Arches National Park, Utah- 340 miles from Zion

July 31 to August 1, 2012

We left Zion by 7:00 am, which was our goal, and set off to Arches National Park. The drive would be about 6 hours, so we would get there in time to eat lunch at the park if we limited our stops. By now we are all so acclimated to long rides that frequent stops are not necessary anyway!

We arrived at Arches National Park around 1:30. The visitor center is right as you enter the park so we went in, found out the best sights to see in the limited time we would have here, and filled our water bottles. Arches is hot when it is sunny, which it was, and there is very little shade on many if the trails so we wanted to be sure to stay hydrated. Our campground was eighteen miles into the park, so we decided to see the sights on the way and take a series of short hikes (walks really) as we drove up. The nine mile drive to our first stop was full of cool things to look at! We passed "The Three Gossips" (which actually looked like the three wise men to me), the "Courthouse Towers", "Petrified Dunes", " the Great Wall", and the "Rock Pinnacles". All of these things are just really interesting features in the park and made for a fantastic drive.

We started at Balanced Rock, which Joe preferred to call Falling Rock. Balanced Rock is a formation in which the softer rock has eroded leaving a large boulder perched on a pedestal. It really does look like it could fall any time. We took the half mile walk around it to see it from every side. The views of other parts of the park are also good from this spot. Next we drove on to the "Windows". The trail to see the North Window, South Window and Turret Arch was about a mile all the way around. These are really interesting holes that wore through the rock that you can hike to and hang out under. We all just loved being there! It was fun, relaxing and fascinating all at the same time. After the "Windows"and the "Turret Arch" we went on to the viewpoint trail for "the Delicate Arch", which is the most famous of the arches here. We had been told that the trail that actually takes you to it would be a tough trail to do that afternoon because the majority of the trail is along slick rock, with no shade. This would have been a big challenge for Brady, so we decided against it. The trail to the viewpoint was only half a mile, but it was a steep climb, so we took turns staying back with Brady, who wasn't in the mood to go up that many stairs. It really is a beautiful arch. Maybe one day we will come back and do the other hike.

At this point we decided to make our way to the campground. The cool thing about this campground is that the trail heads for several trails are right at the campground, one of which is the Devils Garden trail. The campground is fairly small compared to most of the others we had been to with only about 50 sites. Our site was great, with a lot of space (most of which was flat) and the whole campground was surrounded by beautiful rocks that the boys could climb on. After we got everything set up, trying hard to avoid the many anthills, the boys spent a lot of time exploring and climbing the rocks. Nick and Ryan were great, taking their little brother along for most of the adventure. There were some rocks that were too big for Brady to climb, but enough he could do that he felt included.

After we made dinner and cleaned up I wanted to do a short hike from the trailhead only a few sites away from us, so we did. The hike started out great as we made our way to the "Tapestry Arch". We trekked through sand, and over slick rock to a pretty arch. While we were there, though, we were watching a storm that seemed fairly far away, but then we started to feel the winds. We knew at this point it was time to get back to our campsite. The boys freaked Brady out by mentioning sandstorms (which was not going to be an issue where we were), and we all hurried back. Once we got back to the trailhead it was clear this was going to be a doozy. When we got to our site we found our EZ-up had flown over our tent! Now, we have weights on all of the legs and had some pretty significant winds at Zion and it had never moved even a little, so the gust that came through must have been crazy! The boys' tent looked like it was going to collapse, stuff was blowing everywhere, and Brady was terrified. I brought him in to our tent with me as I reorganized our bags so that they were in all the different corners to keep the tent from blowing away, but this still scared him because the sides were collapsing in from the wind. Nick ran him to the car and gave him the IPad to distract him and that seemed to help. Nick took their tent down because we were worried it was going to get wrecked, Ryan and I fought with the damaged EZ-up to get it closed and Joe ran around securing everything. While we were doing this the girl camping in the site next to us came over to ask if we had seen her tent blow by! After securing everything we all got in the car to wait out the storm. Brady was still really scared, so he and I cuddled and watched Scooby-Doo until he felt better. Eventually the storm ended, so we all climbed out of the car, brushed our teeth, then all of us piled into one tent. Brady, now finally relaxed, sprawled all over Ryan and fell asleep. We were a bit crammed in, but slept fine through the night with no more problems from the storm.

The next morning we wanted to get our site packed up, have breakfast, then get one more hike in before we left Arches. We were done and ready to hike by 9:30. The weather was great for hiking because it was a bit overcast, which left the temperatures in the low eighties. We hiked out from the Devils Garden trailhead, first to "Tunnel Arch" , then "Pine Tree Arch" and finally to "Landscape Arch". "Landscape Arch" is the longest arch in the park, at over 300 feet. Visitors used to be able to hike out under it but several years ago a sixty foot chunk fell off of it due to weakening so it is now closed. We still got a pretty good view of it, though. After seeing this arch we hiked back to the car and started off on our three day drive back to the east coast. We hope to get as far as Kansas tonight, but we will see!

Zion National Park, Utah- 123 miles from the North Rim

July 29 to July 30, 2012

We left the north rim and headed for Zion National Park at 9:00 am, planning to get to Zion in time for lunch. The drive was pleasant, although slow because the roads are all one lane winding roads. When we arrived at the park the scenery was fantastic right away. The towering peach and cream colored stone is beautiful just past the ranger station. The rock has a different look from the Grand Canyon in that the layers are not quite as defined, and the layers are all slanted. You can tell that this area had a violent geological past!

We had to drive quite a way into the park to get to our campground, which was fine with us as the views kept us occupied. From the east entrance you need to travel through a long tunnel cut through the rock which has cutouts that provide beautiful peeks out at the park. Watchman Campground, where we we headed, is very close to the south entrance and the visitors center. We had lunch as soon as we registered and found our site, then we set up our tents. This was a really nice, level site so there was plenty of room and lots of rocks for Brady to climb on. The cool thing about this campground, unlike the others we stayed at, was that we had really great views of what we had come to see right around our site. After setting up we drove into town to pick up a few groceries and checked out the visitor's center. It started to rain so we went back to our site where the boys played cards and Joe and I sat under our EZ-up. All was well until we started to cook dinner and were surrounded by a ton of yellow jackets! All campgrounds have their nuisance animals, and apparently here it was going to be the bees. They really gave us a run for our money, but once I put the frying pan I was cooking ground beef in over to the side they stayed there attacking it while we ate our dinner. I later had to spray the pan with bug spray to get them to move away so I could wash it! The wind got pretty strong and campfires were not being allowed, so after we cleaned up the dishes we decided to try to find the ranger program that started at 8:30, but we went to the wrong amphitheater so it ended up just being a walk, then we went to bed.

The next day was the day we planned to fully experience Zion. The weather looked great in the morning, but there were chances of storms in the afternoon. We decided to start with a hike to the Upper Emerald Pools. Zion has shuttle busses to take visitors to most of the trail heads, so we got on a bus and travelled to the Grotto stop where the trail began. This turned out to be a really nice hike. There were warnings of steep drop-offs, but after the trails that we already have done at Crater Lake and the Grand Canyon these drop-offs were mild by comparison. When we got to the smaller Middle Emerald Pool it was full of tadpoles, and the Upper Emerald pool was pretty. There were a lot of people at the pool, so we had a short snack and then hiked back down. At the bottom of the trail we continued along the 0.5 mile Grotto trail which led to the Zion Lodge and had some lunch. After lunch we got back on the shuttle bus and continued on to Weeping Rock. Weeping Rock is a ledge through which water seeps continually creating a hanging garden. This was a pretty hike and not very long, which was good because Brady was getting tired. At this point we decided to head back to our campsite, which was about a 30 minute shuttle ride from that point.

It was a good thing that we chose this time to come back because just as the bus pulled up to the visitor center a thunder and lightening storm came in. The storm was really blowing our tents, but they stayed put, thankfully. After sitting in the car for a while we thought this might be a good time to go have showers. This campground did not have showers on site, but there were supposedly some available in town. This sounded a bit sketchy, but better than no shower for three days, which was the alternative! We drove into the little town to the outdoor adventure place which had the shower and were told it was "indisposed". Whatever that meant for them, for us it meant real camper grunginess. Our next campsite also does not have showers and no town for an alternate so we are going to be gross!

Fortunately, by the time we returned to our site the rain had stopped. Had it still been raining hard I had been considering washing my hair in the rain. Since it had stopped, though, we played cards for a while, cooked dinner, hung out and went to bed. Tomorrow we head to Arches National Park which I have been looking forward to the whole trip!