We arrived through the remainder of the snowstorm to Red Cliffs Campground north of St. George. It was a harrowing drive over a winding, snow-packed mountain highway but Zach handled it like a champ. The campground’s notice sign said it was full, but since it was a Monday we decided to give it a circle to see if anyone had recently departed. Fortunately, that plan panned out for us! We scored a great site (A plan “b” hadn’t been formulated so we were feeling quite fortunate) and decided on a longer stay so we could split our time between Zion NP and getting resupplied in St. George.

Day one in Zion was epic. We hiked up to Angel’s Landing (but skipped the chain climb because it was super crowded), and went for awhile longer up on the West Rim Trail. After our legs were good and tired we trekked back down and hopped on the shuttle to the Riverwalk Trail at the end of the line. Overall, we got in about 10 miles before returning to our car and taking a drive up the Zion – Mount Carmel Highway. This drive was reminiscent of Going to the Sun Road in Montana with huge rock walls, amazing vistas, a tunnel from 1930, and endless views. Once day one was complete, ice cream was quickly consumed and we all together skipped dinner on account of being too tired to cook.

The following day we took off from hiking and exploring to get our laundry done errands run in a suburb of Saint George. These days are always a little stressful because you’re going back into civilization and with covid numbers on the rise we are really trying hard to avoid places where people congregate. A mask mandate was only just imposed in Utah last weekend and people around this area are still not wearing masks. We decided to sit in the car and wait for the laundry there but in the course of lots of getting in and out, listening to the radio, etc. we drained the car battery and (Zach) had to walk down the road to a Walmart for a replacement. (In hindsight, we’re glad this happened in a bustling town vs. in the middle of nowhere). Overall this stop was a pricey one for the car with wipers and a windshield also needing replacement but in the grand scheme of things Lafawnda the Lexus has had very low maintenance costs, especially considering all the hard miles we’ve put on her this year.

The next day we were back to our exploring selves, this time driving to the northwest side of Zion and hiking in the wilderness area. There was a lot of snow still on the ground from the system that had hit us in Bryce, so our 4 mile hike was a wet and muddy one but still lots of fun. The view at the end was the most rewarding. And seeing only a handful of people on the trail was even better vs. the busy main part of the park we had explored the other day. We only spent two days in Zion but we felt like that was a good taste of the area. Perhaps we’ll return here for some more technical activity after winter, there’s lots more to explore but it was once again time to move on to warmer climes.

On our last stop in Denver, two different friends had told me that this was their favorite National Park out of the five in Southern Utah, so we were excited to see what all the hubbub was for ourselves. We’ve also never been this far into Utah, and new terrain is always an adventure that we are up for.

Upon pulling into the park’s campground we were immediately eager to set up amongst the orchard trees and lounging deer. Large swaths of this park had been farmed and homesteaded by Mormon pioneers in the late 1800’s and their evidence is left in thousands of heirloom trees that are still cared for and harvested to this day. Who knew you could grow such beautiful and robust trees in an arid desert climate? Alongside the orchards, the key geological feature of this area is the Waterpocket Fold which spans some 100 miles north to south. We drove and explored in our unique way. Most memorable here was our hike in Cottonwood canyon, approaching from the BLM side adjacent to the park. We covered a mile distance up a wash then the hike got skinnier with slot canyons and some bouldering. Once again, we pushed our bodies to their limits and accepted the fun challenge until it was no longer feasible to climb. New expectations/requests have been set by the kids for more technical and backcountry hiking.

These two places are our all time favorites to return to time and time again. We had a long standing family tradition of spending the week of Thanksgiving in Moab for years, it was low season so prices were favorable and crowds were nonexistent. Returning here was somewhat of a homecoming, so many familiar sights and a restoration of peace in the red Utah desert.

Since we were coming from the south and didn’t want to move twice in a short span of time we opted to spend more time in the Needles district of Canyonlands NP. The highlight was the 11 mile hike we took in the Chesler Park area. We all really pushed ourselves to go this distance, surpassing our previous hiking record of about 8 miles. I’m always particularly amazed at Camden’s ability to span these distances since he still has the shortest legs. Everyone loved the challenging rock scrambling parts the most. Needles to say, we took it easy the next day with a drive into Moab for our favorite burgers at Milt’s and some custom screen printed t-shirts from the old shop on the main drag.

One of our other favorite pastimes in this area is to drive somewhere remote on a BLM road, stop at some rock outcroppings, then get out and start climbing. It’s a fantastic way to see a vantage point that likely no one has seen before. We always encourage one another and stay safe, never going too far a distance or too high that we can’t climb back down. Our next goal in Canyonlands will be to travel to the Maze district, perhaps later on this trip.