Category: Utah

Dirt Roads and Hiking

Dirt Roads and Hiking

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Hey Guys! This is the last of three posts about our two weeks in the Moab, UT area. We really did cram quite a lot into those two weeks!! I feel like we went non-stop and we still didn’t even scratch the surface of what’s in the Moab area. I think it’s safe to say that we will definitely be revisiting Moab in the future.

One of our favorite things about this Nomad life of ours is the people we get to meet. Our neighbors in Moab were super nice! They were in the middle of an epic road trip from Massachusetts all the way to Arizona and back. When they left, they gave us a few guide books for the Moab area and they left notes as to what they did! Like I said..super nice! We ended up doing the Gemini Bridges trail/hike because they’d recommended it and Guys, it was awesome! To get to the Gemini Bridges we drove up a dirt 4×4 road. Yup, we found another dirt road to drive on. The road up to the plateau that the bridges are found on was steep and narrow with a pretty big drop on one side, but once we got up onto the plateau, the road was better. There are a few places to park and a marked trail out to the bridges. Gemini Bridges are two natural bridges that lay side by side. There’s about a six foot gap between them and apparently some people try to jump the gap…and a few have missed. The sheer height of the cliffs near the bridges could set someone’s vertigo off. It was so steep! When we got there a group was leaving. We had the place to ourselves for about ten minutes.

When we left Gemini Bridges we went a different way and ended up on a paved highway just outside of Canyonlands National Park. On the way home we found a scenic pull off with a short hike. Not a bad view. We were amazed at how far we could see. The day we went was crazy windy! We were very careful not to get too close to any of the edges because we were concerned we’d get blown off by a gust of wind. It was that windy.

A couple of years ago, I found a picture of Fisher Towers somewhere on social media and I immediately wanted to go see them in person. I tagged them on my Google Map and waited patiently for the time we would be in the Moab area.

I loved this hike! It was just the right combination of effort and views to make it interesting and enjoyable. I can’t really imagine doing this hike in the summer though. There wasn’t much shade to be found on the trail and there was a fair amount of effort in going up and down to navigate this trail. The whole area is made of pinnacles, spires, and fins that you wind your way around.

After we finished playing over at the Fisher Towers, we headed down the road to Onion Creek for a dirt road adventure. Onion Creek got it’s name from the slightly stinky smell of the creek. You splash through this creek several times as you make your way through some really cool rock formations. We were surprised by all the different rock colors! The top right picture in the above gallery reminded us so much of Artist Pallet in Death Valley. We didn’t drive the entire road, but what we saw was really cool!

Corona Arch trail is one of our favorites in the Moab area! This trail is only three miles long , but it leads to one of the biggest arches in the Moab area. We went on a late afternoon, mid-week and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We passed a few people on the trail and there was one other person at the arch with us, but there wasn’t a crowd of people like you’ll find over in Arches National Park.

The trail to Corona Arch has you climbing up a ladder and using some steps that have been cut into the side of the rock (called Moki steps) along with some cables. It wasn’t too technical, but just hard enough to be fun. It’s a great hike for someone who’s trying to get outside of their comfort zone just a little and get off the flat path.

Your effort is rewarded with not one but two arches. Bowtie Arch is…I think…a pothole arch and it’s smaller, but still very cool. The star of the hike is Corona Arch. We actually all voted Corona Arch our favorite arch in the area. And yes, that’s including all of the arches we saw at Arches National Park! Corona Arch has an opening of 140 feet across by 105 feet tall and is made of Navajo sandstone like most of the arches in the area. Rumor has it…that airplanes used to fly through the opening of Corona Arch. Since it’s not in a National Park…it’s not quite as protected. I think it’s now a BLM NP Unite and protected land though so hopefully, it’ll receive some more protection.

That’s it, Guys! That is pretty much everything we did in the Moab area. We checked off everything we had on our list, but ended up adding several new things to see next time!

See y’all down the road!

#NationalParkTour
A Day of Monuments

A Day of Monuments

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Hey Guys! Since we’re on a National Park Tour we decided to cram three National Monuments into one very long day. Three. I’m not sure that was one of our better ideas…but we did it and we all survived…barely. Ha!

Our first stop was in the Shash Jaa Unit of Bears Ears National Monument. Bears Ears is made up of two different units and is bursting with ancestral dwellings, rock art, and amazing rock formations. The whole National Monument is contained within about 228,000 acres. The Shash Jaa Unit has some incredible cliff dwellings tucked into the sides of cliffs and in caves.

Bears Ears NM is so big…and we were trying to squish three different National Monuments into one day…so we had to pick and choose what we made time for during this visit. My main interest was a place I’d found out about several years ago…House on Fire. The trick is to get there during the right time of day so that the sun bounces off the canyon floor and hits the cliff dwelling giving it a fiery glow. We got there too early and joined the small group who were also there to see the phenomenon of House on Fire. While we waited I took pictures from several angles at several different times. I took some with my good camera…I took some with my phone camera…I took some up-close…far away… You get the point. I was covering all of my bases trying to capture the amazing effect I’d seen on the interwebs. I got it! I had several different pictures that I deemed worthy. And, honestly, my phone camera picked up the effect just as good as my expensive camera.

Bears Ears National Monument is a newer National Park. There’s not an official visitor center yet. It seemed to us that the area BLM Rangers and National Park Service Rangers were all kind of sharing the stewardship of this particular park. We hope to one day go back and explore more of this amazing park. BTW…Bears Ears NM is named for the two towering buttes that stand out against the surrounding landscape. You can see them in the picture on the right.

Natural Bridges National Monument was our second stop of the day. This might be a good time to tell you the difference between an arch and a natural bridge. An arch has to have an opening of three feet and is the remnants of geological stone formations such as fins, ridges, or rock cliffs. A natural bridge is formed when running water cuts through a canyon wall. Natural bridges are actually more rare than arches. Another noteworthy difference is that bridges tend to be lower in canyons while arches are usually higher up and easier to spot. Both are formed from different types of erosional forces.

Natural Bridges National Monument is the home to three of the world’s largest natural bridges and all of them are within the same canyon. Sipapu Bridge is actually taller than the National Capitol Building. There are short but steep hikes down to each of the three bridges. You can see them from some well placed viewpoints as well. We’d already done some hiking this day and the boys were starting to make noise about lunch, so we opted to gaze at the natural bridges from afar instead of hiking down to each of them.

Our last stop of the day was Hovenweep National Monument. This National Monument tells the story (or at least what we know of the story) of a group now known as the Ancestral Puebloan people. There have been people living in and around Little Ruin Canyon for thousands of years. They started out as hunter/gatherers and somewhere around AD 900, settlements began appearing along the cliff walls and around the top of the canyon. In the 1200s, the Ancestral Puebloans started adding pit houses, kivas, and pueblos to the community that was now around 2,500 members strong.

Most of the ruins you can see standing today were built in the mid to late 1200s. This little community was just one in a whole system of settlements. Each community was a days walk to the next community. There’s a bit of a puzzle as to why so many stone towers were built in this particular location and why they were placed in sometimes precarious positions along the canyon rim or within the canyon. No one knows why the Ancestral Puebloan people seemed to suddenly disappear or why they left or even where they went.

We’ve always enjoyed learning about our country’s history. Some of our favorite National Park Units tell the story of the first people to call our country home. We had several great conversations as we walked through these ancient dwellings. Where did they go…why did they leave…why did they build the towers? Sometimes we leave a National Park with more questions than when we got there and that’s ok. One of the reasons we go to National Parks is to learn and sometimes you have to learn what questions to ask before you can find the answer.

Well, Guys…I think I’m going to hit the pause button again on the Moab area adventures. I’ve got more to share with you so stay tuned!

See y’all down the road!

#NationalParkTour
Arches and Canyons

Arches and Canyons

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Hey Guys!! We made it to Utah!! We loved Colorado quite a bit and we’re totally going to miss it, but we were ready to adventure into a different state…at least for a little while.

Y’all know we’re on a National Park Tour so it shouldn’t be a surprise that our first stop in Moab was Arches National Park. We stayed pretty close to Arches, so we were in and out of the park on a fairly consistent basis during our two weeks in the area. We would head there in the late afternoons to get some hiking in and it worked out pretty well because most other explorers were headed out about that same time which meant…fewer people in the park.

Arches National Park is home to over two thousand natural arches made out of sandstone. There are several arches you can see right from the paved road that winds its way through the park. But, if you want to really experience an arch…you’ll need to get out of your car and get some sand under your feet. To photograph an arch, you’ll want a little distance so you can get the whole arch in the shot, but to get a good feel for how big some of these arches are, you’ll need to get up close to one. This can be easier said than done on most days in the park. Arches NP is super crowded with tons of other people trying to get “the view” of that same arch you’re trying so hard to get “that shot” of. It can be frustrating. We try to avoid going into a busy NP during the weekend or over a holiday. We had better luck with crowds by going during odd times…usually later in the afternoon/evening throughout the week when most people were leaving.

Arches are the main attraction at this National Park, but they aren’t the only attraction. There are also towering sandstone spires, pinnacles, fins, and balanced rocks. Some formations look like elephants! To get to Sandstone Arch, you have to hike between two sandstone fins! It was a really short and neat hike.

It takes a lot to make an arch. You have to have the right kind of rock and it has to be exposed to just the right combination of environmental factors…and time…lots and lots of time. In order to be considered an “official arch”… there has to be at least three feet of space within the opening of the arch. Becoming an arch is no easy task.

If you’ve ever seen a postcard or a sticker or sign for Arches National Park, chances are…you’ve seen Delicate Arch. Delicate Arch is the poster arch for all arches at Arches National Park. It’s the arch that all of the other arches want to be. It’s a stand-alone, complete arch with an awesome view. There are two ways to see Delicate Arch. You can go to one of two viewpoints or you can go to the trail-head and hike the mile and half up, up and up to get to the actual arch. We did both. We stopped by the viewpoints first, but when we saw how far away we still were…we went back on a different day to hike up to Delicate Arch. I’m so glad we hiked it…the view from the top is spectacular and while there was quite a lot of up to this hike, it wasn’t too horrible.

Our favorite hikes at Arches National Park was the Devils Garden. There are several different trails and arches you can get to within the Devils Garden. We did the four mile Double O Arch Trail and it was awesome! When you first start this trail the crowd can be a bit thick, but once you get to the good stuff…the part where you climb up the back of one of the fins…the crowd starts to thin. And then when you walk across the back of a different fin…Guys…the views. I caught the boys with their mouths hanging open and their cameras out trying to capture the amazingness of this hike. I know, I know, some of you don’t think amazingness is a real word…and if it’s not…well, it should be. It. Should. Be.

We timed our Double O Arch hike just right. We got there ogled all of the views, shimmied down the back of the fin and made it to the trail-head right as the light show started during that evening’s sunset. We stopped the car several times so we could all sit and watch the sunset. Mother Nature was not playing around that night…no…she was showing us some of her best stuff. She always wins. Always.

We only spent a day at Canyonlands National Park. We were a little farther away from it and there was so much to see and do in the area that we didn’t want to take the time to drive all the way back. We only had time to visit one of the three sections of Canyonlands NP. We spent time in the Island in the Sky section. We’ve already discussed the need to go back and see more of this park. It is, after all, the biggest national park in Utah and that is saying something.

We did the scenic drive, stopped at all the stops, and got in a couple of short hikes, but we were really wanting to drive down into the canyon and then find our way over to Potash road where we could drive back to Moab…on a dirt road…following the Colorado River for most of it. Y’all know how we are about dirt roads. Ha! Canyonlands National Park has a canyon within a canyon within a canyon. I’m not even joking. There are three layers of canyons at work in the picture above!

We seem to always find ourselves on a dirt road. What is it about dirt roads that we love so much? Well, they usually take us to some pretty dang awesome places and…not many people are equipped to drive them so the crowds tend to thin out a bit. We drove down out of Canyonlands on Shafer Trail then made our way over to Potash Road and back to Moab. Potash Road is one of our absolute favorite dirt roads in the Moab area. The views along this drive are breathtaking as it follows the Colorado River for several miles.

Well, Guys…I think I’m going to pause here for now and pick up with some more of our Moab adventures next time!! We crammed so much into these two weeks…So, stay tuned!!

See y’all down the road!

#NationalParkTour

Pizza Roundup Junction Pizzeria And Grill

Pizza Roundup Junction Pizzeria And Grill

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To my fellow pizza lovers! I bring to you a post from Midvale, UT.

Junction Pizzeria and Grill is a decent pizza place. I’m not sure the cashier quite understood what we were wanting when we tried to get a hamburger with no bun. One of us wanted just hamburger patties with cheese and they tried to charge us $30 for it. That’s an expensive burger.

The regular burgers looked pretty darn tasty.

The one who wanted the $30 burger ended up getting some chicken wings instead. He said they were good.

Mom got the poutine, and they do NOT skimp on the gravy. Or cheese. It’s all loaded! The restaurant was clean.

I’m giving a 3 star review because of the burger fiasco.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

Written by Nicholas
Park City, UT

Park City, UT

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Hey Guys!! We made it to Utah! This trip, our stay in Utah was only one week, but we have plans to spend about a month and a half exploring more of Utah next year.

We stayed at an RV park in Park City, UT. It wasn’t a terribly long drive day for us, but it was super hot and it was pretty much a constant climb up hills the entire way. Our home-on-wheels started to protest the heat and having to work so hard when we were about twenty minutes away from our RV park in Park City. Luckily, we were right by a chain-up area where we could pull off. We unhooked the toad and I drove the rest of the way in the 4Runner while Jerl drove the RV.

The boys were super excited to have a pool to play in all week. We had the pool and the hot tub all to our selves the entire time. We didn’t mind. The water in the pool was pretty cold…even though the day temps were warm, the nights would dip pretty cold. Nicholas was really cold one day when he got out of the pool and it took us a good five minutes to talk him into getting into the hot tub with us to warm up. He kept saying he was too cold for the hot tub! Ha! Kids…

We had access to a great hiking trail right outside the RV park. We love to walk in the evenings. Some RV parks are good for it and some aren’t. It’s always nice to find a park where we can easily get some walking miles in.

We were close to Salt Lake City so we went to visit the Utah State Capitol Building. I love all of the columns. And Guys, check out that dome! I love the clouds and all of the seagulls painted on it. So pretty! All of that Georgia marble is gorgeous. And the huge skylight… love it!

I don’t know what this animal is supposed to be. It looks like a Pegasus with pink wings combined with a seahorse. Whatever it is, it’s stinkin’ cute. Even though the Utah SCB wasn’t one of the biggest ones we’ve seen…even though it wasn’t super ornate… the whole building was impressive with it’s attention to details.

We wanted to lay eyes on the Great Salt Lake. I did a little looking and found Antelope Island State Park which sits in the Great Salt Lake. We headed over for a little looky-loo one afternoon. From my research I knew the best place to see the island’s bison herd was over at the Historic Fielding Garr Ranch so we headed that way. We hadn’t gotten very far into the park when we spotted our first bison. They were everywhere! Some were in groups, some were out solo or in pairs.

Down the road from the bison we ran into these curious prong horn antelope. They were right by the road. I didn’t have to use zoom at all to get that shot. We stopped for a minute, then drove on when they started to get a little antsy with the paparazzi sticking a camera in their face. Aren’t the gorgeous though?! We were really surprised by how awesome this little island was. At forty-two square miles, Antelope Island is the largest of ten islands that sit in the Great Salt Lake.

The Historic Fielding Garr Ranch is where the majority of the bison herd hangs out. It was closed when we got there (after 5pm), but we were still able to walk around and look. Fielding Garr Ranch was established in 1848 and is one of the oldest working ranches in the Western US. In 1893, twelve American Bison were brought to Fielding Garr Ranch. Those twelve eventually became one of the biggest and oldest bison herds in the US. Today, the number of bison fluctuates between 500 and 700 bison depending on how many calves were born and how many bison were culled, sent to other herds, or died of natural causes. If you’re in the area, every October the Great Bison Roundup takes place where they gather up all of the bison on the island and do a health check to decide about culling or moving of the bison. We’d love to go check out the roundup some year!

After we got our fill of bison…honestly, can that ever happen…we drove to the other side of the island to do a short hike out to Lady Finger Point. We were loosing the sun at this point so we couldn’t do much hiking. We got out to the point just in time for a pretty spectacular sunset. We took our time looking around then headed back to the car before we lost all light.

We found a great burger place called Proper Burger. Check out that burger! Yup, those are fries on the burger. You can’t see it but there was also an egg on the burger with those fries and bacon. You should check it out if you’re in the Salt Lake area.

I didn’t really see any pretties during our week in Utah. It was toward the end of summer and still really hot and dry. I did catch this thistle just as it was starting to open up. I love the symmetry of it along with the colors.

We really enjoyed our week in Utah. It was short and went fast, but it was a great first trip to the state. We’re hoping to spend all of next September (2019) and part of October exploring a few of Utah’s National Parks!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018