After Christmas Cami and I took off for an epic two (Ok three) park trip. Our plan was as follows: we left the day after Christmas to fly to Las Vegas and made the drive out to Zion (park number one). We would spend a few days in Zion and then head back to Vegas where we would spend the night at the Valley of Fire (park two). The next day we picked up Cat from the airport and headed to Death Valley for our final park.
All of these parks are repeats for us, after hitting over 45 parks in the lower 48 and Hawaii there is not a lot of “long hanging fruit” left. However all these parks had things we still had on our bucket list so we thought the winter would be a good time to check some of them off.
First Stop – Zion
I’ve written about Zion before at length so I won’t rehash everything now. As most of you know it’s one of my top five favorite parks and is on almost every list of must see places in the United States. We had two main goals – first, hike the narrows, second, spend a ton of time in the backcountry on the eastern side of the park.
On our first trip we ran out of time to get in a good narrows hike, and it was something I had promised Cameron we would do. Even though it was winter and cold I had made a reservation to rent cold weather river gear and we (thought) we were good to go. However, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Every day we had in Zion it either rained or snowed. So much so that the narrows were closed all the days we were there. The rain in the lower elevations and the snow in the higher created a massive flash flood risk. This just means that we are going to have to go back, yet again to Zion.
The benefit to all this snow was that, well we got to see Zion in the snow! I know it’s not as rare as say the snow we had in Joshua Tree years ago, but still snow in the desert is always amazing.
We spent a lot of time in the high elevations, exploring deep into the backcountry of Zion. It was fun to see the red sandstone covered in snow. The weather made it a unique experience, we had low clouds, mist, haze, rain, sun (at times) water in the almost always dry washes, waterfalls that would spring up overnight and of course more snow.
It made hiking slow and slippery and not without a few falls here and there. It also made driving very interesting. Cameron loved to play in the snow, I loved to take photos. I think I got some of the best work I’ve done in the past two years in this park with these conditions.
In the effort to do different things on this trip we also made the 40 mile drive over to Kolob Canyon. The Kolob Canyon is in the northwest corner of the park. It boasts narrow parallel box canyons that are cut from the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. With high peaks of over 2,000 feet and sheer cliff wall. While we did not spend a ton of time here it was interesting to explore.
It was also not all sunshine and roses. Driving was slow, sometimes painfully so, clearly for some travelers this may have been the first time they had ever driven in these conditions. All in all though we had a blast and the fact that we missed the Narrows (again) just means we will have to go back.
Second Stop Valley of Fire
We left Springdale and headed back towards Vegas and the Valley of Fire. We spent a few days here before and since the park is not huge we knew it well. We went in a bit before sunset and explored around, I found what I hoped would be a good spot for sunset but the weather did not work out. We tried again at sunrise but had the same results. Their entire area was covered in low clouds and while it looked amazing I could not turn it into anything of note.
While we had clouds, Vegas had rain, in fact it had been raining for a few days. It was so unusual to see rain pouring down in Sin city.
On a side note and a funny story – in between sunrise and sunset in the Valley of Fire I had to drive all the way back to the airport to get a new rental car. Mine had every single possible error light on. It did make it a bit more sporting when we would lose traction control while traversing switchbacks down a snow covered mountain in Zion, but I was tired of it.
Third Stop Death Valley
After sunrise the next day we made our way back to the Las Vegas airport and picked up the wife. Cat has always wanted to see Death Valley and it’s a park I’m always happy to go to. This was Cameron’s third park so she was super young on her first trip here. This was my fourth trip to the park and there’s still things I’ve yet to see. The park is just SO big and there is SO much to see.
The drive out to the park is always fun, but with the clouds, wind, and rain it was even more entertaining. We stayed in Stovepipe Wells and this was a first for me. In 1925 entrepreneur Bob Eichmann built the hotel and spa here. There is also a general store, gas stations and two restaurants. While not as central as Furnace Creek it proved to be much more affordable and allows easy access to other areas of the park.
Due to rain (more desert rain) and subsequent flooding that took place before our visits a number of the roads were closed. This put a bit of a damper on our plans. We had planned to rent an offroad Jeep and head out to the Race Track, but all those roads were closed. However, since DV is so massive there was still plenty to see and do.
After we got settled in and found some food we started to drive around a bit and explore the park. Death Valley was experiencing the same interesting weather as the rest of the west coast. Meaning we had clouds and best of all rain! Rain in Death Valley is rare, very rare, and yet somehow this year we had rain for a few days in a row. This means there was water on the salt flats, water in the mud, washes filled with water and small impromptu lakes would form. For Cat’s first visit this is a really impressive way to start.
For the first day we went down to Badwater basin, the lowest point in the US. Then we started to explore areas off the main road. There are almost an unlimited number of places to go and see in DV. We ended up parked on the side of the main road, hiked a fair bit out and found some interesting cracked mud and fresh water. (This is something that I will do a number of times for this trip.)
The next morning we again set out for Badwater but this time we hiked out almost two miles to the middle of the salt flats. Sadly I could not find any good amount of standing water (here) or any great shapes. It feels like they had so much water that it sort of washed away all the shapes you see. That’s alright, it was still a great place to watch the sunrise.
The rest of the day we explored other random and off the beaten parts of the park. We ended up once again on the side of the road, hiking down to water and a very newly created small pond in the midst of the valley.
We spent New Year’s Eve in the saloon though none of us could make it to midnight. That does mean that the next morning we could get up super early and ring in the new year from Dante’s Pass. After that we explored more, did the Artist Pallet loop (though we planned on coming back for the hike).
We made the long drive up to the Charcoal Kilns Complex in Wildrose Canyon. This was a wild drive, starting below sea level and ending at over 7,000 feet, in the cold and the snow! Built in 1877 by the Modock Consolidated Mining Company to provide a source of fuel suitable for use in two smelters adjacent to their group of lead-silver mines in the Argus Range west of Panamint Valley, about 25 miles distant from the kilns. From here if you want you could hike to the highest point in the park telescope peak. However due to the snow and ice it was closed.
A word of caution for those wanting to visit the Kilns. While we made it in our rental 4×4 SUV, it was by the hair of my chin. The road was (when we were there) all but washed out, it was rough and really demands a high clearance truck.
After we came down from the Kilns we kept exploring an area of the park very new to me. The Panamint Valley, that is part of the park, is much less visited than the main attractions. It holds its own stunning beauty and features. While we only spent an afternoon there, on my next visit I plan to put in a good deal of time on this side of the mountain range. There is a tiny hotel, gas station and one restaurant on this end of the park and we had a very lovely lunch there.
That night we hiked out on the Stove Pipe stand dunes to watch and photograph the sunset. There were a good number of people (for a winter’s day) on the dunes but we hiked far enough that we were totally alone. The strong winds had done a proper job of sweeping the dunes clean of footprints and I was able to capture a powerful landscape.
The next morning as Cami was still sleeping from our never ending travel, hiking, etc. Cat and I set off for sunrise. Some days before we had spotted a massive area of cracked mud and when we investigated found there were zero footprints. This made for an easy and beautiful sunrise stop.
After that we gathered up our daughter and headed to the Inn at Death Valley for breakfast. The Inn is part of the Furnace Creek area and makes amazing food and has maybe one of the nicest dining rooms you can find anywhere. (Sadly the same can not be said for down the road at The Ranch).
After that we packed up, stopped by the visitor’s center for the second time and made our way back towards Vegas. Since we had a late night flight we had plenty of time for In-n-Out, a very out of the way stop at the Valley of Fire for sunset, and one last ride up and down the strip.
All in all it was an epic, fun filled trip.
