Big hike today to the top of Vernal Falls
with 1,400 feet of elevation gain. Our boys were troopers and paced
ahead of a family of teenage boys (Isaac led all the way to the top).
The trail continues on another 8 miles to Half Dome. Most people stop at
the bridge but we went all the way to the top. It was one of the
hardest hikes I’ve done. Our boys earned their Fanta and Rootbeer for
dinner! Loved how encouraging everyone was on the trail. We are in such a
beautiful place. It’s been really crowded but doing this trail made the
trip worth it. Mileage for today was 7 miles, I think 4 were on this
trail to the top of Vernal Falls.
Yesterday
was Day 20 of our trip. We have driven about 4,600 miles and visited 6
National Parks and Monuments. Two nights ago I was able to take the
boys swimming at a nearby lodge while Daniel did our laundry. The indoor
“heated” pool was pretty chilly. I enjoyed the hot tub though. Before
our hike up to Vernal Falls we had planned to ride part of the Valley
Loop on our bikes. While we were still in the parking lot Jack blew his
front tire. We spent a bit of time trying to find a new tube or patch
kit from a bike shop. The kids snagged their Jr Ranger badges but we
decided to skip the ride and just do the hike. The kids were
disappointed but I think the ride and hard hike probably would have been
too much.
Hiking to Vernal Falls and around Yosemite Valley makes our 29th hike of 2021 (29/52). We walked a total of 7 miles. This brings us to 88.5 miles hiked this year.
We spent the morning working on Jr. Ranger books,
climbing giant stumps in our campsite and exploring our campground. Now
we are off to see more giant trees.
The boys picked up their third Jr. Ranger badges of the
trip today. We hiked through the Stout Grove today. It was awe-inspiring
to walk among these giant trees. We sat on some downed trees and ate
our lunch in the quiet of the forest. It was an amazing experience.
After hiking to Stout Grove, we drove down Howland Hill
Road — a historic stage coach road. All dirt. Lots of potholes. Mostly
one lane. It was a fun, but bumpy ride.
We couldn’t finish the day without going to the beach!
First up was the Crescent Beach Overlook then down to the ocean. Seeing
the Pacific Ocean was a first for our boys.
This was our 25th hike in 2021 (25/52). Technically this was three different hikes making up five miles but I'm only counting this as one official hike (one in our campground, one in Stout Grove next to a river and through an amazing forest of gigantic redwood trees, and one next to the Pacific Ocean). This brings us to 75 miles hiked this year.
We made it over to Northern California and
spent the day at Lava Beds National Monument. The kids all got another
Jr. Ranger badge. We went into Mushpot, Golden Dome and The Boulevard
and Balcony Caves, and also froze in the Merrill Ice Cave. Kids voted
The Boulevard and Balcony as their favorite because they got to pop out
at different points under the lava bed. Golden Dome was my fave with the
ceiling lit up to look like greenish gold. It was a fun day. We are all
beat. Walking on hardened lava is much more difficult than the mud and
limestone caves we are used to back home.
This was our 22nd hike in 2021 (22/52) and we walked 2.5 miles through several different caves. This brings us to 62 miles hiked this year.
We started our day at Dinosaur National
Monument. The kids got their first Jr. Ranger badges of our trip. We did
a brief walk on the Discovery Fossil Trail and then headed down to the
Green River for a picnic. And it started snowing on us, which was
unexpected.
This was our 20th hike in 2021 (20/52), we walked 2 miles which brings us to 57 miles hiked this year.
We started Day 5 of our trip at Dinosaur National Monument
(see last post) before making our way toward Salt Lake City and the Salt
Flats. We drove over two mountain ranges, one it was snowing pretty
hard. We had dinner in Park City before seeing sunset over the Great
Salt Lake. We are boondocking tonight. The wind is something fierce, but
that didn’t stop us from exploring the sand dunes by our camper. We are
the only people here and it is probably our favorite overnight so far.
The boys and I are studying American History this year and we have been
learning a lot about the Civil War over the last couple of weeks. Since I
try to pick different locations each week for our hikes, I thought a
hike at The Chickamauga Battlefied would be a good fit.
I picked the General Bragg Trail as our focus point (there are more than 50 miles of trails at this location!). We did not follow the exact route, but we did cover the entirety of the five mile hike.
This was not the most scenic hike we have done, and it was quite muddy even though there hadn't been recent rain, but I felt like it provided us a tiny idea of what it might have felt like to march or trudge through these woods at the time of the Civil War.
The kids always surprise me and are generally good sports when the hikes are long, even the littler ones.
There are so many monuments throughout this battlefield with markers telling of battles fought and who fought them. 34,000 casualties happened in these fields and woods – a sobering thought to be sure.
One of the boys found a jaw bone of what
we think was a deer, complete with teeth. Another boy pulled out one of
his loose teeth while we walked! You never know what will happen on the
trail with kids.
Yesterday was surprisingly warm out, and as we hiked Jack
begged me to let him take off his shirt. I agreed and within 15 minutes there was a
slew of little boys running around shirtless. One of the little girls wanted
to know why the boys were naked – hah!
I always enjoy our walks, and feel very privileged that others are choosing to join us each week.
At the beginning of the hike I went into the Visitor Center and grabbed
Jr. Ranger books and badges for my boys. We have been collecting these
for the last two years. The material was really beneficial to go over
today as it is cold and rainy out.
Here are our badges and books for the Jr. Ranger program. I would highly recommend grabbing them if you visit this National Battlefield. Something I learned is that this was the first park in the country with this designation.
This was the 14th hike (14/52) for the year and we covered 5 miles bringing total miles for this year to 42.5.
After an amazing night at the Sand Flats and a morning spent mountain biking a portion of the Porcupine Trail with our kids, we decided to head into Moab and take a look around.
Utah Road Trip Instagram Diaries: Day 7 continued with a repair de jour: Daniel had to replace the black water and gray
water tank valves, and clean out the black water tank. This is not a
job you want to do on vacation, or ever.
We needed to restock our groceries for the next few days and find a dump station to take care of some of the less glamorous parts of camping.
This was the day Daniel discovered that our black and gray water tank valves needed to be replaced. Just so you know, this is NOT something you want to have to do on your trip. After nearly shaking the camper apart in Oklahoma and New Mexico, we didn't want to take any chances of not making repairs while we were still in civilization.
94* after dark!
Thankfully we found a locally-owned shop that sold the parts we needed and they also had a dump station onsite.
It was Wednesday and we didn't have a place to camp that night, so I started calling around to see if we could find a campground with wi-fi (Daniel needed to get online to complete some work) and we also thought it would be nice to have full hookups again.
This is when we discovered that everyone and there dog was in Moab. On a Wednesday.
We had been expecting hoping that a trip in off-season and midweek would mean we wouldn't have a problem finding a place to stay in Moab. Turns out we were wrong.
The temps had recently dipped under 100* and it seemed that everyone wanted to take advantage of the cooler temps to go camping in this outdoor mecca of the west.
In the end, we went back to the shop that sold us the valves we needed and Daniel asked if he could do the repair in their parking lot. This ended up being the best place for us because the repair took all afternoon (much to our chagrin) and it was messy (ahem, black water tank messy). I don't think the expensive, manicured, privately-owned campgrounds would have looked kindly on this kind of repair.
Since we had had no luck finding a private campground, we decided to find BLM land to boondock on instead. We wanted to be close to Arches National Park so we could have an early start the next day. Using our AllStays app, we realized there were several public campgrounds next to the Colorado River right outside of Arches NP.
So we drove along the Colorado River hoping to snag a spot. Unfortunately for us, spots were already filling up. We drove as far as Drinks Canyon before turning around, debating if we should gamble and go back to the Sand Flats. But we really wanted to be close to Arches so we opted to drive further along the Colorado River in hopes of finding a site.
We drove, and drove, and still no sites. Finally we reached the Upper Big Bend Camping area and a man flagged us down to tell us that there was an unofficial overflow area across the road.
It was dusk, so we thanked him profusely and drove across to a parking area where a couple of other rigs were already set up. The boys helped Daniel get the camper unhooked and leveled while I made us dinner. In the canyon we learned that it gets dark quickly.
It was a bit frustrating because many of the spots we came across, which are all first-come first-serve, were being saved with camp chairs. Meaning people weren't actually there, they just had a someone drop camp chairs on their behalf to hold the spot. For the record, I think if you are going to hold a walk-in site, you should be there in the flesh.
We ended up parking next to a group of young hippies in the overflow area who actually happened to be from Chattanooga. They had converted a small bus into a camper and had been traveling for several years. They were an interesting crew.
The stars at Upper Big Bend were amazing. After supper we went and laid on a blanket and I even saw a couple of shooting stars. The night sky here was truly spectacular. In the morning we would see how beautiful the area was as we realized we were surrounded by canyon walls.
After we were situated and the kids were asleep, Daniel drove back into Moab to do laundry and do some work for his company using the laundromat wi-fi. It was the only night of the trip I felt afraid. I had no cell service in the canyon. I had no car since Daniel had driven into town leaving us in the camper, no wi-fi, and no one really knew where we were. If something happened to Daniel, I don't know how they would have found us. And if something happened to us, I'm not sure how they would have found him. Thankfully nothing happened. I didn't sleep until Daniel came back in the wee hours of the morning.
The next day we woke up, had breakfast, explored a bit, and the made our way to Arches National Park, leaving our camper in the overflow parking spot. Our first stop was the Visitor's Center to get the packet for Jack to become a Jr. Ranger.
At this park our first stop was Balanced Rock. The kids idea of hiking is really running, even in the 100+ degree heat! We walked/ran all the way around Balanced Rock and then they announced that it reminded them of Mushroom Rock back home.
We drove on to the next big area to see arches with parking for Double Arch and the Window and Turret Arches. We all hiked to the North Window Arch together. The thing that surprised me most about all of the arches was how windy it was when you reached that opening, even in the big arches!
After North Window, Daniel headed back to the car to sit with Sophie. Dogs aren't allowed on most trails in National Park, so we planned ahead and brought a spare key so we could lock her in the car with A/C when we couldn't leave her in the camper. Since it was 110* that day, we couldn't leave her in a camper that was boondocked without electric hookups. So Daniel hung out in the car while the boys and I hiked proceeded on to Turret Arch. Isaac really surprised us with the amount of hiking he did with us while in this park.
After Turret we headed to meet Daniel in the car. Isaac was worn out and hungry so he stayed with me and Sophie while Daniel took Jack to hike up to Double Arch.
Jack was so enamored with Double Arch that when he and Daniel came back, he asked me to go back with him a second time. Isaac had fallen asleep so Daniel stayed in the car this time while Jack and I made the trek back to Double Arch.
Double Arch was really impressive! We will have to come back when Isaac can climb up to it, it was definitely one of our favorite spots.
Jack convinced me to climb up into the arch with him. Climbing up was no problem, but coming down was actually pretty scary. Jack helped talk me down the right route – he had confidence since he had already done it with Daniel.
After all of our hiking we decided to call it a day. I was sad that we didn't go on to see Delicate Arch, but the arches we did see were fantastic. We made a final stop at the Visitor's Center so Jack could get his second Jr. Ranger badge of our trip.
The little yellow-green dot in the middle of the red circle is Daniel and Jack. I took this photo, zoome din from the car. But wanted to offer perspective of how big those arches are.
Arches National Park was our second National Park that we visited on
this trip. Each subsequent stop, the kids would inform us was their
favorite. So on this day, Arches was the favorite!
After Arches we went to hook up our camper and head on to Goblin
Valley State Park, again hoping we could snag a camping spot there. I
will be posting about that portion of our trip in my next post.
Utah Road Trip Instagram Diaries: Day 8 Visiting Arches National Park today was a big
highlight of our trip. Isaac enjoyed the hike to the North Window and
Turret Arches. Jack especially loved the hike to Double Arch — he did it
twice, once with Daniel and once with me while Isaac napped in the car.
Balanced Rock was another cool sight, Jack thought it looked like
Mushroom Rock at home. Jack completed another Jr. Ranger program and is
proud of having earned 2 badges. We are now headed toward Goblin Valley.
