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So I recently took a trip to southern Utah. I’ve never been a huge fan of the desert: the dust, heat, lack of trees… the huge empty expanses. I guess part of this comes from always living somewhere where I’ve been surrounded by woods, mountains and city. The desert has none of this. After this trip, I changed my mind about a lot of this. The desert, while no Tahiti, isn’t so bad.

The trip began with a questionable landing at the Salt Lake City airport during the first blizzard of the year. After a 30 minute wait on the tarmac, we gated, grabbed the gear and hit the road. A few hours into the drive south, the weather took a turn south. The road began to ice over and the snow piled up. Ahead of us, a brand new jeep overturned when the driver lost control on the ice. Another car slid headfirst into the cliff lining the side of the road. One of my two great fears in life is driving on ice (this is after four winters of working at ski resorts and commuting through blizzards at the crack of dawn so some four year-old could try on a pair of skis and hate it…totally overrated). We eventually topped out on a mountain pass in a deadlocked section of traffic. An 18 wheeler ahead had jackknifed and no one could get around. I spent the first hour wondering if we were going to spend the night sleeping in our rented mini-Hundayi on the middle of the interstate. Four hours later, we crawled down the other side of the pass, into the wide open (and warmer) desert.

The next day began in Zion National Park. Surrounded by the brightest oranges, reds and yellows nature creates, we hiked through waterfalls, along ridges and up Angel’s Landing. Angels Landing tops out in  a ridge about 10 feet wide with several hundred foot cliffs on both sides. It’s all sandstone with a layer of loose sand on top, so one misstep and you’re falling to the valley below. Luckily the National Park Service realized having park visitors plummeting to their deaths on a daily basis wouldn’t be the best marketing, and installed a safety chain along the way. White knuckles locked, we hiked up to the summit for a spectacular view of the cliffs and valleys of Zion.

More Zion pictures: http://tinyurl.com/yf8ot2j

Don't look down...

Trying not to drop the camera

Waterfalls in Zion

Day two was spent at Bryce Canyon. Even if you’re not an avid hiker, I highly recommend making trip at some point. The views are spectacular, and there’s nothing else like it.

More Bryce Canyon pictures: http://tinyurl.com/yh5or8g

Bryce Canyon from Queen's Garden

Wall Street in Bryce Canyon

Looking down on what we hiked in Bryce Canyon

Day three, we arrived at Capitol Reef National Park. We hiked up a slots canyon, as narrow as 8″ in some points with a few cliffs to climb along the way. Definitely not for the claustrophobic or those with a fear of heights.

More Capitol Reef pictures: http://tinyurl.com/ye2mgxb

Sand art

Day four we hiked through Arches National Park. If you’ve seen a Utah license plate, you’ve seen one of the smaller arches in the park, Delicate Arch. In my opinion though, this isn’t the most impressive arch of the park. Landscape Arch, the longest natural arch in the world at 290 feet, is spectacular. Unfortunately due to falling rock, you can no longer hike under the arch to get a real feel for how massive this really is.

More Arches National Park pictures: http://tinyurl.com/yhkgoaa

Turret Arch

Landscape Arch

Day five, the final day of the trip, we visited Canyonlands National Park. Like it’s name implies, there were lots of spectacular canyons to hike through. Highlight was the ancient cliff dwellings, built on the side of a lone mesa in the park.

More Canyonlands pictures: http://tinyurl.com/y9gcu2s

Sunset in Canyonlands

Canyonlands National Park, home of mountains beyond canyons

Ancient cliff dwellings in the Canyonlands

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