I'm a big fan of road trips. Always have been. Give me a map, some good tunes, lots of caffeine and I am ready to roll. There's just a certain sense of freedom and excitement that the open road provides, especially when you have time to do it right.
Growing up as kids, we road tripped up the east coast every summer which I always looked forward to, but in the summer of 2003, then a sophomore in college, my parents planned our first trip out west. Starting with a wedding in Sedona, we continued through northern Arizona, stopping at the Grand Canyon and up through southern Utah hitting both Zion and Bryce National Parks before ending the trip with a few nights in Las Vegas. I was blown away by how incredible these places were. It was life-changing. No seriously, because by the end of it I had made up my mind that I was moving out west. So in the summer of 2006, having just finished school, I packed up my car and made the first of what have now been four roadtrips between Florida and Arizona.
Each trip has been unique and memorable in its own way, and while that first trip was the most exciting, driving out for the first time to start a new life in Arizona, this last one was the most epic. By far. And a big reason for that is because I decided it was time to revisit a few of those places that made me want to move to this part of the country in the first place. I was 20 at the time, and ready to rock, but we were a bit limited in the hikes we could do considering we had my 12 and 16 year old brother and sister in tow. Although...Mo was probably game at the time, she's always been tough, so really it was Jeremy holding us back. Awww but look how cute he was! Sorry dude :)
This would not be the case this time around. Cause he's now an ab crunching P90x obsessed machine. So at my side was that and my tireless rockclimber / thrill seeker friend Tiffany. An unstoppable team.
We loaded up the ship and set sail on May 12, bound for Zion National Park in Southern Utah.
This turned out to be our best driving scenary of the trip. After making the obligatory stop near the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona to check out some Navajo crafts and jewelry, we decided to take a route I had never taken, along 89A up to Zion.
Amazing. Turns out 89A takes you up through Marble Canyon with some of the absolute best scenary in all of Arizona, which I can't wait to explore further in the future! We made it to the gates of Zion around 8pm that night, just in time to be informed by the ranger that all 100+ campsites in the park were full. Really?? But no worries, there was a privately owned campground a mile outside the park which turned out to be perfect. We pitched our tent in the last remaining sunlight of the day and headed into the nearest podunk town 30 miles outside the park for dinner. Thunderbird Restaurant baby! Hit the friggin spot.
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| Ho-made pies? |
While stuffing our faces we made friendly conversation with the table next to us, a group our age from Colorado who were also headed to Zion. They asked about the camping situation and we relayed what we were told but also that we had found a little gem of a spot right outside the park. A half hour after returning they rolled up to the spot next to us. Awesome! We hung out for a bit but overall it was an early night as we had a big day ahead of us. Angels Landing! A hike that I had wanted to do 11 years ago but that would have been a little too intense for our crew at the time. Finally the day had come, and it did not dissapoint!!
Check out the video below of our crazy climb to the top!
Wow what a day, and what a hike to kick things off with! It was pretty strenuous, with plenty of sheer drop offs along the way, which claim a few people each year. But not us, we would survive to hike another day! And that was a good thing, considering the lineup of good ones we had planned over the next few days. On the way back to camp we swung by the general store to load up on beverages for the evening. We arrived back to camp around sunset and got the party started shortly thereafter, along with our awesome new neighbors! We gelled instantly as a group and ended up whooping it up, sharing stories and jokes into the wee hours. It's a good thing we picked this campground where there weren't too many people around us because if you've ever heard me in a full bore laughter, it's pretty loud, and there was a lot of that going on that night!
We set out for Bryce National Park the next morning, but not before exchanging info with our new friends and making tentative plans to meet up a few days later in Denver.
Compared to the day before, the drive to Bryce was a piece of cake. We reached the park gates in a little under three hours and reached the trailhead shortly after that. As the canyon became visible below, I began to remember why I found this place so incredible. It is simply one of the strangest places you will see on this earth, seriously! In fact, you don't really even feel like you're on Earth when you're looking at it and especially when you're hiking through the maze of "hoodoos", the large precarious rock formations jutting into the sky. So cool! It was a fantastic afternoon, slowly meandering through these things. We even met a few new friends along the way which added to the fun.
Check out this vid from our awesome hike through another world!
Pretty wild huh? Kinda wish I had gotten more footage from our hike as the video is pretty short, but oh well. That evening we hit an all you can eat buffet, and it was glorious. At that point we weren't sure what our plan was for getting to Arches National Park, our next destination, as it was a good 6 hours away. After a full day of driving, hiking, then gorging, I was tempted to find the nearest thing that even remotely resembled a campsite and pass out, but ultimately decided I had a few hours of driving in me and that it would be good if we could at least get about halfway to Arches. So off we went. Zoom zoom.
We made it about halfway, to the small town of Richfield, UT, found a cheap motel room and it was lights out. Our plan was to get up at the crack of dawn and hit the road, but that didnt happen. I cant remember exactly what time we got up, but I know we missed the free continental breakfast which ended around 9. I think we all needed the sleep! After a couple hours driving we made it to Arches.
For some reason, my expecations for Arches were a bit low. Im not really sure why, It's just that after how amazing Zion and Bryce were, surely I couldnt continue to place my expectations at that level. At some point I would be let down right? Well, turns out that was not going to happen here. In fact, this turned out to be my favorite of the three parks!
Check it out!!
It was just an absolute playground out there. And I'm glad I had my fearless friend Tiffany that day to try and keep up with, because every time we turned our heads, she was halfway up some massive rock formation! The absolute highlight of the day though was when we climbed up and across Double Arch. I never would have looked at that and been like "lets climb it!", but that's exactly what Tiffany was thinking and so up and across we went!
EPIC!!!
Upon completing our hike, we rushed over to the viewing location for Delicate Arch, the most famous of the Arches and the one you'll see on the Utah license plates, to try to catch it for sunset, which we did, capping off an excellent day!
As we left the park, we had to decide whether to go find a campsite first, or get food. The smart thing to do would have been to get the campsite, while we still had a bit of light, and then come back into town, but of course thats not what we did. And to be fair, I cant speak for the other two but I was freaking starving. We had dinner at the Moab Brewery and it was killer. Best meal of the trip. I got this massive sausage plate that probably could have fed a small family and just demolished it. Then hit the gelato bar next door.
Well after that meal and a few beers to go along, the absolute last thing we felt like doing was setting up a campsite. And lucky for us, the town of Moab was basically just a really long string of hotels, probably about 50 of them in all, so we were sure to find us a nice cheap room to crash. Nope! Literally every hotel had a charter bus parked out front and a No Vacancy sign on the doors. Turns out, the month of May is one of the busiest in Moab, with tons of international tourists flocking there to check out the nearby parks. So, we were screwed in that regard. Resigned to our fate, and with the limited intel we had on where to find the campsites, we turned onto a dark side road hoping for the best. We got about a half mile down the road that presumably would lead to some campsites when Boom, out of nowhere - police lights, I was getting pulled over! Wtf?? Apparently we were doing 30 in a 25 zone or some BS like that so he let us off with a warning. Totally bizarre. But he did confirm that we were indeed headed in the right direction, so that was somewhat reassuring. However, the one critical question we forgot to ask was how long it would take to get to the sites. Because after driving a half hour of through narrow winding dirt roads in complete darkness, a bit of doubt began to creep in as to whether we were indeed going the right way. By 40 minutes, Tiffany and Jeremy were ordering me to turn around, but we stayed the course, and a few long minutes later we came upon a campsite. Good thing cause a couple minutes later and there probably would have been a mutiny. Only problem was that it was completely full! We got out of the car and made friends with a big group of climbers camping there, one of which allowed us to set up our tent next to his. Thank goodness, because who knows how far it would have been to the next one, granted a next one even existed!
The next morning, we intended to check out Canyonlands National Park, which was also nearby, but we got a later start than expected, and honestly after seeing Delicate Arch from a distance the previous evening, we kinda wanted to see that thing up close! Or at least I did. So we take the quick hike up to Delicate Arch before making our way to Outta town. And I'm glad we did, cause it was awesome looking!
It was such a cool spot. Not even just the arch itself but the surrounding area had tons of cool stuff to climb on and explore. Could have easily spent an entire day there. And I felt kinda bad because after an hour or so I had to track down Tiffany and Jeremy who had climbed up some huge rock formation and were peacefully meditating at the top, and yell to them that it was time to go. Hey, we had a schedule to keep!
So off we went, bound for Colorado. And we had big plans that following day. Real big! My friend Jaylynn and I who I met in Nicaragua planned for us to do a "14'er", which means climb to the top of a 14,000+ ft peak. Tiffany also had an avid climbing friend living in Denver who wanted to come along. So at 5am the following morning, we all met up in the parking lot of the Super 8 motel in Leadville, Colorado where we stayed. I put up a fuss about starting so early, but then when I was informed that Jaylynn and Justin (Tiffany's friend) had to drive 2 hours just to meet us there at 5am, I shut my mouth. Outfitted with the best stuff we had or could find, the five of us packed into Jaylynns little Nissan Sentra and made our way up to the snowy trailhead. We were still about a mile from the supposed trailhead before the tires started spinning and we nearly got ourselves stuck. Well, thats as far as the car was gonna get us. Time to get on foot! So off we went, through the snow, on one of the....nah, THE most dangerously epic hike I've ever done!
You have to see this...
There were several moments that day when I was like seriously wtf am I doing right now, from the alarm waking me up at 4:30am to standing atop an icey 13,000ft+ peak with the wind whipping at 70mph threatening to blow us right over the edge. Good stuff!
And yes, we partied like rockstars climbers that night.
As you can see we had had an amazing time on our trip thus far however all the really exciting stuff was front-loaded into the Arizona to Colorado portion of the trip, so once we left "Colorful" Colorado there's not a whole lot else to report.
Aside from a really fun night out in St Louis with my buddy Sean and a great night in Atlanta catching up with my friends Josh and Ally, it was mostly just long hours on the road getting from point A to point B and then passing out. At that point we were just ready to get home and I think Jeremy was starting to get sick of me haha. After a brutal 9 hour final stretch from Atlanta to Boca, we finally made it home sweet home, safe and sound, capping off one heck of a trip!
It was really a lot of fun, but that said, I'm shipping my car and flying next time :)
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