Southwest national park Trip details!!!! More photos to come later today (Patreon)

If anyone is wondering or curious about the details of my mom and I’d national parks of Utah trip I outlined very thing here! It includes hikes, roads, lodging, food etc.

We started our journey on the 19th

We drove from La to Bryce Canyon

We Went through Zion national park to drive through the tunnel and into Dixie national forest On the scenic Hwy 12. This hwy is well worth the drive just for itself!!! Amazing views at every turn!

We got to Bryce Canyon at sunset and spent time Walking and driving to all the lookouts. I definitely recommend this time of year because the suns position and the change from winter to spring provides the most excellent views.

We stayed At Best western plus near park entrance and would recommend it.

On the 20th we started off our morning early to be on the trail at sunrise for best possible photos. We dipped down into the depths of the park On the Queens garden trail Connecting to the To Navajo trail.

We then left the park to move on to the next des it inaction and stopped at Bryce Canyon coffee co along hwy 12 and it was so cute and good!! Truly a surprise. There are many places to stop but we went to Kodachrome state park and hiked angels palace, a fun short rock scrambling trail!

We really wanted to hike Calf creek recreation area but only had time to picnic there instead. It was lovely

We stopped breifly at the Anasazi museum which is built on its archeological site where they found remains of an ancient people that disappeared from the area long before other natives came back to live.

Drove down burr trail to check it out, didn’t have time but marked for later. Continued Driving on hwy 12 to Torrey. Stayed at the rim rock inn near the entrance to capitol reef and ate at Rim rock pizza.

On the 21st it was our goal to go into and explore capitol reef, another early morning to go out and look out on a viewpoint at river “goosenecks”. We drove into capitol reef to go to the visitor center and drive all the way down the dirt roads to do golden throne trail at end of scenic drive, it was like driving in a slot canyon! So cool! And the hike takes you up so high!

We stopped along the road at the Petroglyph panels and it was a fun game of eye spy as not every petroglyph was marked! I enjoyed that a lot. A little further down the road we stopped at the Hickman bridge hike, which would be our first natural rock arch of the trip!

After that we headed to Goblin state park which was WILD to run around! Truly surreal! Out of the way but an amazing stop. Then it was on inTo Moab Where we stayed at the Adventure inn

22nd

Early morning again and on the trial before sunrise and crowds as we go into arches national park! And this park was BUSYYYY. Our first hike was at Devil garden trailhead-primitive trail. Throughout the day we hiked to Landscape arch/dark Angel/pine tree arch/tunnel arch/partition arch/ Navajo arch/ double o arch/Skyline arch. It was a lot of hiking but worth it and hey it just makes you sleep better at night.

Delicate arch which is the main headliner arch of the park was a seperate hike, which was a a lot more strenuous than I thought, very steep and windy with narrow cliff trails, not for the faint of heart but so worth the view at the end. Along that trail we also saw the old Wolfe ranch and more Petroglyphs

On the 23rd

We Were headed into the next national park and accidentally drove 13 miles past canyon lands entrance oops. We stopped at the Visitor center and headed early to Mesa arch to catch it before it gets to busy and the sun too high. We did 4 mile hike in the prairie of the mess too to look down over the green river and the huge expanse of canyons. We drove out To all the viewpoints and did the Depression hike Which was likely formed by a crater! We Look down at white rim road which is an off roading road that goes deep into the canyons. 4 wheel drive necessary, which we did not have lol.

We headed over then to Dead horse state park which has a terrible name origin 😭 but it was still pretty. Had to grab a Popsicle at the visitor center because it was so hot and then back into Moab, where we definitely recommend the town Co-op market And Thai Bella 🤤 I am obsessed with Thai Bella, a hidden gem in the adventure town and took the food to eat a picnic dinner on Colorado river

24th we leave Moab in the Morning and head into the second district of Canyonlands called the needles district and in my opinion this section , which is far less traveled too, was far superior to its other Canyonland district. Along the road into the park we stopped At Newspaper rock, a huge wall of petroglyphs that is truly stunning. We stopped first at the Visitor center

Where we were directed to the Squaw canyon to spring canyon hike a 7.7 mile excellent hike out of campground A. Amazing hike, would return to do it again. We then Explored more to Pothole point , Roadside ruin , and Cave spring which had the remnants of natives and cowboys which used to live there.

We drove into Mexican hat to stay the night and there was a fantastically Weird geologic curved shelf. We lodged at Hat rock inn (would stay again) And Picnicked in hotel.

25th, starting our journey back to LA we drove throughMonument valley Navajo tribal park which is A 1.5 hour scenic drive, just a drive no hiking but beautiful. Headed through flagstaff and down to Sedona, Picnicked at native craft area out of flagstaff. Before getting into Sedona we Hiked west fork oak creek. This is a favorite trail of mine!!!

Stayed in the town of cottonwood

26th

We Left cottonwood to make it to Palm Springs but frost walked around Jerome, an old mining town atop a hill, very funky and cute, reminded me of Italy in a way.

Drove on the edge of prescott to the edge of palm desert , Saw a super weird desert garage sale and lots of saguaro cactuses. We stopped for Ice cream at lapperts in Palm dessert and I was instantly obsessed with their passion fruit sorbet and ube ice cream. And then after all that hiking we splurged and got our toes done at a nail salon and I had mine painted purple to cover the discoloration in my big toe from hiking, lol I think it’s gonna fall off. And then late night Pool time

27th was a simple day we got to the Living desert animal center first thing in the morning. This is one of favorite places in the world, and if you go in the morning all the animal are out and about. It’s a wildlife rescue, research, and rehabilitation center! It’s absolutely stunning.

And then Just a Very slow drive in traffic back to LA!!!