Wild Wild West - Week 1

Hello again! We are back from our vacation, sorry we left the blog a little aside, but here we are ready to update you from our beautiful trip!

Probably you read in our previous post how unsure we were about the government shutting down. We were flying on a Tuesday afternoon, and we were listening to the radio until Monday midnight in order to know what to expect, well, actually almost convinced that we would have to change our plans. Indeed, at 12 o'clock AM they informed of the shutdown, meaning that all national monuments, museums, parks etc. would be closed until further notice. Of course, it was too late to change anything, so we flew anyways, and started the "alternative route". I'm going to tell you how we did and accompany the description with beautiful photos from Andres, who did the best job o recording the  beauty of the places we visited. The best thing would be to split it in weeks, that way you don't have to read everything all at once, because at the end we did a whole lot of things :)

First station: Snow Canyon, Zion and Coral Pink Sand Dunes

We arrived to Las Vegas at night, and started our re-planning right away. Our first station was supposed to be California, starting in the Death Valley National Park. However, since the parks were going to be closed, we thought the best idea was to start with Utah, since there is also a lot of state parks as an alternative. We visited the Snow Canyon state park, and the next day drove "around" the Zion National park. It was very beautiful to start seeing this kind of sandstone that characterizes the whole region we visited.

The tree leafs starting to go red were also a delight to watch.

Since there is a state road that crosses Zion, they let us drive though the National Park, however we couldn't stop even to make photos. It was a mixture of fascination with the beauty, and disappointment for not being allowed to visit is more in depth.

After that we stayed the night in the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. As its name indicates, awesome sand dunes raise in the middle of a region as if it were the Sahara desert.

This phenomenon takes place because of the type of stone that surrounds the area, which is easily eroded by the wind. This carries the sand up to a more open area, where the sand is deposited and cumulated. The result is odd and beautiful, mostly at dawn and dusk, when the sun reflects on the dunes.

The bad thing there was the wind. It was a cold, windy night, so in a tent we really felt it (by the way, we were the only tent in the campground, the others had RVs, but also felt it going below 0 degC).


Second Station: Kodachrome Basin and Bryce National Park 

After that we visited the Kodachrome Basin State Park. It is a region with "geysers" similar to the ones found in the Yellowstone area, but dried out. The forms of the sandstone spires are incredible, difficult to believe that such monuments raise naturally.

Also there are some amazing caves hidden behind enormous stone pieces.

In the evening we drove a road to the only possible spot to look into Bryce National Park. It was not a lot, but at least we got a nice view (of what we were missing...).

Third station: Escalante River

Moving on, we spent one day walking at the sides of the Escalante river, which follows the path of a wide canyon. The hike was very enjoyable, since we had to cross the river every once in a while as the path would disappear on the side we were. This meant taking off the shoes, at a certain point we gave up and kept walking barefoot. Some highlights on the way are shown in the photos: some Indian petroglyphs somehow hidden to the public, and an amazing arch.

After this hike we drove up to the falls that gave place to the same river, where we could take beautiful views of the whole valley.

Going down, the stone had amazing shapes, as it had been modeled by gigantic fingers.

Below the falls (not much water in October).

 That night we did free camping, and despite some fears to humans and other animals, it was a great experience to wake up to the views of the valley.

Fourth Station: Peek-a-boo and Spooky Canyons

The next day we experienced a new thing, the so called slot canyons, they are basically narrow canyons made by the water rushing though rock. In contrast to bigger canyons (like for instance the grand canyon), it is not very wide, in fact sometimes the walls are so closed to each other that you can't get through with a backpack. 

Peek-a-boo shows difficulty from the beginning, because we had to climb up about 2 meters to get in, and the eroded walls did not make it easy to crawl in. After that, there numerous ins and outs, you have to jump up and down to make the whole length of it.

It is amazing to see the waves that the water did to make it though the rock, sometimes it just goes straight, sometimes it goes up and down, right and left,... And this rock is just so soft that takes these beautiful forms that water leaves behind.

And the end of doing both slots we were as tired as if we had been working out for hours. It goes without saying that the next day I muscles were so sore I could not move my arms or legs :) 

This ends the story of our first week out west. Next week we'll tell more about nice places we visited in Arizona, New Mexico, and... Utah again. We'll keep you busy!

Lots of love

Lita & Andres