Four of Utah's Big Five!
At the end of October, we left the Silver Bullet at the Montrose/Telluride Airport and flew back to Florida. If you're a regular reader of this blog, thanks, and you know that this is something we do frequently. The Montrose/Telluride airport has a great monthly rate that made it very easy and affordable.
On Wednesday, December 7 we flew back to Montrose/Telluride and found the Bullet right where we left it and ready to go. We're now on our way to California to spend Christmas and kick in the New Year's with Sarah, Joey, James and Emma. Me and my "birthday buddy, Emma will also be celebrating our birthdays on December 31. Same day, but I've got her by a few years! To make it even better Ben will be joining us for two weeks. Having everyone together is the perfect Christmas present for Beth and I.
The Silver Bullet just needed a little snow dusted off the windshield and it was ready to go
It's a little over 1,000 miles from Montrose to Sonoma California, where our Airbnb is located. We won't arrive there until December 18, meaning there's a lot of adventure to be had along the way. First up was enjoying some time revisiting Utah's "Big Five" (sometimes referred to as the "Mighty Five") as they are affectionately known. The Big Five are Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Capital Reef National Parks.
We've enjoyed visiting many of our 63 National Parks through the years. This includes the First US National Park (Yellowstone), the most visited (Smokey Mountains), the largest (Wrangell-St. Elias in Alaska) and the only US National Park in the Southern Hemisphere (National Park of American Samoa) and a whole lot more. They're all special and we'll keep working on checking more off the list as we wander about. In February of 2018, we spent some time exploring all five of Utah's Big Five. Earlier this year we spent several days at Zion. This time through Utah we were only able to visit four of the Big Five..................Capital Reef, sorry we missed you, we'll try to swing by next time we're passing through.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time blogging about specifics of the parks. If you're interested in reading more details, the links below will take you to some previous blogs. This one will be mostly pictures from our time in the parks and along the way. I will make a couple of recommendations on very scenic routes that we really enjoyed. Between Grand Junction, Co. and Moab (gateway to Arches and Canyonland) Highway 128 runs along the Colorado River and is really interesting. Our friend Wayne Sallade who lives in Grand Junction and who we visited with briefly when passing through recommended this route..........Thanks Wayne! Between Moab and Bryce Canyon, Highways 72, 24 and 62 are great! As is often the case, the journey is as good as the destination. That's certainly the case with these two drives.
Parts of Highway 128 between Cisco and Moab are "open range". Watch out for cattle while enjoying the view.
The Colorado River runs alongside much of Highway 128 between Cisco and Moab
A few shots along the drive from Moab to Bryce Canyon.........
There were great overlooks.......
Interesting clouds that looked like a giant wave coming at us............
and a few icy patches!
Zion National Park (2018)
Bryce Canyon (2018)
Capital Reef (2018)
Arches and Goblin Valley State Park (2018)
Canyonland (2018)
Zion National Park (February, 2022)
Arches National Park-Moab is the gateway to both Arches and Canyonland National Parks. We love visiting the parks in the "off season" when the crowds of summer are gone. When we drove into Arches, we went the first eight and a half miles without seeing another car! We estimated that we saw around two dozen different people on the more than six miles of trails that we covered that day.
Here are some shots from Arches:
Inside the North Window
The North (left) and South (right) Windows from the appropriately named Window Trail
Double Arches
Broken Arch
We're not real good with "selfies". We're really not good trying to make a half a heart and take a picture at the same time. I think it took us three tries!
Landscape Arch
Although Bryce National Park is more famous for it's Hoodoo's, there are plenty in Arches, too
Quite a balancing act!
Canyonlands National Park-It's an easy thirty-minute drive from Moab to the Island in the Sky entrance to Canyonlands National Park. On clear days you can see mountains more than one hundred miles away from many of the overlooks in the Islands of the Sky section of this 337,000-acre park.
We had perfect blue skies in Canyonlands. The Park Ranger told us that the mountains visible in this photo are close to forty miles away
The Green and Colorado Rivers run through the Islands in the Sky section of the park before merging near the southern end
Plenty of "Wide Open Spaces"
Great views all around in Canyonlands!
Bryce National Park-It's about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Moab to Bryce National Park. The first half of the drive is along I-70. The second half is on very scenic small highways 72, 24 and 62. This part of the drive is fantastic!
Near Sunset Point on the Rim Trail
The fresh snow on the Hoodoo's made them even more spectacular
A nice view of the amphitheater from the Rim Trail
Natural Bridge
Inspiration Point.........we had it to ourselves for a few minutes!
Something we should have invested in many years ago! These crampons are made by Yaktrax (Amazon). They're very inexpensive and really improve your footing in icy conditions.
Zion National Park-This is our second visit to Zion this year. We were here in February as well as back in 2018. It's the second most visited of all our National Parks. However, at this time of year it's pretty empty and you can actually drive through the park without having to take a shuttle. During our five-night/four-day stay the highs were typically in the 30's and lows in the 20's. It was mostly sunny the first two days. We did have a couple of really nice snows that transformed the park into a winter wonderland for the last two days.
The Virgin River runs beside Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. There's plenty of great trails and pull outs along the way
Near Sand Beach
We shared the Grotto Trail with around 10 Big Horn Sheep........
sometimes they only showed their arses!
On Saturday night Springdale hosted their annual Christmas parade.........
In addition to floats, decorated bikes, firetrucks and a marching band the town was lit up nicely!
Reindeer...........
Mule Deer!
Then it snowed..........
Which made our last two days in Zion even better!
Next up-This morning we leave Zion and head for a place that's a little different..........Las Vegas! We'll be there for four days before moving on to California. We're thrilled that Ben is meeting us in Las Vegas and we'll all be together for Christmas!
What happens in Vegas....................will be in the next blog!
