Sedona was amazing. We were sad to leave, but ready to move on to our next destination. We woke up at the Hilltop Inn… Damn, that bed was comfortable! Wish I’d slept a little better, but it is what it is. We woke up, had some coffee in the room, read books for a few, and went to breakfast.
French toast, eggs, and bacon were on point at Creekside across the street from the hotel. We went back to the room, finished packing our stuff, and were off.
Good stuff!
Before we left town, Matt felt obligated to take a picture with the blue McDonald’s “M” in town – and it turned out we weren’t the only ones with the idea! A kid was also getting his picture taken…
The blue “M” was confusing!
We hit the road and headed south. Found a place to refill the propane tank, got dumb about how much .8 gallons of propane is vs. how many pounds the tank is…
We drove through the mini towns of Ajo and Why. Finally, we got to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We found the campsite we’d reserved and pitched camp.
The views from our campsite were amazing!
We went out the trail that started at camp and walked through the desert for a bit. So. Cool. Saguaros everywhere! More so than organ pipe, which are the ones the park is named for… In any case, it was beautiful out there.
We got back to camp before sunset and I indulged in my time lapse obsession. And my photo obsession. SO many pictures taken! I can’t wait to look at them.
So pretty!
Dinner was mac and cheese and the rest of the broccoli from the past few days. Then some LavaBox time and bed. Lovely day.
For some reason, that night I woke up around 2:30 am and looked out at the sky. We’d opted not to put the fly on our tent since it was going to be plenty warm, and I could see out the mesh at the top of the tent. Wow! The stars were INCREDIBLE. So much so that I actually put my glasses on my face and just stared for a little bit.
The picture doesn’t do that night sky justice, but you can see how many stars there were!
I woke up for real and got up about 6:00 am. Made some coffee, stuffed my sleeping bag, shot another time lapse… Matt got up shortly after me and we had breakfast pretty quickly.
Aaaah, sunrise. How I love thee!
We were on the road by 7:45. We decided to drive the Punta Blanca road out until it turned one way, past which it was not recommended to go. More saguaros, more ocotillos, more amazing mountains…
We got to the turn around and headed back to the other side and the scenic drive around the Ajo Mountains.
We got to our first stop, Arch Canyon. It was exactly what it sounds like, a canyon hike to an arch that actually became less visible the closer you got to it, until you couldn’t see it at all.
We got to the signpost that looked to mark the end of the trail once upon a time, and went a little beyond that. We ran into a guy that said he thought the trail went all the way up, but he’d made a wrong turn and wasn’t sure. We were not really in the mood for a huge adventure, so we went a little bit farther and then turned around.
The arch was visible from a distance. Not so much up close.
Back at the car, we chugged water and kept driving. I kept yelling for Matt to stop the car so I could take more pictures. We finally found the organ pipe cactus the park was named after. There were TONS of them on this side of the park.
The next pull off was our next hike. We climbed up to Bull Pasture and got a good view of Ajo Peak (Ajo Mountain? Not sure.). We went back via the Estes Canyon Trail, which had – you guessed it – more organ pipe cactus. And saguaros. And cholla and ocotillo. So cool.
Chollas and organ pipe cactus.
We (okay, I) were tired after that one, there was a good bit of up. It’s been a long trip and I’m kind of over it at the moment. We finished the drive and then we were Tucson bound.
After hiking and scrambling and hiking and scrambling for days on end, we had slightly different plans for today. I got up and had coffee, as per usual, and when Matt got up we made pancakes for breakfast. Yum!
We hit the road early-ish and headed out to Prescott. I wanted to check out Watson Lake, which looked really cool in pictures.
It took us about an hour and a half to get there, driving through valleys the whole way. The terrain flattened out a bit (at least on the route we took there), and the rocks became just regular mountains with pine trees instead of the red rocks of Sedona. Watson Lake was a total bust – not sure if we just went to the wrong place or what, but there was very little to see.
Watson Lake. I mean, it wasn’t horrible…
When we got to Prescott, we parked and got out to walk around. We were on Whisky Row, a street with a bunch of bars on it, most on the National Historic Register… It was pretty cool, all those old buildings.
Matt has his own saloon. Who knew?!?!?
We found lunch at Colt Grill, a BBQ place that was actually pretty good. My chicken sandwich was delicious! We wandered around a bit longer after we ate and continued on to Jerome.
We were driving up and up and twisting and turning our way through the mountains, and finally hit the high point and started back down. We could see the valley below, but Google was saying we were only a mile away from town… And the valley was well further away than that. Eventually, we found ourselves in the town.
Jerome was built into the side of the hill. The streets pretty much went straight up or straight down. It was super European looking, with little alleys and alcoves everywhere you looked. It was pretty awesome.
Jerome has quite the colorful history.
After wandering for a while, we finally went in to Caduceus Cellars. We’d know about the place for years – Maynard from Tool owns it – and I knew we had to go. We did a tasing. The wine was pretty good. There was a red and a white that I particularly liked, and we left with a bottle of white – the red was $50/ bottle and I can’t stomach paying that much for wine. We also picked up two cans of the sparkling wine they had – a red and a white.
Pretty good wine.
We drove back to camp after walking around a little more and made dinner. Tonight was pasta and jar sauce with some broccoli that was left over from the other day. MmBed came early. Well, laying down did, anyway. Sleep came eventually.
Today, we were going to Palatki – yesterday we got reservations to go check out some cliff dwellings in the area – seemed like a good “well, we’re here” activity. We had breakfast, a couple cups of coffee, and drove down the road to where the dwellings were.
Palatki was cool! There were some buildings that still stood, have been standing for over a hundred years, and the pictographs were even cooler. Those have been around for thousands of years.
My favorite was the one that looked like a sun over mountains at various times of the year. Some of the mountains were red, some were white. When you turned around, the mountains behind were red and white, just like in the pictograph. The guide told us that one theory is that someone would look and pay attention to where the sun was over those mountains at what time of year. For a community of farmers (with no internet to tell them! ), it was super important to know when to plant the various crops. So cool.
The cliff dwellings and pictographs were pretty damn cool.
Afterwards, I was just exhausted. We’d talked about doing a hike, but decided to just go to town to the grocery for a minute and back to chill. Apparently I’m having trouble recovering…. But I haven’t really stopped moving since we left home.
We grabbed some sandwiches from the grocery for lunch, and they were huge. So we had a much smaller dinner than I’d planned, which was fine.
Once it got dark, we went into the car and watched a movie, reminiscent of the “Jeep RV” of years past. Creed III – it was good! Then into the tent for some good sleep!
The next morning, we climbed a mountain. Bear Mountain, to be specific.
We had coffee and bagels for breakfast and got moving fairly quickly. We drove to the trailhead and started hiking.
Just over a quarter mile in, the trail started up. And up. And up, and up, and up. The trail was straightforward, just remarkably up. I mean, it climbed 2,000 ft in about two and a half miles…
The views were spectacular. Especially as we got to the top. From there, we could see the cliff dwellings from yesterday, which was cool. We were on top of the high white mountains we could see from there.
I feel like I say this a lot, but views for days.
All the up became all the down, which is always annoying, but what goes up must come down, after all.
When we were back to the car, we decided to take the “senic” route back to camp – the gravel road that took the same amount of time, but was way shorter distance – wise.
We chilled out all afternoon, and went into the tent relatively early. Sleep til tomorrow!
The next day was our anniversary. Happy anniversary to us!
We got up slowly, had plenty of coffee and eggs for breakfast, broke down camp, and went for – you guessed it – a hike!
On our way, I called the hotel for the evening (it’s our anniversary – I’m NOT camping tonight!) and asked if we could check in early. The very nice lady said yes, but not before 1:00 pm – perfect!
We wanted to do Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte, but when we got to the parking lot, there was a line of about six cars to get in… We’d seen another lot not too far back and we decided to park there instead.
We figured out how we’d get to Bell Rock at least, and realized it wouldn’t be that far… The connecting trail was pretty cool. There were underpasses under the highway and a bit of the trail went through the median. We found where we wanted to be and started the hike in earnest.
And so began the scramble du jour. Oy. I think this was the puckeriest one yet. Of course, we went straight up, the direct route, instead of maybe following the suggested route… But that’s what we do.
It was – you guessed it – super cool up top. We scrambled about as high as you could and took some good pictures.
More views for days from the top of Bell Rock
We went back to the car and went to our hotel for the night.
The Sedona Hilltop Inn is fabulous! The lobby is beautiful, and the room – aaahhhhhh! A breath of fresh air after a week of camping and no showers. I must’ve taken the longest shower ever, washing my hair twice and shaving my legs… It was funny, watching the red dirt run down in rivulets off my legs.
I also washed my shorts and hiking pants in the sink. SO much red dirt!
After our showers and clothes-washing, we headed out to walk around town. We wandered for a while, stopping into a few shit shacks. We had a drink at a bar with a BEAUTIFUL view!
Drinks with a view.
Then we walked back to the hotel and changed clothes for dinner. We ate at Mole, a Mexican joint down the road that got really good reviews – and holy SHIT, it did not disappoint!
I had the snapper, which was amazing, and for an appetizer we had fried avocados, which were really interesting. And delicious.
Dinner was amazing. So was my marg. So was the view.
The margaritas were in the top five of my life. They had this cilantro salt rim that was to die for!
We came back to the hotel and started looking into camping in Tucson. Yeah. About that… There’s not much. So we came up with a new plan. We’re going to camp at Organ Pipe tomorrow night, then we got an Airbnb in Tucson, then we’ll take our chances with dispersed camping near White Sands, then we already have a hotel in Santa Fe…
Not quite what we thought it was going to be, bit it will be nice to not have to go without a shower for six days again…
We weren’t in a hurry to get out and head for Sedona this morning, but we were still up and about at a decent hour. We had some coffee in the room and decided to go to the greasy spoon across the street for breakfast.
I had an omelette – ham and cheese – yum! The coffee was mostly terrible, but whatever.
When we were done eating, we ran back across the street and finished packing up our stuff. We’d decided to head straight to Sedona and find a place to camp, and then go do something if we had time in the afternoon.
The drive down was beautiful! It cut through Oak Creek Canyon, which was spectacular with the golden leaves still on the trees and the red rocks peeking through in between. Not a long drive, mileage wise, but all those twists and turns made it take a bit.
We went straight to the place I’d found for dispersed camping and drove down the road. The first parking lot was pretty close to the road, and pretty full. The second was a little ways back, tiny, and REALLY full. We decided to go one more before giving up and trying the other sode of the street.
Success! There was a nice big spot with a tree for some shade and plenty of open space for our tent and our stuff. We set up camp and decided to go for a little hike.
We found a beautiful spot to camp!There were these adorable little cacti everywhere around our campsite.
We went to Cathedral Rock. AllTrails said it was mostly up, but at 1.3 miles round trip, we figured it couldn’t be that bad. It wasn’t. SO much fun! It was really nice, easy trail that became straight up slickrock. So scrambly and so much fun! The view from the top was spectacular also. I mean, everywhere you look, it’s ridiculously, mind-blowingly beautiful. That seems to be a theme with me this year…..
Cathedral Rock was SPECTACULAR.
We went to the grocery store after that (or maybe we’d gone before hiking – I can’t remember now) and went back to camp, where we sat around for a little bit and read books before dinner.
As soon as the first tiny chill hit the air, we started dinner. Flatbread pizza. With broccoli. Yum!
We went into the car afterwards for a bit and read books just so we didn’t lay down SO damned early – but by about 6:30 we gave up and went into the tent for the night. Think I was asleep before 8:00….
The next morning, I woke up before sunrise, as is my custom for some annoying reason… But – I grabbed a timelapse of sunrise at least. While drinking coffee. Because, priorities.
Sunrise is better with coffee!
After a while, Matt got up, and we had some bagels for breakfast. We headed out before too long so we could get a parking spot. Apparently trailhead parking here fills up fast.
The trailhead for Devil’s Bridge wasn’t terribly full by the time we got there, and we started on our hike. It wasn’t too hard, even if the last half mile or so was straight up – the stairmasters abound here in Sedona.
The bridge itself looked like nothing until you got right next to it, then it was cool! You could actually walk out onto it. It looks really scary from the side, until you get up to it and realize it really pretty wide. Matt walked out, we got some pictures, then I walked out, then he came back out and we got all the obligatory pictures.
Devil’s Bridge.
We went back to the car, changed clothes, and grabbed some food. The trailhead for the other hike (something called the Birthing Cave) we wanted to do was about half a mile up the road, and there was a connecting trail, so we just took it from there.
We hiked for a bit, and then the obligatory stair master up to the cave. It was sorta anticlimactic. I really thought you got up to an edge and this gorgeous view would be on the other side of it or something, and it wasn’t. It was just… A cave. Until you turned around and saw the opening that the “Birthing” cave was named for. It totally looks like- well. You get the idea.
The Birthing Cave.
After that hike, we at a bit, went to the grocery again, and headed back to camp.
We had a chill afternoon at camp and then had dinner stupid early, pizza again. Needed to use up the leftover naan and pizza sauce. It was just as good.
Then a little while in the car, and into the tent for the night.
The next day was another fairly early morning, another sunrise time lapse… More coffee waiting for the sun to come up.
We had quick oatmeal for breakfast and headed to today’s trailhead. We wanted to get out not too late, we were doing a biger hike today. We were doing the Hangover Loop.
I think we started walking around 9:00 am, which was nice. The trail meandered through some scrub brush and some washes for a bit.
Eventually, we turned onto the Hangover Trail proper, and the stairmaster began. It wasn’t until we got towards the top of the butte-thing that it started in earnest, though.
Along the Hangover Trail hike. The pictures just do NOT do the views justice.
We gained a little saddle, and the trail turned left and onto some slickrock. It went around the side of a cliff (well, it’s slickrock, so not an actual cliff, but plenty steep below), and it was off cambre as hell, too. We came around a corner at one point, and the paint marks on the rock went straight up. And up. And up, and up, and up. It was nuts.
Eventually, we got to a place where you just couldn’t go up any more. That’s when the trail started traversing the cliff line. Well, sorta. There was a small line of trees and bushes precariously perched on the side of this slickrock cliff, and the trail went between the trees and the cliff wall… So interesting and SO cool! The trail really did “hang over” the cliff face.
We finally made it back to the next saddle, and up and over. More scampering over slickrock finally brought us to the Cow Pie Trail. Again, aptly named. The big brown mounds of rock looked, like, well… Cow pies.
Once we got through that section, we came upon the road. By this point, we were beat. We decided to just take the road back to the car, which ended up being slightly shorter. Or so we told ourselves…
It was over eight miles of pretty solid hiking today. Lemme tell ya, I am NOT recovered from my race – not physically OR mentally.
Then we went to Sedona Brewing Company for some food and beer. Lo and behold, we ran into a guy I know who’s a customer from work, here with his wife and some friends for his 40th birthday. Small freaking world. Oh, the beer was good too.
We made our way back to camp after that and read books in the sun. It’s so nice that it’s warm outside.
At some point we figured we didn’t need dinner, but we munched on crap and then eventually fired up the LavaBox… And made s’mores! It had been a LONG time! Yum!
We watched sunset with the s’mores in our hands and enjoyed the fire a little longer… And now I’m laying in the tent, 6:38 pm, typing this. I’m going to read for a bit and hopefully stay awake past 7:30, but I’m not too hopeful…..
The morning after the race, we got to sit and drink good coffee that Kris brought and chat and rehash with Renee. We packed and cleaned everything up and headed out by about 10:00 am. Kris and Renee had a hellish drive back to Denver, and we’re headed to Flagstaff! Time to get this road trip started for REAL!
We filled up the car with gas and headed south!
The drive really wasn’t much to talk about – there were a few prettier parts and some less-pretty parts, but the desert is always cool.
We stopped for lunch at a Subway in Tuba City, and ate on the road. I was thinking we’d have a little town to wander for a minute, but that wasn’t a thing.
A bit later we got to Flagstaff and found our hotel. We checked in and immediately took showers and chilled out for a while before heading out for dinner.
Dinner was at Lumberjack Brewing. Descent beer and grilled chicken sandwich. Then back to the hotel – we’re EXHAUSTED. So exhausted we managed to not take any pictures…
Funny enough, at dinner we were talking, and we realized we had both had the thought, “Huh. I think I could live here” while we were driving around. Interesting… Then, bedtime. Yay!
The next morning, I woke up realizing that I had managed to actually sleep well! No more twitching and feeling all weird.
Got up, made a cup of coffee… Eventually, Matt got up too, after I’d gone to the car to grab our hiking packs.
Matt got us more coffee, we grabbed the rest of our crap, and off we went to the Grand Canyon!
The drive was kinda pretty, all ponderosa pines and wide open vistas.
We got to the visitors center and got out of the car… Holy hell, it was cold and windy! The car was reading somewhere between 14 and 17 degrees on the drive out, and I don’t think it was much warmer when we got there. Brrrr!
The visitors center was still closed when we got there, so we walked for a bit along the south rim trail. The views were pretty, but it was so cold and windy it wasn’t super enjoyable…
The views are incredible from the top!
Then we drove to the Bright Angel Trailhead and hiked INTO the Grand Canyon for a couple miles.
It’s interesting, walking into the canyon. It’s a bunch of switchbacks, all more or less the same… It’s boring, but it’s not. It’s the same, but everywhere it’s just a little bit different.
The Bright Angel Trail.
We didn’t make it far, maybe a mile and a half down, but it was worth it. The hike out was less unpleasant than it would seem – I actually warmed up finally.
Afterwards, we got back in the car and drove towards Desert Towers, stopping at Gateway Trailhead. The views were a little different, but mostly the same. We stopped at a few overlooks, and headed back to Flagstaff.
We got back to the hotel and showered, then headed to town for beers and dinner.
Mother Road Brewing Company was awesome. Good vibe, good beer…
Good beer. Cool vibes. Too bad it was too cold to sit outside.
Then we went to Dark Side Brewing for another beer and food… The pizza was great, the beer was meh.
Matt does not appear convinced about the beer…
We walked back to the car and came back to the hotel. Tomorrow, Sedona. And hopefully some warmer weather….
After the almost-running-out-of-gas fiasco, we went back to the hostel and chilled out for a bit in our room, then found a 1.6 mile hike that was 8 minutes away. What the hell, we went for it.
Such a cool trail! Not something we would have done if I wasn’t supposed to be resting because it’s so short, but it was awesome! It shadowed a creek (Mill Creek, I think, that’s what the trail is called) out to a waterfall in a canyon. There were water crossings (we wore sandals) and some scrambling to get to the top of the falls. It was beautiful. I love water in the desert – it’s so unexpected and so damned pretty!
Water in the desert is always amazing to me.
On the way back to the car, we stopped at the little “beach” – a sandy bank with some trees. Kinda cool. I guess.
Now, we’re sitting outside our room, playing on our phones… At some point we’ll have to figure out dinner. But for now – more crack pretzels!!!!
Dinner ended up being Taco Time, eating hanging out on our porch… It was surprisingly good! Then bed. Last night at the hostel. Sleep is good!
Sometimes, the local taco truck is all you need.
The next morning, I got up one last time and grabbed us coffee from Wicked Brew. Drank it in bed while reading a book.
We packed up and talked about what to do for the day – we had to check out of the hostel by 11:00 and couldn’t check into the Airbnb until 3:00. We found a couple little hikes, one more of a scramble, to some more arches, and decided to start with the scrambly one, Funnel Arch.
We drove to the trailhead, nothing more than a pull off on the side of the road, and found the “trail.” Almost immediately, we were walking straight up slickrock. There was a little maybe 15 ft. section that made me think about getting down – so I stopped thinking and just went.
A bit more trail-ish path and more walking up slickrock, and we got there. It was so cool! The arch itself was pretty, and there was no one else around. We walked right up to it, and could actually walk off the back side too. It’s not too often you can walk all the way through and arch, let alone all the way around. This one, you could do both.
Funnel Arch was cool because you can walk all the way around it.
We took twenty million pictures and videos and headed back to the car. I got down the part that raised my eyebrows without thinking, and we got back fine.
Then we drove back to the other side of the river to the trailhead for Longbow Arch.
An obvious trail, paint on rocks to follow, and some sand later, we found it. It’s an arch, ao it’s cool by default, but really it was mostly meh. Totally anticlimactic after the cool factor of Funnel Arch.
Longbow Arch was alright. Not the most spectacular, but still pretty cool.
We snacked in the parking lot for a bit and then went to the grocery for a minute. By then, it was time to check into the Airbnb.
The place was interesting. It reminded us of the office you see at a gold mine on “Gold Rush” or something. Just a big, manufactured building, wide open with a couple bedrooms in the back. But it was clean and comfortable, and really functional.
That evening, we met Jeni, Karen, Rochelle, and Jason for dinner at the Spoke. A burger and a beer hit the spot. Then, Jeni and Karen insisted on going to the liquor store to get more booze, so we ran down with them for a minute – laughing at how we cross the road like penguins every time! When they’re going to drink the entire bottle of vodka they bought, I don’t want to know!
Then back to the house and to bed.
The next morning, we hung out and drank horrible coffee, took a short walk down the road by the house, and that killed our morning.
After munching some lunch, I went to pick Renee up at the airport. I thought I saw her plane landing, but then I saw a plane taking off and thought I must’ve been mistaken. Turns out, it was her plane and they had to abort the landing. Eek! She got in fine, though, and we headed back to town.
We stopped by the grocery , stopped by the house, dropped off her stuff, grabbed Matt, and headed to packet pick up. There, we ran into everyone else, and got some pictures of all of us. We had a big group!
We had quite the crew!
Dinner was spaghetti and jar sauce, then some scrambling to get the last of our crap together for race day, and laying down to get as much rest as possible. Tomorrow is the big dance!!
Race day was an entertaining shit show consisting of sun, ice, wind, hail, storms, mud, rivers of water down dirt roads, and a lot of sand and sliding down slick rock on our butts. I’ll eventually write a race report and update this post with a link if you’re interested, but I’m not going to bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, it did not go as planned, none of us ran as far as we thought we would, and Renee and I ended up doing shots of tequila when we got back to the AirBnb that night.
I haven’t been so happy to wake up in a bed after having actually gone to bed in a long time. I’m really not sad about yesterday’s outcome. It was really nice to sit and drink good coffee that Kris brought and chat and rehash with Renee.
We packed and cleaned everything up and headed out by about 10:00 am. Kris and Renee had a hellish drive back to Denver, and we’re headed to Flagstaff! Time to get this road trip started for REAL!
After walking back up and down the steps into our building from the 8,038,263,910th trip to the car and loading our stuff, we hit the road. We managed to leave exactly when I wanted to – we had reservations at Hanging Lake, and I would be damned if we were late. We went to the new bagel shop – Call Your Mother. I had a maple salt and pepper bagel. YUM! Oh, with apple pie cream cheese. SO GOOD. Matt had some sandwich with eggs and avocado and latkes. Also amazing. This place opened last week, and I think we were both pleasantly surprised at how good it was.
We had an uneventful drive to Hanging Lake. We stopped at the rest area to pee, because the website had said that there were no bathrooms at the trailhead. It was probably the most beautiful rest stop we’ve ever been to, all fall leaves crunching underfoot and the river in all its glory…
Turns out, they’re serious about reservations at the lake, there was a guy checking and opening the gate by hand. We parked, walked past the bathrooms (oops), and headed up the trail.
For a trail that’s got 1,000 ft. of vert in just over a mile, it was super chill. And beautiful. It shadows a pretty little stream the whole way up, so there are all kinds of waterfalls to look at. Towards the top, the water literally comes out of the rock, and everything is covered in this gorgeous green moss… The pictures just don’t do it justice.
The water was just coming out of the rocks. It was SUPER cool!
Talk about pictures not doing justice to something… We came around a corner and there was the lake. Talk about spectacular! I’d keep trying to describe it, but words fail me. I’ll leave it at that.
Hanging Lake. Spectacular.
On our way back down, we took the other little spur trail to Spouting Rock. It was, quite literally, a waterfall spouting out from the middle of a rock face. Pretty damn cool. You could walk behind the falls, too. Another awesome experience.
We made our way back to the car and continued on our way. We went to Palisade to the brewery for lunch, where Bobby met us for food and beer. Good times.
We pulled in to the Lazy Lizard and checked in. We got a private room, which is little more than a full size bed with about a foot of space around it. This one has a little closet like space and a chair and mini-desk. And the bathrooms are about five steps away, so that’s nice.
I was falling asleep at like 6:15, so we decided to go to the grocery and find crack pretzels (good ole’ Dot’s). Not only did they have the normal ones, they also had cinnamon and sugar ones, which ended up being my dinner. Talk about crack! OMG! So good!
I slept forever that night. According to Coros, 10 hours and 37 minutes worth. So nice.
I went across the street to the Wicked Brew truck for coffee and brought it back to the hostel. Yum. We had some bagels for breakfast, then decided to see if we could get reservations for Arches NP, and we could. We decided on 2:00 pm, then scrambled to figure out what else to do until then…
We found a hike to some arches that are NOT in the national park, gathered some stuff, and off we went.
Corona and Bowtie arch were pretty cool. There were a bunch of people, but not SO many. Wasn’t terrible. On the way back to the trailhead, we took the other spur to Pinto arch. Not as cool. But really, arches are cool no matter what.
The railroad tracks we had to cross on the hike and Corona Arch. It sure was pretty!
We munched on some salami and cheese (and more crack pretzels) when we got back to the car, and headed to the national park.
We decided to head all the way to the far end of the road first and make our stops on the way back. We parked at the end and hiked out to Landscape Arch.
Wow. That was amazing. We caught it just at the right time so the sun was kind of behind it, lighting up the underneath a bit – spectacular! I must’ve take fifty million pictures, I just could NOT get enough! On our way back to the car, we hit two more arches, but they were hardly anything to write home about…
Landscape Arch
After a while, we moved along, figuring there was still one more stop to make. We parked, and headed to Delicate Arch.
I LOVE this hike. It’s short, not too hard, and has some amazing views. And Delicate Arch, is, well… Awesome. There were plenty of people up there, but not so many that we couldn’t get a single picture…
Delicate Arch
The hike back to the car was uneventful, and we went back to the hostel to shower.
Dinner was at Miguel’s Baja Grill, located in an alley type building in the middle of town. We had discovered it years ago, and it seems like everyone else has, too, now. Thankfully, the wait was maybe 20 minutes, and the food was just as good as we remembered it.
Then, back to the hostel and bed.
The next morning, I woke up a little earlier than the day before, so I read a book in bed for a bit. It’s really nice to not have anything to get up for. Eventually, I got tired of laying there and went to Wicked Brew again for coffee.
When I got back, we briefly talked about what to do today, and we decided on Canyonlands NP. No reservations required, and the place is always cool to look at. Especially Mesa Arch – that’s my favorite.
Stupidly, we didn’t fill the gas tank before heading out. We had a quarter tank, which is plenty to get pretty much anywhere in the city… By the time we drove the 30ish miles to the park entrance, we realized we oopsed pretty good. The little orange light wasn’t on yet, but it sure was close, and it was still 12 miles to the other end of the park.
Grudgingly, we decided we’d try to get to Mesa Arch and turn around if the light came on before then.
Luckily, it didn’t. We hiked out to the arch and oohed and aahed with everyone else out there. Okay, it wasn’t sunrise, but it was still damned pretty.
Mesa Arch
We didn’t press out luck and turned around there without going all the way to the end of the road. We did stop at the two Shafer Trail overlooks, which we don’t think we’ve ever done before. The highlight was some dumbass in an RV making his way up the switchbacks. He kept making three point turns to get around them… Idiot.
Shafer Trail overlook. You can almost see the guy in the RV trying to get up the switchbacks on the left side of the picture.
Back to town we went without incident and got gas. We stopped by the grocery and got some sandwiches for lunch and ate them back at the hostel.
We left on a Saturday and picked up Kris about 10:15, only 15 minutes after what we said we would! Kind of amazing actually.
We hit the road and drove for a few hours, and stopped to have lunch. Thanks to Kris being along, we were able to get out of the car and have Mexican! El Tapatio is always good, according to Kris. Well, he wasn’t wrong.
Another hour or so and we arrived in Fruita. Grabbed some gas and firewood and headed to Robb to set up camp.
After hanging out for awhile, Kris convinced us to head into town for awhile. Apparently he’d found a festival of some sort online – it was called Fall Fest, and it totally reminded me of festivals back in Ohio – the nice, downhome ones with all the greasy food and funnel cakes you could eat, and all the guys in their cowboy boots and hats… It was super pleasant to wander around for a little while.
Eventually, we found Copper Club Brewery, which we were looking for and didn’t realize they had moved. Their new location is awesome, nice and big with a huge outdoor space complete with a stage and everything. The Tripel I got did NOT suck, either.
Then we found some food (chicken fingers FTW!) and headed back to camp for some sleep. The boys say they’re getting up at 5:30 to get moving. We’ll see.
Welp, 5:30 it was. I woke up a bit before that and was reading a book for a few, but Matt must’ve heard me rustling around and asked what time it was a few minutes before 5:30.
We stuffed all the things and made some coffee… Ate some breakfast, packed up the car (which is laughable, really. The stuff fits, the humans, not quite so well..), and headed for the trailhead.
The boys took off and I got my shoes on and went for a run. My favorite run, actually. Or one of them, anyway. Horsethief Bench is just mind-numbingly beautiful, every way you look. I know this, but I was reminded on every step today. I’m pretty sure my pace would’ve been way faster if I’d taken less pictures, but, well…
Matt, ready to ride.Views from Horsethief Bench.
When I was finished, I drove over to Westwater, where we had decided I should meet the boys. Been here about an hour now, I figure they’ll be here in the next half hour or so….
They came in shortly after I wrote the last paragraph… Or maybe it was another hour. It’s all a blur now. Anyway, they refueled and refilled their water bottles and took off again.
I headed for Dewey Bridge. Good thing, too. When I got there, there were only two (of seven) spots left. I grabbed the one with the most flat space and pitched the tent.
Funny story – There was an orange Gatorade-type cooler sitting on the table. I triple checked the tags to make sure no one was already at this spot, and I didn’t find today’s date on any of them, so I figured somebody had forgotten the cooler. I moved it to the picnic table at the next campsite over and didn’t think anything else of it.
The actual Dewey Bridge.
The boys came in hot (Kris, literally), sooner than I expected they would. We chilled out, made a fire, had some dinner (Kris made a ridiculous amount of a ground beef chili type thing which was really good), and went to bed.
Sometime before we started the fire, some guy came up and was really confused aas to where his cooler had gone. I told him I figured someone had moved it… He was pissed, seems like he had stuck a reservation on the site. I swear, I looked four times, and all I saw was the last few nights, and one for 11/24-11/25, which just confused me. I didn’t think you could reserve these sites, and who the hell would already have a reservation for November, anyway? It’s only September. Later we figured out he must’ve written down the wrong month. Oops….
Monday dawned stupidly early as usual, waking up at 5:30 on the nose. We heard Kris rustling around, so we got up and broke camp.
Had some breakfast, mixed some bottles, realized we weren’t going to have enough water… Somehow we went through most of the seven gallon jug we’d brought with. There was a sign at the campground saying there was a park with water in town. I said I’d go to the park and refill our jug.
The boys took off, and I had to figure out what to do with myself for the day. I looked at the map and saw it was not exactly close to the park with the water, so I decided to go to the next campground first and then see what I would do.
It was a beautiful morning!
The drive through Castle Valley is always beautiful. The river, the rock formations, the red cliffs… More mind numbingly beautiful landscape. I took my sweet old time, stopped at every pull off I wanted to, and took lots of photos and videos.
Castle Valley never disappoints.
I set up camp by 9:00 am. When I looked at the map again, I realized it’s about 30 miles to the park with the water, and I remembered seeing the LaSalle Loop scenic drive just back a bit on the road. I got just enough internet to see that the loop is 65 miles, and goes right past the park, so off I went.
Also beautiful. And slightly more pleasant than driving out, then back, the same road I’ll drive to Moab tomorrow.
I stopped at the grocery and got more Coke, then found the park. They had water, alright. They had a drinking fountain. A fucking DRINKING FOUNTAIN.
Thankfully, I got smart and went across the street where the other half of the park was, where at least they had a bottle filler and a bathroom with running water. I sincerely hope 10 Nalgenes worth of water is enough for tonight and tomorrow.
I headed back to camp and read a book and worked on videos for awhile… Until I got a text from Matt saying his pedal fell off. 🙄🙄🙄
We don’t have any spares with us, and I don’t know HOW his pedal fell off, and we have no pedal wrench, either, so I decided to just wait and see the deal before I drive to town (45 minutes each way), only to maybe have to drive the bike BACK to town….
Needless to say, it’s been two hours longer than they thought they’d take, and they’re not here yet. It’s gonna be an interesting evening, I suspect.
Well, they made it back just fine, Matt on one pedal and one pedal spindle, Kris on two chain ring bolts instead of four, laughing their asses off at the whole situation…
Matt decided he would just ride the road instead of the Whole Enchilada back to town tomorrow and so we didn’t have to go back to town, which I was quite grateful for.
Kris chugged about four Dale’s Pale Ales in five minutes and then felt better himself. They both ran out of water again, but they made it!
One pedal and Dale’s. That about summed up our evening.
Then dinner and bed. Last day tomorrow!
We woke up pretty early when we heard Kris moving about this morning. We tore down camp, had a quick breakfast, and they were off!
Matt’s still smiling, even with just one pedal! Probably helps this was the last day.
I drove in a different direction for a few miles, going up high to a pretty spectacular overlook that also had some dinosaur footprint fossils. More mind blowingly beautiful scenery. And the leaves are starting to turn up there, so it was even more gorgeous.
I turned around and headed back to town and the pick up point, stopping at every other pull off along the Colorado River… Once again being blown away by how beautiful this place is. Okay, we don’t live here, exactly, but it’s a five our drive from home. Still our backyard. We used to have to drive for days and take a whole week to get out here, and now a long weekend is an easy trip. Mind. BLOWN.
Now, I’m sitting at a beautiful little park, about to go take a walk around it while I wait for the boys. This life, let me tell ya…
We headed up to the hills to do something different – my friends had been to Heart Lake a few weeks before and they told me that it was amazing up there. The hike isn’t short, but at least there’s not a lot of vert… What the hell, we decided to try it.
Holy crap. They said the trail was gorgeous, and they weren’t wrong. Talk about mind-numbingly beautiful. That seems to be a theme in my life lately… But that’s another story for another time.
This picture doesn’t do the views justice.
In any case, the hike was amazing. It was easy, not too climb-y on a nice wide trail, and there were three or four beautiful alpine lakes along the way. Heart Lake itself was also awesome, aptly named since it’s the shape of a heart.
Heart Lake
We sat ourselves down by the lake, had a snack, and watched the clouds go by for a bit. Eventually, we got up and started the walk back down. We stopped at the smaller lakes and took some pictures, and listened to the sound of the creek running next to the trail.
Snack time!
We made it back to the car without incident and headed home. Turned out to be quite a pleasant day!
Here’s the infamous latest list. We’ve gotten some things done already, started a few others that are going to take a bit, and changed a few. If you have any suggestions and/or recommendations, please comment below!
We’re doing this shit TOGETHER!!
Starting 11/6/2023
1. Portugal 🇵🇹 and Morocco 🇲🇦 (or Costa Rica 🇨🇷)
2. Go backpacking. Dammit.
3. Go sailing ⛵️ by ourselves
4. Climb Playing Hooky
5. Solo a Flatiron
6. Raft the Gauley again
7. Figure out how to get 100 subscribers on YouTube
8. Go to Dazzle! Or another jazz bar…
9. Go to a Rapids game in a suite
10. Play pool somewhere
11. Mickelson Trail
12. Cheyenne Frontier Days
13. Finally take a Haunted Denver tour
14. Boom Days! (Leadville)
15. Find a fall hike that is NOT Kenosha. (Breck?)
16. Do some work on the land
17. Go back to Puerto Rico 🇵🇷
18. Vegas for a weekend
19. Camp 🏕️ out for 20 nights
1. Nov. 7 – Organ Pipe
2. Nov. 11 – White Sands
3. Nov. 12 – White Sands
20. Throw one HELL of a party!🎉
Extras! (Because life happens and options are good.):
We got up at a reasonable hour and had some coffee and breakfast. We finished packing up the car and headed out.
We got to Winter Park in what felt tlike record time and turned off US 40. According to the Googles, we were supposed to then turn off onto another road that we realized was gravel when we got to it… Which would’ve been okay, except that we really needed gas and the town of Rand was nothing more than a tiny sign and a farm or two.
We kept driving all the way to Walden, about 20 minutes out of our way – but. We had some lunch at the Rock Creek Lounge (???) at the Antlers Inn, which was delicious, and got some gas. All of us (Jeep included) fed, we continued on to the park.
We arrived a few minutes after 1:00, which happened to be check in time at our campsite, and pitched camp.
Our plan for the afternoon was to head to Lake Agnes, which I remembered from my run out here. It was beautiful. It’s a short hike (albeit straight uphill), and the small alpine lake has a tiny little island in the middle of it. Unfortunately, and much to Matt’s dismay, there’s no swimming, so we (and by we I mean he) couldn’t go explore it.
That little bit of land sticking out into the water is the tiny island. It’s SO cool.
We farted around the lake for awhile and then headed back to the car and drove back to camp.
I’m a sucker for wildflowers. Especially columbine.
When we started discussing dinner, my dumb ass realized I’d managed to forget a couple crucial ingredients for one of the dinners I’d planned. And syrup for pancakes.
We weren’t all that hungry anyway, since lunch had been huge, so we had chips and salami and cheese for dinner. SUPER healthy choices…
Sunset was pretty amazing at camp.
A little time with the LavaBox, and then bedtime. I think I made it till almost 9:00pm!!
Day 2:
I slept pretty well, actually. I usually do in a tent. It was a minute or two after 6:00 am when I got up and out – it had sounded like it was raining before that. I was wondering how wet everything would be, but other than a couple drops on the stove, hardly anything looked like it had rained.
Matt got up shortly after I did and we had some coffee and oatmeal before heading out for the day.
Today’s plan was to hike to Kelly Lake via the Hidden Valley trail, a part of the Never Summer course that I didn’t quite make it to. The AllTrails said the road was sorta rough, and by the time we got to the end of the 2wd section, we were wondering what that meant… It wasn’t THAT bad.
Of course, when the road went to 4wd, Matt wanted to drive it. We were in our Jeep Rubicon, after all. I probably made it a quarter mile before I started feeling queasy… My belly REALLY doesn’t like the bumping around.
We went back to the parking lot and started hiking up the road. Eventually we got to the actual trailhead and headed up the trail.
The trail split about two miles in , and we were so damned tired that we almost decided to go to the closer lake and say screw it… And then (thankfully) decided not to be lame and go to Kelly Lake after all.
It was beautiful out there. The ridge lines, the meadows, the wildflowers… It was almost dizzying, the sheer gorgeousness of the place.
The wildflowers were NEXT LEVEL.
Eventually we made it to the top of another saddle and we saw the lake below us. More spectacular-ness. This time, we opted not to descend all the way down to the lake. Neither of us particularly wanted to have to climb back up. In any case, we had a great view from where we stopped. We hung out for a bit and had a snack, then headed back down the trail towards the car.
The view wasn’t too bad, either.
Back at camp, Matt stuck his feet in the water, as he does, and we made some dinner (One Pot Tomato Basil Pasta). It was delicious!
That evening we were treated to a GORGEOUS sunset! Then, to bed!
Another spectacular sunset!
Day 3:
We have to go home today! Sniff sniff. I don’t love going home.
We took our time this morning, drinking our coffee and breaking down camp slowly. When we were ready, we started driving home.
The sunrise didn’t suck, either.
We stopped at yet another mountain lake on our way home (Zimmerman Lake), and took a short hike around it. We also stopped at a random picnic area somewhere along the river in Poudre Canyon and farted around on the rocks for a little bit… Sure was pretty!
We made it home without consequence and unpacked the car – until next time!!!
luhnylife 