Utah Getaway 2014: Canyonlands National Park and Colorado National Monument

I just realized that I never posted the pics from Canyonlands! It was such a stunning place that there’s no way I wouldn’t share the pictures with all of you. From the drive to Canyonlands from Moab to our hikes in the huge national park, it was a gorgeous place. Stunning. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, but I can hardly imagine that it would be more breaktaking than Canyonlands. Of course, I will have to make that judgment for myself someday, I hope! 🙂

With no further ado, some pictures from Canyonlands…

Our first view of Canyonlands. See the awesome view in the background.

Sitting in front of Mesa Arch during a hike

Hiking down a sandy, easy trail to a canyon overlook

Enjoying the panoramic setting on the camera. Also, this is about as close as I will get to the edge.

 

 

Another awesome panoramic view

Hunky Hubs in front of an Aztec storage room on the Aztec Butte hike. We had to hike up to the top of a mesa to get to this cool find.

On our final day in Moab, we stopped at this crazy (and I mean, CRAZY) place where a family actually lived for many years.  They blasted their home out of the rock, so there is a full sized house in there.  That part is pretty nifty, actually.  The family that lived there was quite eccentric, to put it nicely.  They had taxidermied (poorly) their personal pets and they were in the house too.  The donkey that died in the 1950’s and was right next to their bed?  Creepy!!  Anyways, we got a kick out of the tour and I would recommend this place to anyone who likes really weird stuff.

Yep, there’s a house in the rock. One of the most bizarre places I have ever seen.

On our way home, Hunky Hubs and I decided to see if there were any places along the way that would make for a convenient stop/hike/sightseeing tour, and we found Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction.  We found it to be absolutely stunning!  We took a hike there, which was nice since we spent lots of time in the car that day.

The trailhead for our hike at Colorado National Monument.

Stunning red rock formations

Overall, we had a wonderful time on our trip to Moab.  We got to see some amazing natural sights and marvel at creation.  We are very blessed to live so close to so many wonderful and beautiful places.  I can’t wait to explore some more or go back and explore these places even more!

Utah Getaway 2014: Arches National Park

I was psyched to get out of town with Hunky Hubs over a long weekend. We planned ahead and did some research on one of my dreams for this year- hiking somewhere cool- and figured out that waiting until summer to head to the Southwest hot spots was not really the wisest idea. Going on a trip in February/early March? Umm, ok, let’s do it! We decided to base our trip in Moab, Utah, where we got a stellar deal on a hotel, and then hike in nearby Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.I grabbed a hiking guide at the library about a month ago and it sat on our coffee table for weeks. We decided to look at it while we were driving to Utah (lol). It all worked out fine though. We found that there were lots of places to hike (an overwhelming number of choices) and that they looked relatively easy, especially compared to the hiking options in our local Rocky Mountains. 🙂 To be fair, there are tons of longer and more difficult hikes around Moab, but we opted for the ones that wouldn’t take more than a few hours.

It took us about 10 leisurely hours of driving to make it to Moab on Thursday, and when we got close, it started raining. Just as we were close to Arches, the sun broke through the clouds and we saw the most stunning double rainbow. I could only capture one arch of the rainbow in my picture:

Beautiful rainbow near Arches National Park

Friday morning, we woke up early and set out for a day of exploring in Arches.  It was a bit chilly and pretty cloudy, but luckily, we didn’t have to deal with any rain.

Getting warmed up with the first of many photoshoots throughout the day, lol

I figured out how to use the panorama feature on my phone- which then got used pretty much all weekend. Here you can see the La Sal Mountains to the south, and the window arches to the left.

Balanced Rock at Arches National Park. We took a short hike around this cool rock and the surrounding area.

I helped to hold up the Arches while I was there. (This is the North Window, I believe)

Hunky Hubs in front of the Turret Arch

Panorama of the windows

This is Hunky Hubs’ reenaction of the movie 127 Hours (he is a goofball). I think that 127 Hours is based in Canyonlands, but close enough. 🙂

Hunky Hubs in the South Window

This picture was taken on the Delicate Arch hike. I’m glad we didn’t know what to expect going into that one. Basically it was a mile of steep incline up and then a mile of steep incline down. Honestly though, it was nothing compared to our CO hikes. This picture shows a cairn (pile of rocks) that shows you where to go. It also shows how far we had climbed. That flat area down there? Yeah, that is where we started…

Looking back over the area we had just scaled

Happy to be at the top of the steepest part of the hike

We made it!! This is the Delicate Arch. It was definitely worth the hike. The wind was INSANE up here so we didn’t stay for long. Sidenote: this is the background on the Utah license plate!

Delicate Arch

Standing on a ledge just around the corner from Delicate Arch

And then I scaled this wall with my gloved hands…. (okay, just kidding but I do like to pretend that I’m that awesome)

All in all, it was a lot of fun and quite amazing to see these beautiful natural wonders.  To be continued…