September, 2022
When I was young, I would occasionally take mother-daughter trips and later in life, I took father-daughter trips. It has been awhile since I have done these types of trips with my parents, so I figured it would be a nice experience to start them up again. This year, I agreed with my mother to visit three of the Mighty Five national parks in Utah–Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Zion National Park. Two years prior, I visited the other two parks–Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park (sort of). Now, I can fully say I have crossed off all five from my list!
Capitol Reef National Park
We quite enjoyed Capitol Reef National Park. It is quite a gem often overshadowed by its four sister parks, but it is definitely a park that is worth the visit. We didn’t do much hiking here and it was a short stop on our road trip from Colorado to Bryce Canyon National Park. We mostly drove through the the National Park and along Capitol Gorge road. We did walk up to the petroglyphs along Capitol Gorge before heading out. The drive along Capitol Gorge road was beautiful. Since it is one of the smaller national parks in Utah, there were no crowds, but we still could see people walking and hiking around. After Capitol Reef National Park, we took the Scenic Byway 12 through Grand Escalante to Bryce Canyon National Park, taking only an extra 15 min out of our travel time. Scenic Byway 12 has a variety of sceneries, including desertlands, mountains, and forests. Careful of cows on the road since Scenic Byway 12 cuts right through open grazing territory.
Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park was by far both mine and my mom’s favorite national park on this trip. We spent two nights camping on the North Campground right in the park. I could walk five minutes to get to a hiking trail, perfect for night and astrophotography. Bryce Canyon has a wonderful mixture of short hikes, longer hikes, scenic drives, and viewpoints. The contrast of the brown and red hoodoos against the greenery of the forest as the sun either rose or set creates such breath-taking sceneries. This is one national park I would love to visit again.
We arrived a bit before sunset at our campground. Once we set up camp, we drove over to Sunset Point so that I could scope out where specifically I would like to take astrophotography pictures. We arrived at Sunset Point just as the sun was setting behind us. Even though we could not see the sun illuminating the Amphitheater in front of us, the glow from the sunset bounced off of the rocks, specifically off of Bristlecone Point. Even though the purpose of this stop was to allow me to plan for astrophotography later that night, we chose a wonderful time to see Sunset Point during the day.
A few hours later, we returned to Sunset Point to watch the stars. I will say, I am still learning on best methods for photographing the Milky Way or night skies and I can use a lot of improvement, specifically around focusing in the middle of the night. However, I did manage to get a pretty decent view of the Milky Way intersecting with the wall of the amphitheater.
The next day was our full day in Bryce Canyon. Since we were camping, I of course did not sleep horribly well the night before, but good enough. I woke up pretty early, so I decided to explore the campground a bit. That is when I realized there was a hiking trail to the Amphitheater a five minute walk away from our campground. I walked along the Rim Trail taking pictures of the early morning sun glow on the hoodoos and then returned to camp with the decision to visit at night for more astrophotography.
After getting ready, my mother and I agreed to go on a hike through the Amphitheater. We started at Sunrise Point with the intention of finishing at Sunset Point, following the Navajo Loop and Queens Garden Trail. Unfortunately, my mother had to turn around, but she agreed to meet me at Sunset Point. The whole hike took me about an hour and a half. Along it, I walked down into the Amphitheater, through the winding forests, and back up along the rocks. I walked past the rock formation landmarks of Queen Victoria, Two Bridges, and Thor’s Hammer. After completing this hike and meeting up with my mom, we both were ready for lunch followed by a shower, so we returned to camp.
We spent the afternoon driving along Bryce Canyon’s scenic drive, from the North Campground to Rainbow Point scoping out more locations to photograph either the sunrise or sunset. We returned to Bryce Point for a full view of the Amphitheater at sunset, where we ran into some friends that my mother made while hiking (we kept running into this couple repeatedly throughout our whole trip). We then returned to camp for dinner and to relax for the night. I convinced my mom to join me once more for some astrophotography just outside of our campground, and wow did we both love the view from that spot. The stars were shining bright, the Big Dipper hanging nearby, and the hoodoos were still visible with the moon setting behind us.
Our last endeavor in Bryce Canyon was to catch the sunrise at Inspiration Point, therefore, we woke up early, missed the turn to Inspiration Point, turned around and just waited for about 15 to 30 min as the sun rose over the Amphitheater. As everything else in Bryce Canyon, the view of sunrise was remarkable. However, we were due to move on to Zion National Park at this point, so we packed up our camp and said goodbye to Bryce Canyon.
Zion National Park
Zion National Park proved to be a bit more of a challenge for both my mom and me. The park was extremely crowded due to its proximity to Las Vegas. It also was a good 25-30 degrees Fahrenheit hotter at Zion National Park with a high of pushing 100. We intended to camp the first night and move to a hotel within the park the second night. However, the day time temperature was just way too hot to camp and we both needed a break with a good night’s sleep. We found a hotel towards the edge of the town nearby, Springdale. The day we arrived, our energy levels were low, from the early morning wake-up, to the car drive with crowds, and to the heat. Therefore, we took some time to rest up before catching a shuttle in the afternoon that took us to the Narrows. We walked along the Riverside Walk and waded in the water at the entrance to the Narrows, before returning to our hotel where we made s’mores in the microwave, since we didn’t get a chance over a fire.
I started the next day with a short one hour and half hike along the Watchman trail behind the visitor’s center, while my mom got the car packed up and ready to go to the next hotel. The Watchman trail was a short, sweet trail to accomplish given the constraints around us, such as the heat and crowds. Even though the pandemic is winding down, I still have a lot of hesitancy to be around crowds. I don’t think that will ever go away. Either way, the Watchman trail was much less crowded than the shuttle along the scenic road of Zion National Park.
After this hike, my mom and I made our way to the next hotel in the heart of Zion National Park, Zion Lodge. This hotel was definitely a splurge and well worth the splurge. By staying in the hotel, we could access short hiking trails more easily than fully relying on the shuttle, since the hotel is in the part of the park closed to cars. I would highly recommend staying a night at this hotel just to see the stars late at night within the park.
We took an early dinner at The Bit & Spur in Springdale. My friend has family members that run this restaurant and the food was completely delicious. Definitely worth checking out for anyone who is visiting the area. We then decided to explore some of the areas outside of Zion, so we chased the views and caught some wonderful sunset vistas in the surrounding mountains and hills. Then at night, I got a few more night photos (moon was too bright for the Milky Way at this point). The next day, my mother and I went on another short hike to the Emerald Pools. While my mom hiked to the Lower Emerald Pools, I made my way to the Upper Emerald Pools. The hike back provided some wonderful views of the mountains surrounding the canyon. I would recommend anyone visiting Zion National Park to take this short loop hike to the Emerald Pools.
Until next time,
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