Long long ago in December of 2019, before life as we now know it, we made a decision that would turn out to be an extremely good one.
We decided we would visit some of Instagram’s favorite National Parks; The Grand Canyon, Bryce & Zion. Like most of our travel, we got to experience these things nearly alone. It’s a little counter intuitive to pack your winter coat when leaving on vacation, but our thick Michigan winter skin made the snow and cooler temps enjoyable and the views were incredible. I imagine our serene surroundings filled with all the tourists 2020 has brought to these parks and I cringe. I’m SO glad other people are getting out there and seeing our great country, but everyone needs to go back to schools and offices so there’s an off season again. 😉
Week 1: Working from Phoenix
I’ve found it so much easier to write about the place to place trips we take, and I’m more unfamiliar with how to format information when we stay in one place. Our first week in Arizona was like that. Not long before the whole world understood the idea that working from anywhere was possible, we took our third “working” trip of 2019.
As we descended into Phoenix I asked myself, “Why did I want to come here? Everything is so ugly.” It took me less than an hour and some Raising Cane’s to change my mind. We grabbed our rental car and some food and were already hiking. In the middle of the city. Less than a mile from where we just ate! A part of me just fell instantly in love with how accessible places to be active were.
Working on eastern time while traveling out west makes it easy to manage the shorter days in the winter. Wake up when it’s still dark, take a lunch walk to break up the day (downside no one is serving lunch or slurpees yet) and finish a full work day 2-3 hours before traffic starts and with plenty of daylight left. That method allowed us to get in a couple evening hikes, plus we had flown in mid-week so we had a full weekend to explore destinations farther away. When we work in a city we typically cook our own food and don’t go out for much. So this trip I can only provide you with my best Fry’s (Krogers) review (They had Scan, Bag & Go so we used it and they thought we were nuts). The one memorable place we went out in Phoenix was Hopdoddy Burger Bar which was delicious!
Places
Downtown Scottsdale: It was so nice we visited twice! The first time we walked down the Canal Trail and grabbed ice cream. We noticed that there were a lot of Christmas decoration and art exhibits set up. The second time we made a point to come in the dark and it was definitely worth it! They also have a really nice, really full (in 2019) mall.
Downtown Phoenix: The downtown is pretty small for such a large city. From my understanding it was not necessarily the place to be for the last several years, but was having a comeback. We visited the Well Fargo Museum which was interesting and free. One memory that still stands out is their attempt at an ice skating rink. With the weather in the 50s and 60s and rainy, it was more of a pond.
Hikes
Hole in the Rock & Popago Park: This was a fun evening hike. Hole in the Rock is a touristy stop with a great view! Worth a quick stop. Just across the street is Popago Park. The trails were incredible hard to follow, but it’s a big wide open space so walk in a circle around the buttes and you probably won’t get lost. Unless you scale the side of the mountain/mounds.. then you might get stuck and need a rescue like the people we saw. It’s much easier to climb up than slide back down.
Tanto National Forest: The salt river is a great place in the spring to find wild horses swimming in the river. I wanted to see wild horse. December is not exactly the time to see them. We tried anyways. We did not see any horses. It was still a really cool places to visit!
We first did the Saguaro Trail. It was a good desert hike with expansive views and lots of cacti. It was a multi-use trail with lots of mountain bikers, so it involved being alert at all times. I would still do it again.
Next we attempted Blue Point to the Ovens. I say attempted because with water levels low, everything after the first 1/3 was a wash. This meant walking slowly in sand. We quit about halfway there. We were alone the entire time so it was a really magical landscape to see. Our last stop was Saguaro Lake which was huge and beautiful. Would have been a really nice place to paddle board. There I saw my first wild tarantula. Terrifying.
Pinnacle Peak Park: This is a must do in the area! Great views, pretty landscape. It is a destination spot so it was pretty busy.
After hiking one way we decided not to go back the way we came and walk around the neighborhoods. Google Maps walking directions are always a toss up.. We ended up down a very secluded dirt road and then when trying to find the paved street we could walk, we realized it was a gated community and would add 3 miles to go around. Lucky for us we saw a runner come out of a dirt path in the woods and followed him past the gate 🤷♀️
We love looking at different houses so it turned into a really nice walk looking at all the large million dollar houses. After walking about a mile in the neighborhood we should be emerging back at our original parking lot… except there is a huge, solid gate standing between us and the car. The pedestrian gate is also card activated. Could we wait until someone comes in or out? Is there any spot to go over? Were the cops coming? Luckily when no one was watching we slid between the car gate and the ground and were free! Maybe we should have just gone back up and over the peak…
Shadow Mountain: Our last night we wanted to get one last hike in so we picked another neighborhood mountain. We made the best decision to leave the All Trails path and walk up to the top of the peak as the sun was setting. Definitely not as well maintained of a trail, but again, everything is pretty open so you can’t get too lost with a small sense of direction.
Week 2: Road Trip
I wasn’t ready to leave Phoenix yet, but we had an exciting 4 days exploring northern Arizona and southwest Utah and 3 days in Vegas ahead of us. Looking back this trip was overall much slower and relaxed than Alaska or East Coast because we weren’t on someone else’s schedule trying to pack everything in and we had our own car. This, New Zealand and our trip to Oregon in 2018 are really the models for the trips we’ve taken in 2020 & 2021. Tip: I rented our cars separately since doing a one way rental for an extra week added a lot of cost. Looking at the price we paid for 11 days now I’m a little nostalgic.
Grand Canyon
To start week 2 we woke up before the sun and hit the road. It’s about 3 hours 15 minutes from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon and then we had another 2 hours onward to Page, AZ for the night. I’ll always remember the drive north past Flagstaff. It was this straight road that seemed never ending; and there was nothing else in sight. Even pulling into the parking lot you couldn’t imagine the chasm in the ground that lay just ahead.
We didn’t plan an exceptionally long time at the Grand Canyon since we weren’t planning any hikes down into it. I would say we spent more time there than I would have originally thought (3 hours at the visitor center/village). Part of that was the lack of people and empty sidewalks, which made it peaceful and enjoyable. I was very happy to be traveling with my winter jacket. In December it was definitely chilly. You can walk along the canyon on the Trail of Time from the visitor center following the rim. We then drove the length of Desert View Drive to the east towards the Watch Tower. So many great lookout points!
Page, AZ
The drive from the Grand Canyon to Page is a lot of nothing. Wide open spaces and a part of the country that’s worth seeing to really understand the vastness of this country and how some people live in it.
In the height of the Horseshoe Canyon Instagram craze, we drove by a seemingly random parking lot along the desert road on the way into Page. There were so many cars! We were almost right in time for sunset, and also very hungry. They explained at the gate that because so many tourists had been visiting the insta-famous spot they now had to charge for entry to main the grounds and keep people from parking along the road causing traffic. We decided to return in the morning and do sunrise instead since we wouldn’t throughly enjoy the experience. It was worth every penny! Take time to wander around and view it from lots of angles.
I still have it on my list to make it back to Page. There is so much more we could have done like slot canyons or explore Lake Powell. For picking it as a good city to stop in on the way up to Utah, it sure packs a punch. Oh and it has a Pizza Hut.. or had. Who knows these days. Pizza makes for great travel day leftovers, except when the room fridge is too cold and freezes it.
Bryce Canyon National Park
I swoon with memories of Bryce. It feels like we spent way longer than 4 hours there. Driving in through Red Canyon was otherworldly. The elevation there is higher than the other parks, which meant there was snow! It was one of the most stunning landscapes to see coated in glimmering snow. The rock is so red (orange?) in contrast. We decided on a shorter hike than planned because we didn’t have any crampons or poles and the snow/ice could become slick going up and downhill. Wow was it worth it to still go out.
Afterwards we visited Bryce Point which has an amazing aerial view of the whole park and then did one more short hike in Tropic. This one was again very snowy and very different from the vast canyon earlier in the day. Ended up being more of a time killer than anything.
Traveling to these more remote areas can be hard for me to find food I can eat. We try to bring snacks and shelf stable items for breakfast and lunch but usually we need to find one meal out. In small towns you find lots of freezer food and fast food. Panguitch is the closest town on the west side of the park. I was SO looking forward to eating fresh Indian Mexican fusion at Tandoori Taqueria as a change of pace, but we learned many of the services and restaurants in the area shut down for the winter season. I just now realized they have a Salt Lake location and have since been to Salt Lake twice since this trip. What a fail.
Zion National Park
Zion has become more popular than ever, I can’t even believe that! It was pretty busy when we were there. We were lucky enough to visit during the few weeks a year that the shuttles don’t operate and you can drive yourself around the park and park at trailheads. The number one thing I would recommend to anyone is to enter the park from the east side via Mount Carmel Highway. I would go again just to stop and see more of this area. It is unlike anything I have ever seen and is different from the rest of the park.
Next up was the best hike of the day! Great views and some mountain sheep!! We stayed for a long time just watching the big horn sheep climb up and down the side of the mountain. Many people visiting Zion hike The Narrows, where you hike in the river through the narrowest park of the canyon. We decided winter might be too cold to attempt that and just walked the trail that leads to the start. There were still plenty of people renting waterproof gear and doing it!
Not long before December 2019 Zion experience some mud slides that took out a few of the recommended trails. This left us with only a few other options, especially later in the afternoon. We chose The Watchman Trail to cap our visit. If I were to go back now that I have more hiking experience I would try The Narrows and Angels Landing.
One of the best parts of staying in Springdale, besides the proximity to the park, was the hotel I took a risk on. They had 0 reviews on Google, all photos online were of an old motel but if you went on google street view and used satellite images you could see they recently rebuilt the whole thing. The price was amazing and the lady at the front desk was even better. She told us about a great Mexican restaurant to eat at with huge portions, where to watch the sunset and how to find a ghost town!! Eeek!
Our last stop on our way out of Utah was at Grafton Ghost Town. The area was abandoned for lack of resources and is impeccably maintained for being in the middle of nowhere. There are several buildings and a cemetery.
Las Vegas
The final part of our trip was Las Vegas! This was my 3rd trip and Adam’s 2nd. It was the easiest airport to fly out of after exploring southern Utah, my sister was in town for a wedding at the same time and our Chase Shapphire Reserve comes with the Luxury Hotel Resort Collection perks that we were dying to try. We got to live like the rockstars we most definitely are not for 4 days.
How Luxury Hotel Resort Collection works:
- Book an eligible stay through their portal (The catch is their portal is often more $$ than booking direct)
- Get perks each night (they vary by hotel)
- Ex. $100 dining or spa voucher, free breakfast each day, free wi-fi, room upgrade
We chose to stay 1 night at Mandalay Bay and 2 nights at the Delano which is attached. This gave us $200 in dining credit, $60 worth of “breakfast” each day, room upgrades to suites and $5/ day back from the resort credit for wifi.
Remember how we stayed on eastern time? This came in very handy in Vegas. I did a lot of research on which hotel had the best restaurants to spend our credit in. While some made you use your breakfast credit at the buffet, Mandalay & Delano have a restaurant called Della’s that serves lunch/dinner food all day to accommodate the crazy sleep schedules of Vegas. Adam was still working on eastern time and we would come down for lunch at 9a PST and get sandwiches with our breakfast credit. With tips, we ate $450 of DELICIOUS food for $70.
Other than eat and gamble at the sports book, we visited the Neon Museum which had been on my list for a long time. If you aren’t familiar, it is a museum/graveyard for old signs from the casinos. Our visited coincided with an exhibit by Tim Burton, which I was initially disappointed by, but ended up being something uniquely special to experience. Oh and we visited the now defunct VOID virtual reality gaming experience for the 3rd time (NYC, Orlando & Vegas). This was the first time since owning our own VR headset and while the walk through experience couldn’t be beat, the graphics just weren’t good enough to justify the price compared to playing at home.
Final Thoughts
I spend a lot of time thinking about this trip since it was the last one pre-covid. It feels like a whole life ago. I even set a (albeit short lived) goal to find a condo or house to spend winters in AZ. It’s crazy how fast life changes. Tomorrow it will be 2 years since we left for this trip! Here’s to hopefully getting past this mental block and posting the rest of our trip recaps sooner.
Cost Breakdown
14 Days, 13 Nights
This was our first trip that used our Chase Ultimate Rewards points! It was really nice getting the hotels we needed near these remote parks for free and frankly not many points either. Not the nicest but way cleaner and maintained that similar chains near big cities.
Our 3 nights in Vegas were disproportionately expensive, especially for us, but MAN did it feel good to be spoiled. We still talk about it, so I’d say worth it. It’s about that value anyways, right?
