Greetings!
After our Viva Las Vegas adventure, we were grateful to return to the Airstream in Apple Valley, Utah and start to enjoy the beautiful National Parks in the area. Our campground was 40 minutes from Zion and 2 hours from Bryce. We ventured into Zion on Tuesday and Thursday and Bryce on Wednesday - 3 amazing days.
Zion National Park is one of the most popular National Parks in the country, therefore we had to be strategic with our planning. On Tuesday, we took our bikes into the park and explored that way. Once you get to the Zion Visitor Center - in order to see the park, you have to park and take their shuttle system on the 7.5 mile road which ventures through the Canyon. It is very well run - the drivers are great and they run frequently.
The other option is to ride your bike on this main road - this gives you a lot of flexibility and as just the shuttle busses and minimal cars are allowed on the road (just those staying at Zion Lodge - not a lot), the roads are very bike friendly and it's a delightful experience. However, the 7.5 mile journey up through the canyon is mostly uphill, so we rode the first 4 miles up, then hopped on the shuttle to the very end (bike racks are on the front of the shuttles). Once at the end of the road (shuttle stop called the Temple of Sinawava), we parked our bikes and took a short 2-mile hike along the Virgin River. One of the most famous hikes in Zion is called The Narrows where you hike in the river at the end of this trail and can be in waist deep water, hiking on slippery rocks - apparently, the scenery is breathtaking, but we decided to forgo the experience. It was packed too as you'll see by the photo below. The trail along the river was so pretty and once we got back to the bikes, we worked our way down the canyon and enjoyed stunning views and (for the most part) and downhill cruise - lovely! We stopped at Zion Lodge for a quick lunch and then headed back to the Visitor Center. It was a great day and the weather was beautiful. If you are going to Zion, our advise is get there early (pretty much for any national park). We were lucky to get one of the final parking spots at the visitor center.
On Wednesday, we ventured to Bryce Canyon National Park. This is a popular park, but not as popular as Zion. It was a 2-hour beautiful drive from our campground and once again, we were blessed with perfect weather. Bryce Canyon is breathtaking - there is also a shuttle system in this park, but they do allow cars as well. This park features Hoodoos, which are tall, spire-like rock formations created over millions of years by a unique process of erosion involving ice, water, and chemical weather, resulting in the world's largest concentration of these bizarre and beautiful geological structures. The park's main road leads past the expansive Bryce Amphitheater, a hoodoo-filled canyon. We did two hikes - one that took us into the Canyon (and out - check out the photo of the switchbacks below - lots of rests along the way) and one that took us along the rim.
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| Switchbacks from hell |
On Thursday, we headed back to Zion - this time without our bikes and arrived before 7:00am to take one of the first shuttles up to The Grotto, where the park's most iconic hike departs from - Angels Landing. This hike is strenuous and requires a permit for the final half mile, which involves scrambling on a narrow spine of rock with the assistance of bolted-in chains. We got the permit the day before and trekked up the hill (about 1,500 feet in elevation gain). After 2 miles, you get to the area where you present the permit to the park ranger and I went about 100 feet and then decided to turn back. It was packed with people and the trail was narrow, 1000 foot drop offs and along a very steep incline - quite sketchy. Instead, we hiked up to Scout's Peak, which also is a half mile on a safe trail with similar elevation to Angel's Landing. The views of Zion canyon were spectacular and we were proud of how well we did given the strenuous nature of this hike. By the way, Paul got to do about a half mile of this trail twice as he discovered that he had left his GoPro camera on a rock while taking off his jacket. So back down the switchbacks he went to retrieve the camera.
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| Paul doing the walk of shame after retrieving the GoPro |
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Start of the angles landing trail, notice the stanchions with chain between them. The chain is for two way traffic up and down which makes passing people awkward at best.
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| First 20% of angles landing |
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| Angles Landing, look close to see the people crawling across the ridge |
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| The "wiggles" is a section right before the end with very steep switchbacks |
It was an incredible experience seeing both of these national parks. Friday was a "reset" day where we did laundry and ran a few other errands in preparation for the next leg of our journey. We departed Saturday - another beautiful drive - to spend 9 days in the Moab area where we would visit the final 3 of the Mighty 5 - Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef - more on that in the next post!
Thanks so much for following along and for your love and support - XOXO, Jen & Paul
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