Road trip report to the mighty five: Zion

October started with a bang for me: I travelled, road tripped, to the mighty five parks of Utah with my daughter.

It was a dream come true.

My daughter had some time off and she actually wanted to visit the national parks in Northern California. When she voiced this, Northern California was burning. The Dixie fire and the Caldor fire had covered the whole area with thick, dark, unbreathable smoke.

So we decided to visit southwest Utah and drive through the mighty five national parks. I had wanted to do this for a long time.

This was the first time in my life that I planned the whole trip myself. We would drive everywhere, so no need to book air flights or rent cars.

I booked the hotels in one go. First I mapped out my trip, noted down the check in and check out dates and then chose the hotels nearest to the parks. Nothing fancy, since we were just going to be spending a night in each one. And there really wasn’t much of a choice to be made in some places, like the Bryce Canyon National Park where everything is under Ruby’s Inn management.

My daughter was interested in taking home-cooked food for the way. What she got was four gallons of water, which I am so glad I took, and a box of trail mix packs. We took some strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in Tupperware containers, which we then forgot in the very first hotel we stayed in.

On October 2nd, Sunday, we drove from Sacramento to Las Vegas. We went via I-99 till Bakersfield and then onto Vegas. It’s a 580 mile drive. Google maps says it should take 8 hours 32 min. It took us approximately 10 hours. Not bad, considering we stopped almost every couple of hours to stretch our legs and exchange seats. The fact that there were two of us driving made it an easier drive.

We listened to podcasts about health, self-care and skin care. I got introduced to ‘music’ by Daniel Caesar and James Blake. It’s…different from the Bollywood music I am used to. Or even Taylor Swift.

The drive from Bakersfield to Vegas through the Tehachapi pass is considered to be boring. Flat. Not interesting. Not to me. After the greenery of Northern California, that drive is flat and brown, but remember it is desert area, right next to the Mojave desert. So what are you expecting, maybe an oasis and palm trees and camel rides?

I noted the flat horizon with the brown hills. The section after Barstow with the windmills. I felt there wasn’t much traffic on the roads. I liked the vastness of the sky.

I have many fears. While traveling, it’s being stranded on the side of a lonely road because I ran out of gas or my car conked out. Another one is driving on hilly roads with switchbacks, climbing steep gradients and coming down them at breakneck speed.

When I read about the trip, the commonest refrain was how isolated the roads were and some highways had deep cliffs on the sides with no guardrails. So my planning of the trip was done in a way to avoid those particular roads. And my husband got new tires for the car for this trip.

But, as soon as we reached Bakersfield, my car dashboard showed the ‘maintenance required, contact your dealer’ sign. Oops!

I have, in the past, driven for months without care, after that sign came on. But this time as soon as I saw it, I went into a quiet panic mode. Then onto Google to see what could be done. And google, as usual, assured me that I could drive the car, it just would not be as efficient. I accepted the explanation but kept praying nothing would happen to my precious ride.

I also followed my Rule and made sure that I filled the gas tank as soon as it came to the half mark sign, wasn’t going to take chances with that one.

We reached Las Vegas at 6pm. Did you know that Vegas is at 2000ft above sea-level?

We checked in, took our showers and I went promptly to sleep at 9 PM. Throughout this trip, I went to sleep at 9 PM and then would wake up at 3 AM and toss and turn. It was the strangest thing.

The next morning started our actual trip. We drove to Zion National Park. A distance of 160 miles, to be done in 2hr40min. On a side note, Utah is one hour ahead of Nevada.

The park is at 4000 ft above sea level. And yes, this drive reflected the climb. The first hour or so from Las Vegas is isolated, but then start the towns of Mesquite, St. George and Hurricane.

People talk about hating traffic, I love it. It means I am not alone on this road.

We drove straight to the park. Parking is difficult to find and it is expensive. We paid $30 each day that we parked there. Yes, there’s free parking but only if you reach there before 7AM and the crowds. Which wasn’t going to happen with me because of my Rule: I will not drive in the dark.

We took the free shuttle into the park and stopped at the Angel’s landing hike area. That is a very difficult hike. So my goal was to just hike till Scout’s landing. Did not happen.

It was the hottest time of the day, the sun was beating down on us, we had just driven from 2000ft to 4000ft and we were tired. So we did about a mile of the hike and turned back. My daughter is very athletic and she could have gone ahead but decided to stay with me. We rested along the Virgin river which flows through the canyon.

I was disappointed. I thought I had no endurance or stamina. But honestly, I felt faint. My pulse was thready, which is a sign of dehydration, so I drank water, and ate some trail mix, and the sugar and salt combination helped.

We then took the shuttle to the Riverside walk which leads to the Narrows. We were going to rent the gear to walk in the Narrows the next day, so this walk was just to check out the area. It’s a nice 2 mile roundtrip walk along the river and it really refreshed us.

I had booked the hotel in Hurricane, I hadn’t realized that a 30 min drive at the end of the day would seem very long. We left the park early so as not to have to drive down the hilly road in the dark.

Our hotel was nice, clean, quiet. We had dinner at a local diner, simple garden veggie sandwich followed by a DQ blizzard we shared. It was a good day.

Zion. It is a canyon surrounded by towering walls of rock. I kept trying to capture the beauty, the massiveness of the hills?cliffs? but my iPhone pictures just cannot convey the majesty, the sheer humongous size. After a few attempts of getting some videos and pictures I gave up and just tried to absorb the enormity of it all.

The best part was the scenic ride in the shuttle bus. It took us to all the stops with the various hikes. In the process we saw a little part of the park too.

This was an area by the river we stopped to just sit and relax and listen to its sound. Amazing! It was a good day. The combination of the red towers of rock with the green trees, blue sunny skies with white fluffy clouds and the jade like shaded water of the river, beautiful!

Pictures and words cannot convey the beauty of this area.