Winding Our Way Through Zion, Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon

Hello Everybody!

The last time we wrote to you, we had just left Death Valley and were staying the night in Vegas. Don't get too excited, we didn't go out but we DID go to one of Guy Fieri's favorite spots in Vegas. Four Kegs is a little whole in the wall bar/ restaurant that is famous for their Stromboli (I don't even know if I am spelling that right). For those of you who don't know what stromboli is (because I didn't prior to eating one) it is basically a giant folded up pizza. It was so good, it was all Conner could talk about for the next 48 hours.

Because we have been to three amazing places and there is so much to say about each of them, I'm just going to split this post up into sections, so warning, this is going to be a long one. Also, we have so many pictures that we have to leave them uploading over night, we just figured we would update you beforehand.

ZION NATIONAL PARK, UTAH

There are no words that can describe how incredibly massive and beautiful the rock formations are in Zion. I am almost hesitant to put up our pictures because, while Conner took beautiful photos, they are no compaison to the real thing. When we were waiting in line to get into the park, neither of us really knew what to expect. In fact, we had never heard much about Zion so we were in for a huge surprise when we finally made it in. Both of us went silent as we drove along this winding road engulfed by these GIGANTIC rocks. They towered over us and I have never felt so tiny. There weren't any campsites open in the park, so we were told to head about a mile east outside of the park. I was a little bummed at first because I was hoping to stay in Zion, however, when we started driving out the east end of the park, my thoughts changed. The drive was beautiful, leading us up and around the park and giving us amazing views of the rocks. It took us about 20 minutes to get out of the park and I don't think either of us actually said anything the whole time, we were so amazed.
We got settled at camp and decided to head back to the park to do some hiking. We had heard about the Emerald Pools so we hopped on a shuttle that took us to the trailhead. It was a short, easy hike that first led us to the lower pools. When we got to the pool, it looked almost enchanted, with two little water falls falling from above us into this pretty little pool. It was gorgeous so we decided to hike to the upper pools. This was awesome, it looked like it was straight out of a movie. A big pool surrounded by huge, straight up cliffs and rocks all around it. Pretty awesome start to the park.

We went to bed early because we were going on our first backpacking trip the next day up to the West Rim of the park. We were hoping to get to the shuttle by 6:30 am and were really surprised when we looked at our clocks and it was almost 8 when we finally got on. It wasn't until yesterday ( 2 days after) that we realized Utah was an hour ahead of us..opps! When we were waiting for the shuttle a girl asked us where we were going. We told her we were heading up to camp and she replied by telling us we look "very professional and hardcore." This was quite possibly the best compliment ever because we both know we are exactly the opposite of that.

So we set off onto our first big hike. We had no idea just how "big" this hike was goign to be. About 5 minutes into our hike, we look up and see a vertical cliff. No joke, straight up vertical at least 1,500 ft high. These were our first switchbacks and later we learned were only about 1/8 into our hike. Extremely hard, or so we thought. We made it up and while the rest of the hikers veered off to do the more popular trail (Angels Landing) we kept going up the West Rim...and by up, I mean UP. Finally, we stopped and had a granola bar. This was by far the most amazing granola bar in the entire world (direct quote, by the way, from Conner). We kept going and while this hike was strenuous, the views were unbelievable beautiful. After about six hours of hiking, we made it to our campspot. We pitched our tent and instantly fell asleep. When we woke up, we had no concept of time so we decided it was time for dinner, the long awaited baked beans and ramen!! After dinner, Conner decided he needed dessert. When you think dessert, what comes to your mind? Ice cream? Cookies? Cake? That's what the normal person would think. Conner thought grasshopper. It was actually pretty hilarious watching him crawl through the grass trying to catch a grasshopper. When he did, he put the poor guy in a frying pan, added some oil and hot sauce and ate him. I'll just leave it at that.

After that, we walked around, played twenty questions, a game of two person charades and then decided we were bored. We didn't bring anything to do so what did we do? We packed up our tent and backpacks and headed down the trail. We felt pretty silly, but I justified it as, we did sleep in the tent and we did cook a meal, we just did it in lighting speed. So with our newborn energy, we began our long journey down. Literally all we talked about for the first two hours down the trail was food. By the end, our feet felt like they were going to fall off and we were dead tired from our 12 hour hike, but it was an awesome experience and unreal beautiful.
All in all, Zion is incredibly breathtaking and everyone should go there.

GRAND CANYON NATION PARK, ARIZONA

The same night we came down from our hike, we got in the car and headed for the Grand Canyon, it was already about 9:00pm so we stopped in Kenab, a popular town for people to stay heading to the Grand Canyon. We used the rest of the money on our gift card and stayed in a Best Western. By the way, I'm pretty sure we chose the two worst Best Westerns in the country. At 11:00pm we finally got checked in and then proceeded to drive all over the town in search of fast food. We landed on Wendy's ( somewhere I have never been, this trip is all about new experiences, right?) and gorged ourselves in greasy fast food. Nothing could have tasted better after that hike. Next morning, we woke up and made our way to the Grand Canyon. We stayed in a nice campgound just outside the North Rim of the park. We were both excited to go into the park because this is something we have heard about our whole lives and it was crazy knowing we were actually going to see it. It's pretty amazing because for 12 miles after you enter the park you just drive through this grassy area with trees and nothing special around it. But when we got to the lodge and went to our first lookout, I can't even explain it (literally, I just sat at the computer for 3 minutes trying to come up with a word to describe it). Let's just say there is a reason it is called the GRAND canyon. We drove around to all the major look out points and each one was even more impressive than the last. Beautiful, unreal, unbelievable, and enormous. After eating dinner at our campsite we headed back to the lodge for some drinks. This was awesome. The whole dining area of the lodge overlooks the canyon and outside they have a bunch of wooden, reclining chairs looking right over it. We sat in our chairs with a couple of tequilla sunrises and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was awesome. The sun started to set and it became even more beautiful. Best happy hour ever.

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK, UTAH

This morning we left our camp at the Grand Canyon and headed back into Utah to see Bryce Canyon. After Zion and Grand Canyon, we really didn't think it could get much better. That was until we got to Bryce. I'm not going to say this was the most amazing or beautiful park because I would be contradicting myself, as so far, all of the parks have been unreal, however, I will say this is by far the most unique. Thousands of huge, jagged, sandstone pillars standing up hundreds of feet into the sky. It was awesome. We hiked down into the canyon, ending up in an area called Queen's Garden, which was a bunch of these crazy finger-like towers all packed closely together with one bigger one (the Queen) in the middle. Conner went crazy with the pictures here and I don't blame him. Every step was an awesome photo, photographers paradise. I'm not going to say much more, I'll just let the pictures explain.
We were told that you can pretty much get a good feel of what the park is about by doing this hike and we agreed. So we drove to Moab just outside of Arches National Park in Utah. We are now in a little motel and are hanging out until we venture into the park tomorrow.

So that has been our last couple days! Hopefully you got through the whole thing and we will talk to you all soon!!

Love,
Katie and Conner