Escalante Grand Staircase and Beyond

We made it back to Utah to do the hike that we skipped last month and it was spectacular! Best hike so far!

It's hard to show the beauty and specialness of this place in photos, but here are a few reasons that I felt like it was the best yet: 1) We were practically all alone out there.  We saw other people there only on the main hike near the trailhead and still only a very few. 2) This place has it all! There were arches, natural bridges, petrified sand dunes, lush river areas, slot canyons, grottos, 150' overhangs, cliffs that offer expansive views, rock jumbles for scrambling over, and abundant fresh water springs 3) Logan has been coming here for over a decade and with all his hiking experience, it's still his favorite hike 4) There isn't a lot of identified trail - with the river always between floods - areas wash out and a lot of the time we were just finding our own way along the river. When we crossed the rock mesa, we were totally on our own - no trails, no tracks - just distant landmarks, a map, and a compass to help us find our way.

What a beautiful landscape! Rocks as old as the dinosaurs, but always in a state of change.

This was one of my favorite spots! I loved seeing the whole river rush through this little space - shaping the rock.

The river travels (as we did) under this huge natural bridge with desert varnish. 

This natural arch reminded me of an elephant trunk. I love looking for faces and shapes in the rock. 

Waterfalls and hanging gardens (in the alcove behind me) make this landscape a fun place to explore and play.

We climbed up to see the Escalante River, the Coyote Gulch and this lovely arch from up high.

I love going through the tight canyon walls. Feels like a hug after walking through the big ones.

The rain joined us again on this trip, but this tremendous alcove provided us shelter and a view for 2 nights - cliff dwellers! 

To my right, you can see how the desert varnish creates a beautiful painted desert landscape.

Filled our water at this spring and also experienced a somewhat
violent shower. Put the rain gear to the test and passed! 

Another great lunch location! 360 views.

We hiked across the petrified sand dune mesa to get a view of yet another canyon. It felt so vast out there - so much fun.

     Crossing all those dunes, it was fun to imagine when it was all blowing sand. Right: Logan calls this rock Jabba the Hut...

Traveling across the petrified sand dune mesa. See Jabba's Palace in the background?

Loving those stones! We'll be back.

After our Escalante hike, we visited Zion National Park and then the Grand Canyon.  They are two of the most popular and spectacular parks in the country, so they seemed worthy of a stop by :) We only spent about a half a day driving in Zion and did a little mini day hike along the river. At the Grand Canyon, we decided to do an overnight hike down to the bottom and then back up the next morning. We had perfect weather for fast hiking (mild and sunny on the way down and rainy and then snowy on the way up). It only took us 4 hours to go down and 4.5 to go up (unusually fast ascent, but hey - it was cold!) I was dreading the ascent - I imagined 9.5 miles of climbing a mountain with no reprieve, but it wasn't as bad as I thought - guess we are in better shape than we realized :)

Zion National Park is characterized by steep red cliffs. Much of the drive was near them, making them seem even larger.

The Grand Canyon is about 10 miles wide, so it was hard to ever see all the canyon walls at once. They descend in spurts.

The Colorado River and a suspension bridge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This canyon runs for about 250 miles!

A view on the Grand Canyon when the rain cleared (before the snow started) as we ascended the South Rim.

Now, we are again looking to head further south for warmer temperatures.  Phoenix/Tucson up next! :)