America the Beautiful, Utah Edition

Because we didn't get a full day yesterday, we wanted to do some more hiking today around Zion.  As Meghan mentioned yesterday, there are quite a few trails.  We did two of the easier ones yesterday, so today we tackled a moderate one (the Kayenta trail, which then connects to the Emerald Pools trail).  Again, Hannah rode in the backpack except for when we took her out for pictures.

We had a little more sun than we did yesterday, so we got to see some of the enormous rocks in better light.  Again, it's basically impossible for these picture to convey how massive these rocks are, as the faces of some of them are 2,000 feet tall.

The Kayenta trail was a little steep, and mildly treacherous, but the main thing that made it moderate was the cliffs.  The drop-offs were pretty steep in some places, so we made sure to keep the kids safe as we went up, though things were considerably easier once we transitioned to the Emerald Pools trail.

After we finished our hike, we headed toward the final major destination of our trip: Bryce Canyon National Park, which is a couple hours away from Zion.  As you approach Bryce, you pass Red Canyon which starts to give you a taste of what you'll see in Bryce.  Clara was excited, but Hannah was less so.

Here you see the computer-generated landscape for an upcoming sci-fi movie.  Wait, no, this is actually real life.  I really had no idea this stuff existed.  I mean, the Grand Canyon is amazing in its own way, but it's something we've all seen at least in pictures.  But these things are crazy.  The spire/chimney things are called hoodoos.  And there are thousands of them here, more than anywhere else in the world.

We hiked up to a look-out point to take some pictures.

It was a lot of uphill hiking.  I ended up carrying Clara again for part of it, with Hannah still on my back.  Meghan and Joshua hiked together, with Joshua using his "staff" to help him walk.

We walked back down to our car, and then drove to another lookout point, which was much higher than the first one.  From there we could get a full view of all the hoodoos.  It's amazing to me that we have so many jaw-droppingly beautiful things in our country, and especially that there are places like this one that are relatively unknown.

It was a cloudy day, so the canyon wasn't as bright as it normally is when the sun is shining on it.  Still, it was breath-taking, and we took a few more pictures knowing that our day in the park was done.

On the way out, God was all like, "Oh yeah?  You think those rocks and canyons are all I can do?  How about this?" and showed off by adding this sunset to the things we saw today.

It was another great day of our vacation, and unfortunately it's essentially our last, as we begin our long drive home tomorrow morning.

Zion

Today we made the relatively short drive from Las Vegas to Zion National Park, near Springdale, Utah. Before we went to the park, we stopped for lunch in Springdale at the Whiptail Grill, which is a Mexican restaurant in a former gas station. Springdale was actually super cute and had a lot of good dining options which is not always the case near a national park, so that was exciting. The food was good and after that we made our way into the park.

The park is really beautiful and, unfortunately, no camera can really capture the scope of things. The cliffs/rocks are huge and magnificent.

Weekends in November, especially Thanksgiving weekend, are quite peak times at the park so they do not allow you to drive your car through. Instead, you have to take the shuttle. We are staying on-site, so we can drive our car in, but there is not parking this late in the day except at the hotel so we still took the shuttle to the trailheads.

The first trail we did was Weeping Rock. This was short, but steep, but the view at the top made it worth it.

Next we did the Riverside Walk. This is super flat and paved and easy and offered some great views of the river. I would have liked to do the whole thing, but it gets dark here pretty early and we were running out of daylight. The Riverside Walk leads to The Narrows, which is probably the most popular trail in the whole park. If Jason and I were alone, we would definitely do this hike or at least part of it. With kids it's not feasible because of all the wading, but I would have liked to at least see the beginning of it.

We bought a hiking backpack to carry Hannah and she really loves it. She calls it her stroller and tells Jason to "push her" in it. However, Clara got tired before we were done. Luckily Jason was just telling me he wanted to work out on this trip, so he didn't mind too much when he was carrying Clara in his arms and Hannah on his back. But after awhile we decided Hannah should maybe walk. Clara is actually super easy to carry because she is very light and holds on well, but since Hannah hadn't set foot on the ground, we decided to make her try it. At first she was really unhappy about the backpack situation. But then she perked up and enjoyed walking the last part of the trail.

 Jason went and got us dinner at Pizza and Noodle and brought it back. The town is really close to the park, but it took awhile to get there because it is very dark and plus there are all these deer near the road who are not remotely cautious. Like this guy, who didn't even care when Jason took his picture.

We enjoyed our dinner in the room and watched Despicable Me on tv. We had a super fun day and hope to do more here tomorrow before heading home.

Valley of Fire Revisited

Valley of Fire State Park is very close to Las Vegas (about an hour away), so today we took advantage of some free time to go see it.  Meghan, Baby Joshua, and I went there during our vacation in 2011, but we didn't spent a lot of time there.  Still, I loved it, and it was definitely something we wanted to see again on this trip.  This place is pretty much unreal. From the time to approach it via the highway until you're inside the park, it's stunning.  You may not realize the scale of it until you notice the tiny road with the tiny cars in the picture on the lower right.

Here you start to get an idea of the expansiveness of the park.  There are quite a few places to park and then go on your own to hike and explore.  Meghan had packed us picnic lunches, so we chose one with picnic tables and had a quick meal before we got started.

We has decided to hike this trail, but the description hadn't prepared us for the elevation change. Meghan wasn't so sure about our whole family going down this steep path, but I convinced her it would be fine.

Everyone did well, but for the steepest parts (the rocks were also conveniently covered in a layer of somewhat slippery sand), I helped the kids down and then parked them in a safe spot and went back up to help Meghan down.  Here she is at first remaining unconvinced that this isn't a terrible idea of mine and then later feeling relieved that she avoided a skull fracture.

Along the path there were many nooks and crannies where bigger kids might climb, but our kids had to be put into in the name of getting pictures.  If I were by myself, I would have climbed all over the place all day long, as there are no restrictions on climbing, surprisingly.  But in this case I limited it to taking everyone up a moderate rock formation, and we celebrated with pictures at the top.

After we made it to the bottom of the trail, we circled around to take the much easier path back up to the parking lot.  Hannah, being Hannah, wasn't interested in walking.  We anticipated this and bought a nice backpack off Craigslist before we went, so I carried her around in it.  She loved it, and it really wasn't much of a burden on me at all, as it was a quality backpack, so it didn't feel like she was weighing me down.

The sun was setting as we finished our walk, turning the rocks an even brighter orange than normal.  Hannah continued to enjoy her first class accommodations through the park.

When we returned home, the kids got to enjoy some time with their grandparents.

Last time we went to Valley of Fire, we didn't stay long enough for me to realize really how awesome it is.  I'm really glad we got to go again this time, as I love that place so much.  I could spend days and days just climbing around and exploring if I had the time.  But for now, I'm just happy to get to go whenever we're close enough to make it happen, which hopefully we'll be able to do every time we're in the area in the future.