My wife and I have been wanting to visit the Southwest US for quite a while, and decided that this was finally the year to do it.  There’s a ton of stuff to see in the Southwest, but it turns out that it is all very far apart (I’m from Delaware, so this is a novel concept to me), so we focused our efforts on the five National Parks of Utah: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Arches.

This was logistically the most simple of our recent big vacations.  No passports, no foreign languages or currency, no cruise ships or trains to catch, and no gigantic bags of ski equipment to keep track of.  We flew into Salt Lake City, picked up a car, drove around for 10 days, brought it back, and flew home.  Not to say that we didn’t really plan what we were going to do, but it felt like there was a lot less to worry about than usual.  Of course, my wife is amazing at planning vacations, so there’s never anything to worry about in the first place!

As you can probably guess, we spent most of the trip hiking.  I haven’t looked closely at the park maps to try to total it up (if it’s even possible), but I’d have to guess that we averaged 5 to 10 miles a day.  Maybe I’m wrong on that estimate, but we hiked a LOT.  And really, what better way is there to see things like canyons, hoodoos, and arches than up-close and personal on foot?  We didn’t spend all of our time hiking, though.  In Moab, we went rafting on the Red River.  The trip included some Class 1 and 2 rapids, which were fun, but in general it was a relaxing trip and a nice way to spend an afternoon.  And in Zion we got to try our hand at canyoneering.

I’ve written on here a few times about our recent interest in rock climbing.  Canyoneering is clearly related to that, but it kind of works in reverse.  On our canyoneering expedition, we hiked up along the rim of Water Canyon, then donned our dry-suits, harnesses, and other equipment and worked our way back down the canyon, following the course of the river, by a combination of down-climbing and rappelling.  It was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  Aside from the obvious physical challenge, canyoneering challenged me mentally as well, mostly because I had never done anything like it before.  It takes some work to convince yourself that you can lean back, step backwards off a 70-foot cliff, and walk down to the bottom with little effort other than controlling the speed of the rope.  And then on the next one, which was a bit shorter, you add the slight complication that the cliff you are walking down is also a waterfall!  There is a problem-solving aspect to it as well, looking at your surroundings and deciding how best to use them and your equipment to safely reach the bottom with minimum impact to the environment you are travelling through.  Our guide was a fantastic teacher in this regard, encouraging us to make our own decisions and learn from them instead of just always telling us what to do.  As I said, the whole experience was just incredible, not just seeing a canyon or hiking in and around one, but actually getting down into and travelling with the water, which is the very heart of everything that happens in a canyon.  Oh, and it was SO MUCH FUN!  I’d definitely love to go again, I just need to find some canyons on the East Coast first…

Of course, the scenery on our trip was also fantastic.  I thought that nothing could compare to our Alaska vacation last year, but Utah’s National Parks were right up there, though obviously for completely different reasons.  Even more surprising was that each of the five parks was so unique!  Zion is a straight, narrow canyon carved out by the Virgin River, with weeping rock faces, waterfalls, and emerald pools tucked away within its towering cliffs.  Bryce Canyon is a strange landscape of hoodoos and rock fins arrayed in the bowl of a large natural amphitheater, where the vivid colors of the red rocks, green fir forest and bright blue sky all stand out in sharp contrast against each other as well as the pure white snow that blanketed the ground.  (It even snowed while we were there!)  Capitol Reef features white sandstone domes, sheer reddish-brown cliffs with odd, almost fractal-like rock formations at their feet, and an orchard of fruit trees (a remnant of the early settlement of Fruita) that has managed to thrive among the arid landscape.  The aptly-named Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands consists of a large mesa standing 1,200 feet above a white-rimmed plateau (giving the illusion of being above the clouds) which itself is 1,000 feet above the Green and Colorado Rivers that border it on either side and join together at the southern point.  And Arches, as the name would suggest, contains a vast collection of rock fins, spires, and immense arches that stand in bold defiance of gravity and the other forces of nature that continually strive to tear them down.  There were so many times during the week that I caught myself just staring in awe at some rock or overlook for an unknown period of time and having a lot of trouble tearing myself away.

So now we’re back at home.  Maryland welcomed us with a big traffic jam on I-95 on our way home from the airport.  That was kind of harsh after spending a week driving on wide-open highways surrounded by the incredible scenery of the desert, I definitely didn’t miss our traffic.  But it is nice to sit at work and give my legs a rest!  It will take some time to go through our hundreds of pictures, but I’ll try to get some posted here as soon as I can…