e. 1 petrol station, 1 primary school, no grocery store, etc.). While we hadn’t met Molly before, we instantly formed a great connection over our shared interests in adventure, the outdoors, and our good friend Jackson! It was really special to get a local perspective of this unique area bordering the Bears Ears National Monument and various Native American communities from Molly, who has called the area home for nearly 2 years.

We were greeted with a beautiful sunset and walking tour of the town before spending the night with Molly and her friends, with an added bonus of experiencing Setsubun festivities, a Japanese tradition to get rid of the evils at the end of winter.

A longstanding project in the region, Design Build Bluff brings architecture students from around the country down for a semester to 'design & build' sustainable houses for the neighbouring Navajo Nation. Students spend a couple of months designing an semi-offgrid home to then carry all their materials by hand to the building site and teach the new homeowner building/maintenance skills along the way. It was so interesting hearing about this unique programme and the passionate people behind it.

The town of Bluff was only recently established in 2018 and was also the destination for a convoy of Mormons who had a calling from God to set out on a treacherous journey across the Mesa to settle there. Interested in hearing some different takes on the founding of Bluff, we decided to visit a very well-funded museum and historical site called "Fort Bluff" in the centre of town. The exhibits were extremely detailed re-creation of the settlers' pilgrimage in late 1800's over the difficult terrain into Bluff. It was slightly odd how they seldom referenced the Navajo Native Americans who called the land home for many years prior, but interesting nonetheless to learn a different perspective of the history of the area.

Bears Ears National Monument has made mainstream news in recent years after President Trump tried to downsize it by 75% which was met with fierce opposition. To truly get into this area, you would need at minimum an AWD or 4WD to explore via the dirt and gravel roads. Unfortunately we were ill-equipped to get too far into the area, but made the most of the central location by popping down the road to visit Monument Valley in Navajo Nation.

While we missed the memo that the valley road was also unmaintained, it was an adventure in our 2WD and we really enjoyed getting up close to the towering buttes and learning more about the impressive area. Luke’s highlight was possibly the epic views from the gift shop, perched ideally on the cliff overlooking the valley, and a warm break from the chilly outdoors. We also made an essential stop on the highway out of Monument Valley at the infamous 'Forrest Gump' stop which was just like being in the movie. We’re super grateful to Molly for hosting us druing our stay in Bluff, and hope to meet up again someplace else in our travels!

This marked the end of our extremely cold winter conditions for the trip, and we have learnt over the past 2 weeks there are definitely both peaks and valleys (highs and lows) of travelling in winter.

Peaks

• Solitude, no crowds or tour buses

• Much cheaper accommodation

• Can be more flexible, making plans / get permits, last minute

• Don’t have to refrigerate beer, stays cold everywhere. :)

• Less rain, crisp bluebird day

• No crowds (again!)

• Some trail openings (in Valley of Fire and Grand Canyon, it is too hot to hike there in summer!)

Valleys

• Icy roads

• Shorter daylight hours

• Some Visitor centres, shuttle centres, restaurants etc are closed

• More difficult to camp

• More layers required to dress for the cold weather - living in our puffy jackets, needing dry gear for the Narrows in Zion, ice spikes for boots

• Some trail closures

Overall though, it has been nothing short of magical travelling in winter through this stunning part of the USA. It was special to experience the serenity to ourselves, see a sprinkling of snow on the mountains and hoodoos, and even though Jelley is not a winter person in the slightest, we are so stoked to have taken this trip offseason.

Our loop through Utah was over, and we reentered Arizona to visit the iconic Grand Canyon. After so much solitude on the trip, it was overwhelming to arrive at Mather Point and the visitor centre to hoards of tour bus daytrippers visiting from Vegas. Selfie sticks surrounded us as everyone angled for the perfect shot, it felt like Disneyland and we craved having the park to ourselves as we had been so spoiled to date.

We retreated from the chaos for a few hours and returned further around the rim, one viewpoint from the recommended sunset photo spot, to Powell Point. Sharing the magic of the sun’s rays reflecting throughout the canyon with just 2 others, our peace with nature was restored as we marvelled at the enormity of it all.

After such an epic trip experiencing natural wonders over the past fortnight, we set our expectations low heading into the Grand Canyon, saying to ourselves "surely it couldn’t compare, it's just a big hole in the gound". But sure enough, we were blown away by the scale and depth of the canyon, and ‘can see what all of the fuss is about’, it is such a unique spot and we’re so glad to have visited.

With a full day in GC ahead, we skipped sunrise and had a slower start to the morning before embarking on the South Kaibab Trail hike down to Skeleton Point. We had originally planned on doing some of the Bright Angel Trail, but on the advice of a ranger, South Kaibab offered more chance of sunlight and an opportunity to get further into the canyon. It can be deceiving starting a hike from the top, and often takes twice as long to get back up after confidently walking down. Thankful for our spikes again at the icy rim, we were happy to be moving again after a couple of chilled days off our legs.

We encountered many lucky hikers on this trail who had scored highly coveted permits to take the journey right down to the valley of the Grand Canyon, some who had hiked for a week from South Rim to North Rim, and it inspired us to give that a go in a future visit. We loved the perspective of getting down halfway into the canyon, and would love to explore further.

A big day of driving followed, as we were headed towards our next destination of Death Valley, and broke up the trip with a night at Boulder Bay campground by Lake Mead, just 20 minutes from Las Vegas. Excited to use our tent again, the campsite was perfect, it was the warmest we had been in weeks up to 25C/77F, and we had super welcoming neighbours (from Nebraska!). All was going well for the night ahead until the pack of local coyotes came out for the night. Their howls and screeches all night long sounded like hyenas, and we felt particularly vulnerable in our small backpacking tent, surrounded by others in the safety of their RVs. Apparently these coyotes had cruelly taken a german shepherd recently, so after a sleepless night we were glad to be moving on. A little different from the most dangerous wildlife one might encounter camping in New Zealand - probably the cheeky kea bird that at worst might tear a hole in your tent.

We experienced some ‘manmade nature’ the next day, taking a hike through the Old Railway Trail through to the Hoover Dam. A little longer than anticipated, but easy on the legs, this was a nice way to enter our second ‘Disneyland equivalent’ in recent days, filled with Vegas daytrippers. No dam tours were operating due to covid, but maybe also due to the fact the water levels were so low and have been for a very long time. It was impressive to witness the scale of this endeavour, and will be interesting to see how it adapts to the challenges of limited water supply in the coming years.

Nearing the end of our great roadtrip, and also the end of Jelley’s 90 day visa for the US, we’re continuing our journey back up the California coast via Death Valley. Here's a map of the second 3rd of our roadtrip, if you're interested!

We can’t wait to share what became Luke’s new favourite National Park, and more camping adventures (hopefully with less tales of near misses with coyotes and wildlife) once we finish up our time on the coast and land back in the San Fracisco Bay Area!

Until then,

- A Kiwi and A Cali