Saturday, May 6th – Saturday, May 13th, 2023

On this week-long trip, we visited two national parks: Arches and Canyonlands. Canyonlands is divided into three districts and we visited two of them. First was the Needles (less visitors, harder to get to, with mostly long hikes) and we ended with Island in the Sky (the touristy part). The third district, called the Maze, is not as developed and requires a permit so it was not on our list. Snagging campsites for these parks is exceptionally tough and must be done exactly when reservations open months in advance; so when my family already put in the work to get this trip booked, we decided to take advantage of this opportunity to come along.

Day 1 – Sat 5/6 – Arrive at Arches

We left early morning to get lounge food before departing. Except Victor’s lounges (both Amex and Delta) didn’t allow guests anymore- so useless! So I spent all my extra time collecting food from 3 different Priority Pass restaurants. Barely had time to eat, just ran around hoarding hah. We landed in SLC, met my bro, went to Hertz and decided between cars— either a giant one where we could fit comfortably on the seats when folded down (but not AWD), or a smaller one that was AWD. We went with the AWD, a decision that may not have paid off later, oh well.

Immediately after, it was Walmart, Costco, go go go. 3 hours later, a Subway stop, grab gas, ice, then continue to go. Driving into Arches National Park, hey look- the lighting is quite nice. To get from the entrance to the end where our Devil’s Garden Campground was, there’s only a 30 minute scenic drive. We had time so we stopped at La Sal Mountains viewpoint. There you can see these snow-capped mountains in the distance, very random and beautiful and out of place for this dry area. Victor basically fell in love at first sight with these mountains (“they speak to me”) and would go on to look for them at every view over the next week. Further along, we stopped at balanced rock, an aptly named rock formation, with more beautiful lighting while we took a short walk around it. Afterwards, the lighting is about gone so we proceed to campsite where said hi to my aunts for the first time in many years. Finally came the question: Set up tent? Nahh.. our seats fold down, we’ll just sleep in the car, a lot more convenient.

Day 2 – Sun 5/7 – Arches

First stop of today was Arches visitor center so that we could pick up our Fiery Furnace hiking permits. We watched the park introduction video, a dramatic corny Windows in Time video about arches but hey I liked it and of course got my national park passport stamped. Then we watched the required video before they granted us our Fiery Furnace permits. Did you know? Banana and tangerine peels take *decades* to decompose… that was basically like the one takeaway Victor got from the video. It was so unbelievable he was practically offended by it over the next few days and felt compelled to look it up once we had signal. It’s actually six months apparently. Except in arid environments, TBD. 

Right next to the visitor center, Park Avenue Trailhead was our first hike. Fairly easy, surrounded by big rock walls and green plants. It’s two miles roundtrip but you can shortcut it by having someone pick you up at the end of the trail, making it only a one mile walk. Boyfriend with the recovering ankle, I say he can wait at the end while I hike back, uphill(!), to fetch the car and pick him cuz I’m the best girlfriend. Let’s forget about the part where I drove past the pickup point after not seeing him because I did turn around to find him soon enough. Lunch was at Garden of Eden viewpoint, where we watched a climber go up this really tall tower-looking rock while we sat in the open truck eating a wrap.

Fiery Furnace viewpoint and hike was next. Our rating? It’s not worth the hype but still worth doing. Not worth the hype since I had to be up at 7am a week before in order to secure 2 of only 85 permits released a day. I tried two days and only got it one of those days. Yet this hike was unique because there’s no well defined route. You basically go in and explore whatever path you want as long as you know how to retrace your steps. There are several signs that lead to dead ends. But actually what we did instead was get AllTrails, which was a lifesaver this trip but especially on this trail. Instead of wandering around like we would’ve had to do, we followed it religiously in the CCW direction, and it took us down the side trails worth exploring too, one to a tiny arch, a skull arch, and one to a surprise arch.

Skull arch? This began a series of guessing games where I knew the name of the arch while he got to guess based on what he saw. Skull? He hit the nail on the head with little effort. All others were tougher. Some names he approved of, like Double O, makes sense, and some not, like Partition, but hey you gotta get a little creative when there are just so many arches in the park.

Having completed the furnace hike, we went back to do Double, North and South window and Turret arch trails. Double was nice, they looked like a pair of legs to me and when you climb up, the window created by one of the arches frames the background nicely. Victor would’ve named North and South windows the McDonalds arch which I totally get but anyways, if you climb through North window and scramble up the opposite rocks (safe enough that I would do but still a bit sketchy feeling) you can get a nice photo of Turret Arch through North Window arch, the featured photo of this blog post.

Day 3 – Mon 5/8 – Arches

Today was the first long hike of our trip coming in at 8 miles, and a trail that many folks online rate highly, the Devil’s Garden Trail. You get to see tons of arches on this trail: Tunnel, Pine, Landscape, Partition, Navajo, Double O, and Private Arch. Whew! It’s great because it definitely breaks up the long hike into several payoffs following each increment. Man, it was lots of hiking on slick rock though. We did CCW direction, meaning the primitive trail was the first half. On parts of the primitive trail, the route is not clear and often left us wondering do we really go up that thing? But AllTrails, again, big help.

Would we recommend doing the whole loop including the primitive trail? Nah, the primitive trail wasn’t that interesting. You can just do the out and back to Double O, the popular part of the trail where all the arches are on anyway. But if you’re set on doing the whole loop, CCW is the way to go so you’re at least hiking up slick rock rather than the sketchier alternative of CW and trying to hike down giant smooth rocks. What do we think of the various arches? Tunnel and Pine were easy to get to. Landscape Arch was grand to me, so thin and wide stretching. Partition, I guess it’s kind of different since there’s a circle hole next to the arch. Navajo was definitely different, kind of cave like for an arch. Private arch was alright. Double O was such a pleasant surprise when we turned the corner. The name for this one makes a lot of sense! We climbed through the arch and up the other side; you get some great photos from there. Probably our favorite arch after Delicate Arch.

After that hike, we crammed in some shorter hikes to check off more arches. Sand dune arch was a real let down, but the hike is barely a hike so no harm done. Following that, we did the short hike to Tapestry arch and Broken arch, which honestly are decent arches. My aunt and bro got nice sunrise pics of them, but for us, we were on the tired side when we visited and I just wanted to finish so I could go back to the campsite and rest.

Back at the campsite, we had shaved ice and noodles for dinner, prepped already for us so we didn’t have to lift a finger- how wonderful. But you know what came after this relatively short break? More hiking. Dude what a long day! Sunset was in a few hours so it was time to go hike to the Delicate arch. Like, THE arch. We gunned it up to the top. Usually the iconic touristy thing is always a letdown but when we saw the arch, wow we were both impressed. I had seen it before on an earlier trip but I don’t remember such a strong impression. It’s massive. It’s completely free-standing with nothing around this random arch popping out of the ground. And the whole area surrounding the arch was pretty. We waited our turns multiple times to take photos in front of the arch. At one point, we even had three different people take our photos. It was like having our own paparazzi, comprised of my 2 aunts and my brother who hiked up a bit earlier than us. As the clouds blocked the sun and we realized it wasn’t going to get any better, we hiked down as the sun went down.

Day 4 – Tues 5/9 – Leave Arches, arrive at Canyonlands (Needles District)

Very lazy day. This was a transition day as we left Arches to drive to the Needles District of Canyonlands. But before we left Arches, we did the final thing thing left on my Arches itinerary, a real short hike to Skyline Arch. You kinda don’t have to hike it since you can see it even from a distance but eh, why not.

After exiting the park, we drove on Potash Road to find Corona arch. It’s an arch that’s not in Arches NP but not far from it. Along the way, there is a roadside attraction to see dinosaur tracks, p cool, requires some walking from the parking lot. Corona arch (& Bowtie arch along the way) was worth a stop. It’s a massive, thick looking arch, unique because it’s attached to rock on one side and free-standing on the other. I didn’t think the last mile to get to the arch was necessary, thought the view from a distance was more impressive than sitting under it.

And then we drove to an inn where we got to shower because my family was staying there that night— the only night we got to shower this whole week. Eek! It was so awesome and I felt like a new person. Continuing on, we made a quick stop at the Newspaper Rock petroglyphs since it was along the way. After arriving at the Needles, we started with a short hike called Roadside ruins. Since we’re not into archaeology, we unfortunately weren’t impressed by this brick oven looking thing at the end of the hike. Close by is the Wooden Shoe overlook, it was fine. And also the Cave Springs Trail. Even though it’s only a 0.6mi hike, we only did 0.2mi because of how unreasonably lazy we felt today. I must say though, the shade was wonderful and the earthy smell of plants was so calming. There were cowboy ruins and caves with black roofs indicating fires from back then peoples. Cool. I just loved how peaceful this hike was. Or maybe I was just thankful for not hiking another 8 miles today. It was also all ours since the Needles is really not as popular of a destination. We ended with a 7pm ranger talk about rivers before heading back to the Needles District campground for the night.

Day 5 – Wed 5/10 – Canyonlands (Needles District)

We hiked 11 whopping miles on the Chesler Park Loop Trail. This hike started from Elephant Hill Trailhead, followed Chesler Park Trail, to Chesler Park Loop Trail, where part of that loop includes Joint Trail, then eventually heads out back the way we came. The Joint Trail was the coolest part since it had these narrow slot canyons. Unfortunately, you can’t drive to the Joint trailhead with typical cars so you basically have to hike this whole trail in order to get to that portion.

There was a part after coming out of the Joint Trail portion where we followed a short path up rocks to reach the Chesler Park Viewpoint. This was our favorite viewpoint of the trail, and probably the whole Needles District. We sat there looking down upon the land we just hiked, with the mushroom-looking needles all around while savoring clementines, gummy worms, and a fig bar that bf split not expecting me to say yes when he offered. After that viewpoint, it really felt like the trail just kept going and going. At every sign post, it’d tell us we’d completed like another half mile when we thought it was like a mile— this was the trail that kept on giving.

After completing, we followed a park ranger’s recommendations and went to a BLM campgrounds area not far outside the park where they said we could see waterfalls. While we saw no waterfalls, all of a sudden there was a small river which was really astounding given we’re like in a dessert here. We dipped our feet to rid ourselves of hiking stank. It was such a refreshing feeling.

We headed back to the campsite for dinner that night… dinner of beef noodle soup! made with noodles handmade in Tainan, Taiwan that my aunt drove four hours to fetch then flew over to the states. Rave reviews, everyone ate a bunch.

Fast forward to the evening, my aunt runs up with utmost urgency saying we had to go down the road because the sunset was going away. Though we were super confused, we hopped in the car and drove down to the road, not even anywhere to park so we awkwardly put hazard lights on at the side of the road. My other aunt tells us to hurry! go pose! We ran down the road and thus began a fanatic photo session of us striking poses in front of the sunset, aunt literally lying on the pavement taking photos. It was hilarious. When the sun went down just a few minutes later, we returned to the campsite to watch Warriors Lakers game 5, courtesy of Starlink!

Day 6 – Thurs 5/11 – Canyonlands (Needles District)

I originally planned for another double-digit mile hike, but we were not feeling up for it after yesterday. Way too ambitious of a plan. We couldn’t off-road either since we had an AWD instead of a 4×4 and we had learnt at the visitor center they’re not the same; the off-roading in this park is really technical. That gave us little left to do today.

So the short 0.6mi Pothole Trail was the first out of two hikes on this second super lazy day. The trail was some short hiking over slick rock but nothing stood out since we had already done that 11 mile hike the previous day. Back to the car for a lunch of fan tuan and wrap. We then took an impressively long break in the car, blasted AC, and did the NYT crossword puzzle for 45min, which we did not solve anyway. After we drained a half gallon of gas via AC, I guess it was about time to start hiking again. What did we think about the Slickrock Foot Trail? Cactus. To Victor, the most memorable thing was flowering cactus. I agree they are gorgeous. But he claimed he had never seen one before in his life, even though he should have at Capitol Reef NP, but apparently he barely remembers that park, even its name I can barely believe it. Anyway the trail had a couple different viewpoints, decent.

Back at the campsite it was chilling with Starlink internet for a while. Drove to Elephant Hill Trailhead to check if the group happened to be ready for pick up since it wasn’t designated pick up time yet, but nope not yet. Came back to chill even more with internet. Suddenly the group is back, they hitchhiked! Wow nice job. Immediate shaved ice cuz they had a long, hot day. Dinner of really alcoholic sesame chicken soup and glutinous rice.

Day 7 – Fri 5/12 – Canyonlands (Island in the Sky District)

Woke up, packed, said goodbyes, and drove to Island in the Sky district. Along the way we stopped in Moab (pronounced Moh-Ahb I was informed) where we declared no, we shall not eat another of our chicken wraps anymore. McDonalds it was. Three coupons were applied there that day, to one of our’s joyous delight.

In the Island in the Sky District, our first stop was the visitors center. Across the street are views of Shafer and there were more views a few minutes away at Shafer Canyon Overlook and Shafer Trail Viewpoint. I learned that poor sheep used to be herded down these steep and sketchy switchbacks. The first real attraction of the day was Mesa Arch. At this arch, it was understandable why this is the iconic Canyonlands thing. Just very distinctive. Sunrise is the best time to take photos here but we still got some good ones.

Next was Upheaval Dome Hike, the idea was cool if indeed it was caused by meteorite impact (there are two different theories). It looks noticeably different from all other parts of the park, but it doesn’t look too spectacular. The third hike was White Rim Overlook hike, where you get to see a nice panoramic view at the end from where you are way up above. The ground is so far below that it looks like these huge cracks in the earth.

Last item of the day was Grand View Point Overlook and the hike from there too. It’s the best sunset spot of this district. We were ahead of schedule so got there a bit too early. The view, it’s grand. But given we were early, we didn’t experience the awesome sunset. We didn’t wait for it since the weather was slightly too overcast anyway. Btw having hiked the path, I’d say the view at the end of the hike was no better than the overlook itself. What I thought was fun though was that it sprinkled rain throughout, not enough to be worried but enough to appreciate it coming down. How often do we get to play in the rain as adults. We quickly headed back to Green River where our hotel was that night, had a Warriors game to catch. Grabbed some takeout taco place for dinner and watched the game back at hotel.

Day 8 – Sat 5/13 – Head back

We headed back to SLC to catch our flight back home!

All in all, we’ll remember this trip for its unique rock formations: the numerous arches, mushroom-shaped needles, and colorful canyon views. This week-long trip was made up of days that spanned the whole spectrum of intensity, from one with a 10.5mi hike to a day where we turned around after only the first third of a 0.6mi hike, each equally impressive in totally different ways.

We slept in a car on top of folded seats that were slightly tilted and we were slightly too tall for, even me. We ate chicken rotisserie wraps practically every single lunch, another impressive accomplishment. But at least dinner was always luxurious for camping, with the “mian” and “fan” that was made ready for us every night by my family. I feel lucky to have had an opportunity to simply tag along on this trip without months ahead planning, and to have spent time with so many of my loved ones together.