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Published: August 6th 2007
Arches National Park
The courthouse-first viewpointA 2005 Memorablog!
When: Memorial weekend 2005
Where: Utah, Colorado & the Four Corners National Monument
What: Covering all the most popular national parks
This was our first long trip as a couple. Utah inspired me the first time I even set foot there .
And since we had around 9-10 days, we wanted to cover Ganesh's favourite,
The Rocky Mountains too! 😊
Itinerary Day 1: Delta flight to Salt Lake City, UT. Drive down to Cedar city, UT
Day 2: Zion National Park
Day 3: Bryce Canyon National Park
Day 4: Arches National Park
Day 5: Four corners National Monument
Day 6: Mesa Verde National Park
Day 7& 8: Million $ highway, San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Day 9: Seven falls, Colorado Springs & Denver
Day 10 & 11: Rocky Mountain National Park
Day 12: Drive back to Salt Lake City; Fly back home to CA.
A long trip, huge mileage, tiring driving & sure long days. Just hoped to say "All worth it" at the end
27th May 2005: Took a flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. We rented a compact car. Got a free upgrade
Arches National Park
Colorado river at sea level to a
Chevy Malibu (hatchback). Only then I realized how on Earth did I plan to book for a compact car with all luggage
We took the I-80 East to I-15 South. What a huge line of cars? Are they going to Vegas? I have never seen so much traffic on I-15. It cleared after a little while. I was getting frustrated as we had to drive quite a bit to Cedar City(250 miles from SLC 😊)
It was scenic, though. We were almost there when suddenly, I saw a light on the sky. I saw it again. Clouds were building up. Yup! Thunderstorm in Cedar City. It began to pour heavily(near 0 visibility) even though it lasted only a few minutes.
We reached Travelodge around 9 pm. The person at the reception actually called out my name. Nah! I am not a famous personality!! We were the last to chk in.
Picked up some info on the next day’s events.
Had a hot shower! Off to bed.
28th May 2005: ZION NATIONAL PARK: Thought we can leave early. But could leave only at 7 am after having breakfast there
Our first stop was Kolob Canyons visitor center. Only
Arches National Park
The other side of the road is a part of Canyonlands NP there we learnt that the narrows were closed. We thought of walking through the canyons. Was there really so much water in Virgin River? 😱
We took the scenic 5 mile drive there. Amazing mountains. Giants!!!
Zion was 70 miles from there. So we took off on I-15. We stopped at the 1st parking lot to board the free shuttle into the park. Quite a bit of traffic. The view of the Zion mountains really amazed me. With the Sun coming up, mountains really brightened up in color.
We checked with the visitor center and boarded the bus through the park. Our first stop was “The Patriarchs”. Then “Weeping Rock”, “Emerald Pool trail head”. The water coming out of Weeping Rock was 4000 yrs old Amazing!
Angels Landing was one trail we wanted to do, but no time….It goes high up the summit.
While on the bus, we saw rock climbers. It takes almost 2 days to reach the top. And being Sandstone mountains, they could not chip the rocks, just find a way though crevices on the otherwise straight mountain. They looked like ants from our bus.
Then came our favorite. The reason that we ever came to
Zion -
The Narrows
. The trail was not long, but I later found out that the high was in the upper 90’s. At the first sight of Virgin River, I thought, how could there be no water in this river. There was no way we could even swim through. High current! With so much of snow pack this year, there was a danger of flash floods as well. They allow people on the narrows when the water is less than 120 cu.ft. That time it was 2000 cu.ft. No way.
We knew we had a long drive ahead. So quickly, picked up a souvenir from the visitor center and off we went. Had our lunch only at 4 pm. Trail mix helped us all the while.
Heard hwy 89 was very scenic. So, ready to go…
We came across an arch on the way, and a tunnel. View of the mountains through the tunnel windows were the best.
It is a scenic journey to our next stop, Bryce Canyon.
On the way, we came across a place “Red Canyon”. True to its name, the whole place was red in color. Our first look of the hoodoos. By the time we
came to our night halt at Tropic, it became so windy. I would become a hoodoo with so much wind.
29th May 2005: BRYCE CANYON Did I ever sleep at all?😞 Probably not. It was 3.30 am. My husband wanted to be at Bryce for sunrise at 5.30 am. I did not want to do this at all. But there we were; before sunrise. The sunrise was almost immediate, but the color it gave the otherwise dark hoodoos, was spectacular. The soft light made the place glow.
Both me and my husband are shutterbugs. So after quite a bit of snapshots, we went to the car for a quick shot of croissants. Boy! I was hungry.
We wanted to take the trail down to the canyon, 'Navajo loop'. Earlier the better. It turned out to be out of the world, but I would not call it an easy hike. It was quite steep in a lot of places. But the scenery was spectacular. Once we were up, the Sun became really strong and I was happy that we were early to escape the sun. We waited to take the shuttle, but looked like they did not have
a good frequency. So, we took our car. Next stop was the farthest-Bryce Point. The whole 'amphitheater' was hidden from the other side. Both the Sun & Wind were strong. We stopped for a while at 'Inspiration Point'. Its even better here.
We felt the Sun and I am not too much of a Sun fan. So, we started driving to Moab. Some 3 - 4 hrs of driving. On the way, there was a huge parking lot. Mossy cave! Just a short hike in and out. Not a big deal, but again a lot of hoodoos.
After a distance, we did not see hoodoos at all.
The drive though
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument was out of the world. Lots of diversity in rock colors, red, white, yellow..
It was a scenic drive to
Capitol Reef National Park. Checking with the Visitor Center gave us some insight on a drive through narrows.
Having missed out in Zion, we took the drive. Roughly about 1.5 hrs. Trust me! If I could quantify, the drive was worth a million dollars.
But, I doubt if we did justice to any of these parks by spending just a day. Well, we had to do what we
Arches National Park
Double arch-this is where we encountered a thunder/sand storm had to do.
30th May 2005: ARCHES NATIONAL PARK We reached Moab late. 9.45 pm last night. Moab apparently, is the gateway to 'Arches National Park'.
The Colorado river was at land level here and was till the brim. This was the day I was hoping for on the entire trip. But people scared us. It is going to be very hot and not a place to hide. But the weather seemed a little cloudy. How glad! When we checked with the Visitor Center, we got to know that there were chances of thunderstorms that afternoon. I was never out on a thunderstorm. It was windy like crazy. Why the hell did I wear shorts?
Our drive got better and better. We stopped to have views of the 'Courthouse', 'Sheep Rock', 'Balancing Rock'. We started our hike in The Windows area. Double Arch was our first. It was very windy. The arch was very very beautiful. But as we got close to the arch, there was this major thunderstorm; thunder, lightning and wind. Blowing sand all over the face. I was scared. We took shelter under a rock beneath the arch; What if the wind pushed the rock? Yes! that windy.
For the couple of minutes it lasted, it shook both me and my husband. It made me hungry. It continued to be windy, but the clouds moved away. That gave some relief. We checked out all the other arches in the loop. Winds made us complete the loop faster by pushing us.
We were off to check out the deeper areas of the park. From nowhere the Sun came out. We took the small hike to 'Delicate Arch' overview. We realized that the hike to the arch would drive out all our energy and take time too. So we dropped it with a big heart. Lots of other arches, Landscape arch, Tunnel arch, that arch & this arch. There was this one arch, that I read a lot about. SANDSTONE ARCH. We took that small trail to the arch. The Arch is not as such big, but the trail was amazing. Though a small slot canyon. With red sand, the whole place was glowing orange.
With a satisfied heart, we left Arches. Not without souvenirs, though! Even though we felt guilty, we really could not find time to visit the huge
Canyonlands National Park. And both of us knew we
Mesa Verde National Park
One of the tours involved climbing tall ladders...no looking down into the canyon might not come back to this part of the country again. sigh!!!😞
Today, we are moving into Colorado. The drive was pleasant. For a long time, I mistook the La Sal mountains for the San Juan range.
We reached Cortez well before sunset. But we had to be somewhere then. Four Corners national monument. We were there
by 8.15 pm. They are a private property and do not accept National park pass; and worse, they close by 9 pm. There was nothing much to do than to take snaps with each of my limbs in each state(UT, CO, AZ & NM)
We drove back 40 miles to our motel. It was the best of any motels I have ever stayed. Would recommend to anyone- El Cortez Motel. So clean.
31st May 2005: MESA VERDE I had never heard of Ute Indians before I visited here. We had less time, so we just took 2 tours of the balcony house and Cliff palace. Balcony house was adventurous; It had a tunnel and 2 ladders; 30 and 60 ft respectively. It was fun. We had to rush to catch the next tour at Cliff palace. It was a much
Mesa Verde National Park
Cliff house ruins- a 'keva'- where ceremonies were held bigger dwelling. Around 100 people stayed there. More of a community center. We saw a lot of Keva’s where traditional ceremonies were held somewhere around 800 AD.
We were out by noon. We started getting views of the San Juans soon enough. We started on our San Juan Skyway tour from Cortez. We picked up some information at the Cortez visitor center. We stopped along the way for snapshots. The drive was amazing. The free Gondola at Telluride(The ski town) is worth visiting. The closest view of the San Juans. We could not see a trailhead to the Bridal Veil falls there. So we just saw it from afar. The town is really pretty.
I was kind of feeling not too good. A slight fever, maybe. By the time we checked in at a
rustic cabin in Ouray, I was in for a very high temperature. Ice breaker: common restrooms(read cold nights & fear of bears ). This cabin, was amazing. I opened the window the next morning and I saw a creek. I felt better, already. Too bad we had to check out.
1st June 2005: There were 2 waterfalls inside the town of Ouray. Btw, did
Mesa Verde National Park
Anasazi ruins dating to 800AD I mention that Ouray is entitled as
Switzerland of America
. Yeah, I would call it a hype. We paid $3 to get into
'Box Canyon falls'(worth a million $)
And another hike-in 'Chasm falls'.
The San Juan skyway is a beautiful, out-of-this-world drive where you drive on par with the mountains.
There is also a train between Durango & Silverton. We booked & had to cancel(though it is termed a "must-see" if you are in the area) as it demanded a whole day.
We turned E from Durango & by nightfall, we were comfortable & cozy at Colorado Springs.
2nd June 2005: The whole city had directions to Seven falls. Wow! It should be something great!(or so we thought!!!). A huge $7 fee allows you inside an almost-full parking lot.(wow! So many people!!!). The first sight of the falls is not all that very impressive. A trickle coming down a couple hundred feet. They also have an elevator to get the view from the top(huh, now that ought to be great!!!). It was great!(to be at the top, wonder why?) We climbed all the stairs to the top. We could not spend more than a couple of minutes there. Took the
Mesa Verde National Park
More than a 100 people lived here- 'Cliff Palace' elevator down.
There are stairs that go beside all of the 7 falls. We paid $7. To max out the benefit, we climbed up the stairs again. Some elders opted out to stay below. It was a good hike & I remember seeing a mountain goat. Or was that a big horn? hmm.
eww...Enough of the falls, now! It was probably one waterfall that failed to impress us.
Heading N, not very far is the 'US air force academy'. There is a beautiful chapel in the premises, which is the only place visitors are allowed. It was magnificent, indeed!
Heading further N, we got into Denver downtown. I've heard the US treasury being a beautiful building. It rained off & on. Ultimate happiness attained when we found the 13th step in the city hall entrance inscribed "1 mile from sea level"
Walking around the place, I somehow felt it unsafe. SF seemed much safer to me.
After spending a couple hours there, we headed to Estes Park, gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Estes Park is a beautiful town, totally laid back. Unfortunately for us, the Trail Ridge Road running through the park was closed earlier that
San Juan Skyway
One of the many stops day due to snow. We had 2 more days! Maybe, they would open.
3rd June 2005: ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK Checking the weather station every hour did not bring any good news. Trail Ridge Road still closed. We went to the visitor center, just a couple miles away. We could travel everywhere, but the TRR. ugh!What an irony?
We still checked out a few other hikes here & there.
We visited the Longs Peak(highest peak in RMNP) area. Did the hike to dream lake in rain & slippery snow. We were carrying a tripod. We had to be careful not to attract a lightning!
By the time we came to Bear lake, thunder clouds vanished. We took the short hike around the lake.
I remember us hunting for some falls, but had to cut short due to very heavy rains. Well! there were other people hiking in the heavy rains too.
Seeing no point in staying there any further, we returned to our room. The city showed a little more crowd then & we walked around.
Hoping to try our luck the next day, we went to bed.
4th June 2005: Well, well, well! TRR 'might' open in the
San Juan Skyway
Bridal veil falls- 'Telluride:the ski town' afternoon. So, we hiked to Cascade falls, Alberta falls area,(Longs Peak area) if I remember right. It was a beautiful day, though. We really hoped that they would open the road. But NO!!!
Plowing seemed impossible, we were told. Weather was bad up there.
It is not like we did not see Rockies at all. So, we came home to pack for the long drive the next day.
5th June 2005: Started our long drive to Salt Lake city. Remember encountering some slowdown on I 80 due to snow. It was a beautiful drive. Thinking now, it seemed like a day, but then, it was a good 8-9 hrs drive. That same night, we came back home to CA.
What more shall I say except, "All definitely worth it!!!"
Let us preserve these parks for many years & generations to come!
We would rate UT as the #1 state in US. Of course, with our limited traveling & personal interests!
-travelbuffs
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