Grand Canyon & So. Utah

 For some time now, Mia has been asking to go to the Grand Canyon.  Logistically, there are a couple of real problems with this idea.  First, the Grand Canyon is 1400 miles away from Seattle by highway, so we'd need a lot of time to do the trip, or else we'd spend the whole time on the road.  Second, the weather makes it difficult to want to be there in the Winter or Summer!  After enough persistence from Mia, we finally came up with a solution:  Find "reasonable" airfare during Spring Break.  But, if we're going to spend money to fly, rent a car, and stay in a motel, we'd better make the trip worth it, by visiting much more than just the Grand Canyon.  In the end,  we squeezed every drop of Spring Break in order to see six national parks, four national monuments, and four state parks.

Map Courtesy of GPS Visualizer

Hiking

Our most aggressive hiking on any vacation to date, we hiked nearly 52 miles, eclipsing our previous record of 42 miles in the Canadian Rockies.  I suspect this record will last for a while, which is a testament to how much there was to see and do on this trip.  A full page hiking maps organized by area can be found here.

Hike	Park	Total Elev (ft)	Distance (miles)
Court of the Patriarchs	Zion NP	147.6	0.8
Emerald Pools	Zion NP	673.9	3.4
Riverside Walk	Zion NP	0	1.1
Weeping Rock	Zion NP	767.7	1.2
Inspiration Point	Bryce Canyon NP	196.9	0.7
Bryce Point	Bryce Canyon NP	56.8	0.3
Navajo Loop / Queen's Garden	Bryce Canyon NP	593.9	3.1
Mossy Cave	Bryce Canyon NP	144.4	1.1
Shakespeare Arch	Grand Staircaise - Escalante NM	68.9	0.8
Cottonwood Narrows	Grand Staircaise - Escalante NM	318.5	4.5
Petrified Forest State Park	Grand Staircaise - Escalante NM	298.5	2.1
Devil's Garden - Escalante	Grand Staircaise - Escalante NM	91.9	0.7
Gooseneck / Sunset Point	Capitol Reef NP	78.7	1
Capitol Gorge	Capitol Reef NP	236.2	2.5
Grand Wash	Capitol Reef NP	126.2	3.8
Goblin Valley	Goblin Valley SP	82	1.1
Shafer Canyon	Canyonlands NP	68.9	0.3
Mesa Arch	Canyonlands NP	101.7	0.8
Upheaval Dome	Canyonlands NP	177.1	0.8
Green River Overlook	Canyonlands NP	13.1	0.2
Grand View Trail	Canyonlands NP	105	2.4
Big Spring Canyon	Canyonlands NP	29.4	0.2
Needles Overlook	Canyonlands NP	52.5	0.5
Monitor & Merrimac Butte Overlook	Arches NP	36.1	0.2
Windows & Double Arches	Arches NP	200.2	1.6
Delicate Arch Viewpoint	Arches NP	32.8	0.3
Devil's Garden - Arches	Arches NP	91.9	1.3
Sand Dune & Broken Arches	Arches NP	88.5	1.6
Fiery Furnace	Arches NP	26.3	0.3
Park Avenue	Arches NP	242.8	1.4
Horse Collar Ruins	Natural Bridges NM	85.3	0.6
Kachina Bridge	Natural Bridges NM	131.2	0.6
Owachomo Bridge	Natural Bridges NM	206.7	0.6
Betatakin Ruins	Navajo NM	269	1.4
Desert View	Grand Canyon NP	40	0.7
Tusayan Ruins	Grand Canyon NP	45.9	0.4
Mather Point	Grand Canyon NP	52.4	0.5
Bright Angel	Grand Canyon NP	1161.4	3.3
Maricopa Point	Grand Canyon NP	32.8	0.3
Powell Point & Hope Point	Grand Canyon NP	52.5	0.7
Mohave Point	Grand Canyon NP	55.8	0.2
Hermit's Rest	Grand Canyon NP	36.1	0.2
Walnut Canyon National Monument	Walnut Canyon NM	347.7	1.3
Hoover Dam	Hoover Dam	98.5	0.9
TOTALS		7763.7	51.8

Parks

• National Parks
  • Zion NP 
  • Bryce Canyon NP
  • Capitol Reef NP
  • Canyonlands NP
  • Arches NP
  • Grand Canyon NP 
• National Monuments
  • Grand Staircase-Escalante NM 
  • Natural Bridges NM 
  • Navajo NM
  • Walnut Canyon NM 
• State Parks
  • Kodachrome SP
  • Escalante Petrified Forest SP
  • Anasazi SP
  • Goblin Valley SP 

Highlights

• Draw-jopping scenery everywhere.  We took more pictures than on any vacation we've ever taken!
• The Southwest has an amazing geographic diversity, and the scenery is constantly changing with very little driving.
• Mixing it up from our normal vacation format of camping was nice
  • Sleeping in beds instead of the ground
  • Eating out gave us a variety of food to eat (of course, not having to cook was enjoyable to Suzanne) 

Lowlights

• Because Southern Utah is a pretty remote place, accomodations can be a bit sketchy at times.  For the most part, we stayed at clean motels, but the quality in some areas was certainly less than others.
• We had to wait an hour and a half at the rental car place, and in spite of our reservation, they didn't have any mid-size cars available for us, so we didn't get the most comfortable of rides for our 1400 mile adventure.
• In the Spring, the weather can be downright unpredictable.  We experienced everything from sunny 70-degree weather on some days to snow and blistering cold wind on others.

Favorites

Here's what each family member said was their absolute favorite park of the trip:

Raymond:	Bryce Canyon NP
Amelia:	Grand Canyon NP
Suzanne:	Canyonlands NP
Mike:	Bryce Canyon NP

Photos

We took over 1000 pictures!  In the end, we kep 827 pictures, many of them panoramas, and placed them in 15 online Flickr albums.  You can take a look at all of these albums here.