Arches National Park is certainly about the world’s largest concentration of sandstone arches, but it is about so much more. You can find lost civilizations here; magic created from formations that allow you to see worlds only your mind can conjure. If you’ve time, stay long enough to go back into the park at night when the moon and stars appear to light these stone monuments, and you’ll believe in alchemy.
Canyonlands National Park is a weirdly wonderful place. We visited only its northern district near the town of Moab, but read that it stretches into three other completely unique districts over a large portion of southeastern Utah. The park provided outstanding opportunities for both selfies and reflection (but not for us; those soft cliff edges and long drops deterred our participation). We just enjoyed looking at it (and them).
If the glory of the national parks isn’t satisfying enough, driving through Utah between them might add a few more ingredients to your recipe. These were shot meandering between Bryce Canyon National Park and Moab, at a leisurely, completely gratifying pace.
The amphitheater at Bryce Canyon National Park will take your breath away. The hoodoos, created from layers of soft and hard rock eroded by millenniums of freeze and thaw cycles, have been sculpted into fantasy shapes worthy of any story telling. The following Paiute Indian Legend is posted at the rim of the canyon:
Before there were any Indians, the Legend People, To-when-an-ung-wa, lived in that place. There were many of them. They were of many kinds – birds, animals, lizards, and such things – but they looked like people…For some reason, the Legend People in that place were bad. Because they were bad, Coyote turned them all into rocks. You can see them in that place now, all turned into rocks; some standing in rows, some sitting down, some holding on to others. You can see their faces, with paint on them just as they were before they became rocks…
You can imagine anything here. You can see people, castles, armies lined up in formations, choirs of angels, and creatures that may crumble to sand with the next rain. It is possible to walk down into the canyon (the walk back up is considerably more challenging…) and the canyon edges that simply disappear in front of you will help remind you of the fragility of this astonishing landscape. It’s all a wonder.
The driving distance from Zion National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park is only 72 miles, but what a difference an hour makes! Bryce is at higher elevation than Zion so it’s colder, and its frost and thaw patterns have created a fairyland of hoodoos, those fascinating spires of rock that stir the imagination. As one transitions from the gorgeous countryside outside of Zion into the first red rock canyons near Bryce, the trail to the hoodoos announces itself quite dramatically.
Whether you choose to define Zion as a heavenly place or a refuge, you’re right. Emerging from the tunnel on the east side of this vast park, you are met with the above introduction to Zion Canyon; the distant road seen at the bottom of the photo leads you there. Every moment spent in this incredible place offers grandeur, color, drama, serenity and wonder, and the opportunity to engage with nature beyond imagination. We barely touched the park’s offerings, and daily blessed those who had the foresight, political will and determination to establish and ensure protection of this national treasure for all of us.
We approached Zion National Park from its east side, traveling west from Mt. Carmel Junction, on SR 9. “Scenic” isn’t a fair description of the drive; “jaw-dropping” suits me better. Once reaching the park entrance, an additional 12 miles on beautifully paved red roads delivered us to the heart of the park, through land so indescribably foreign I could have considered myself misplaced to Mars. Watching skies that offered both threatening and gorgeous weather, switchbacks led us to higher elevations past rock formations of sculptured sand, and finally (after so many “what’s next?” moments) a mile long tunnel spilled us out into Zion Canyon. Zion Park was just around the bend…
I’m speaking of Zion National Park, of course. The driving distance from Sedona, AZ to Zion in SW Utah, is 266 miles, about 4.5 hour driving time if one doesn’t have to stop every few miles to gape in wonder. We met very little traffic, had a sunny, clear day, and an incredible variety of topography to appreciate. We kept imagining the early travelers west, those in covered wagons, who must have been stunned daily by what they had to contend with and saw yet ahead. They were awesome people; we were just awestruck people.
We are late to the party in fully appreciating the beauty of some of our western states and their national and regional parks, but now that we’ve been initiated, all we can do is wonder why it took us so long. There is little need to describe our nearly 2000 mile road trip in words, and in all fairness, photos aren’t even close to the real thing. May was a wonderful time to travel; there were fewer people than are expected to descend over the summer (this year is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and demand for rooms and camp sites is huge), and the desert is in bloom this month. Even the few storms we met up with provided a gorgeous show. I have a ridiculous number of photos to sort through; I kept thinking I’d eventually get bored with the grandeur and the wild skies, but I didn’t. We started in Sedona, Arizona, and here’s a taste:
I can tell you what happened, but not how or why. On day five, two of the remaining four ducklings died. I quit taking photos. On day six we lost one of the remaining two. And on day seven, Mom flew out of the yard for a while (as was her pattern), leaving the last one alone. He was very busy in the pool for an hour, explored around the yard, and walked off into the tall grass. Mom flew back in several times during the afternoon, but the duckling never reappeared to join her.
It’s hard not to take this experience personally. We didn’t put chemicals in the pool the week before the ducks were born, nor while they were with us. We use no chemicals in the yard. We did not attempt to feed them anything, and predators did not kill them. Several days of rain unearthed bugs and worms and debris they could have ingested to their detriment, but we have spoken to others with pools and ducks who have no similar stories.
I have run through my usual mental platitudes to find a place of consolation, but can’t help but feel somehow responsible. These appeared to be robust ducklings who sickened in our environment. Whether that speaks to our yard, our neighborhood, or our world, I don’t like it.
I took these photos on the first day, not the last, and they are the end of this sad story.
My Time Too 