The Utah Redemption Tour CONCLUSION: Did We Achieve Redemption?
As we write this post, we are in the middle of a drive day, already hundreds of miles removed from the route that took us on our Utah Redemption Tour. My, how quickly things can change! We're in a different state, looking out at different terrain, and headed to new and completely different adventures.
What's good about this, is that we've given ourselves a bit of mental removal from our tour as well, so we can look back on the experience and offer a true, logical reaction to it.
If you missed our Utah Redemption Tour series, you can find it here:
To recap how this tour came about, we had built a strong relationship with Utah during our RV travels, but the relationship had nothing to do with anything fun. On our first visit to the state, we got our trailer stuck in soft ground as we attempted to evacuate during a flood. After that, we spent our days recovering from the fiasco, before needing to catch up with our plans out-of-state. Two years later, we returned to Utah, this time with more un-fun plans. We had an appointment to get our axles looked at, and while we were there, also decided to get a vet appointment for Tanner, who had developed an infection in a cyst on his leg. While we're glad that Utah has become a state we can rely on for problem-solving, we knew this state had so much more to offer. We made a plan that, after our appointments, we would travel to southern Utah to finally see some of the most beautiful destinations: The Mighty 5 national parks and surrounding areas in Red Rock Country.
The national parks were our main destinations, but along the way, we also threw in adventures at one of the state parks, as well as the town of Moab. Our Redemption Tour lasted almost a month, and here is the breakdown of our itinerary:
- March 25-April 1: Arches National Park
- April 1-3: Moab and Canyonlands
- April 3-6: Goblin Valley State Park
- April 6-10: Dispersed Camping and Capitol Reef National Park
- April 10-15: Bryce Canyon National Park
- April 15-23: Zion National Park
That was a lot of adventure for one month, and we definitely have some thoughts about it. So let us break down for you what we thought worked, didn't work, our favorite and least favorite experiences, our lessons learned, and our final conclusion: Did we successfully redeem Utah?!
The blog series began releasing before we finished our tour. We were in our final few days at Zion, and we distinctly remember laughing when our Introduction to Arches post came out. In the post, we describe feeling so invigorated by our tour that we had energy to spare after our travel day. After settling in, we immediately decided to hike to Delicate Arch, with Nicole even doing a celebratory fist pump on our way out the door.
Fast forward to the day that post released, and we couldn't feel anymore opposite. We were burnt out, struggling to see the good in Zion, and counting down the days for our Redemption Tour to end. Which brings us to our first big lesson learned: Just because we may have traveled slower than some people on their whirlwind Mighty 5 trips, doesn't mean we timed things right.
We think a month was overall enough time, factoring in that we were also working and doing normal adulting, so we couldn't adventure all the time. Side note, this is actually a good thing because adventuring every day would have caused even more burnout. However, the way we distributed our time in each place could have been better. We had no way of knowing this, as we hadn't been to any of these places. We had to predict based off our research and other RVer recommendations. Looking at our itinerary, our shortest stint in one place sticks out like a sore thumb: Just 2 nights in Moab, where we explored the town and Canyonlands. This effectively gave us only 1 day in Canyonlands, and we wish we had given it more time. On the other hand, we booked 8 nights in Zion because we heard from numerous people that it was the best of the best. We felt that 8 nights wasn't necessary to get a feel for the park. However, the silver lining in this was that, during our burnout, we had more days to just sit and do nothing, without feeling like more Zion adventures needed to be had.
Favorites
Favorite national park:
It's hard to rank the Mighty 5 because we spent different amounts of time at each, but we both agree wholeheartedly that Bryce Canyon was our favorite. We both agree that Capitol Reef was our least favorite, for no other reason than we could see similar red rocks in the other national parks. However, we did love the historic town of Fruita. We mostly grapple with where to rank Canyonlands in relation to Arches. We don't regret spending a full week in Arches, but we can't help but think that Canyonlands would have ranked higher if we had spent more time there.
So, until we can give Canyonlands a fair shake, we suppose our ranking has got to be Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Capitol Reef. Subject to change.
We're also well aware that morale cannot be separated out when we consider our response to the parks. At Capitol Reef, we had hit a lull...and a juniper tree...so we weren't in the best spirits. At Zion, we were tired and felt like we had seen a lot of the landscapes before. What would have happened if we had hit Zion first instead of last? Perhaps we would have been more enthralled.
Favorite hike at Arches:
We both concur that there is nothing greater than hiking to Delicate Arch. The hike is challenging and has a fantastic payoff, with the arch revealing itself around a rock wall. Anthony would like to add, though, that our hikes to Double Arch and Windows/Turret Arch are a worthy honorable mention. The crowds can make or break the experience here, but these formations are absolute classics, and getting to climb in them is really fun.
Favorite hike at Canyonlands:
Of course, we didn't get to do a lot at Canyonlands, but of the few hikes we did, Grand View Point gave us the most jaw-dropping moments. We also need to give a shoutout to Candlestick Tower Overlook – not a hike, but a wonderful view with lots of space to spread out, away from the crowds.
Favorite hike at Capitol Reef:
Hickman Natural Bridge (Anthony) and Chimney Rock (Nicole), but we both agree that we wish Chimney Rock had better views of its namesake formation. Once we're up to the overlook, the view isn't as good as it is just from the road!
Favorite hike at Bryce Canyon:
Our only main hike was the loop from Navajo Loop, to Queens Garden, and up to the Rim Trail between Sunrise and Sunset Points. But there is a reason we chose this as our only big hike. It's the best! Well, at least the best when Wall Street is closed for the winter, which in our case, it was.
Favorite hike at Zion:
The Narrows. With the cliffs towering over us at 1000ft, and the pure uniqueness of the adventure, we can totally see why this has become such a popular hike in the park.
Surprisingly, though, one of our favorite hikes of the entire Redemption Tour wasn't in a national park at all. The Toadstool Canyon hike at Goblin Valley State Park was phenomenal...if we ignore that the signage and maps were terrible. Hopefully the trail will get clearer the more people hike it. It only opened a couple months before we went, and so we were some of the first people to set foot on that trail! The journey through the canyon and into the wash, and the views and geology were just spectacular. What a pleasant surprise, away from the beaten path of Valley of the Goblins.
Favorite non-hike adventure:
We prioritized hiking during our tour, but we did throw in a few non-hike adventures. We did the commercial tour by Canyonlands By Night and Day – a cruise along the Colorado River. We also did a couple of scenic drives and took an ebike ride through Bryce Canyon. Although the boat ride deserves an honorable mention, or at least the company running it does, we have to say that our early morning bike ride through Bryce was fabulous. The park is super bike-friendly, the views were beautiful, and we saw lots of wildlife. Everything about the ride was wonderfully peaceful.
Favorite moment:
We love that our adventures are made up of little moments, and some of them aren't expected. Some made us laugh, some made us cry, and some we just knew would embed themselves in our memories forever.
Anthony breaks his answer down quite nicely: "On one hand, I want to say sunrise at Bryce. On the other hand, I could say sunset at Capitol Reef." He's speaking ironically about Capitol Reef, of course, because we discovered that Sunset Point isn't actually facing the sunset, but is instead facing the rocks that may or may not glow as the sun is setting. We got a good laugh watching all the sad souls waiting patiently for a rock glow that was never going to come that evening. Either way, Anthony says the sunrises and sunsets we did see were "on point."
Nicole reminisces on a few poignant moments. The couple of arch "reveals" were something else. Delicate Arch at the end of our hike, and Skyline Arch when we first walked back to the campground amphitheater. The arches all have such a presence to them. Surprisingly, Anthony isn't the one to say the first bites of pie and cinnamon buns from Giffords Homestead in Capitol Reef, but that moment must be documented! Hiking Chimney Rock, we crossed paths with a wonderful couple and had some moments of shared laughter and awe with them. And the moment of hiking so close to the storm clouds at Canyonlands, getting to marvel at nature's glory in so many different ways.
Favorite campground:
We had some good campgrounds during our tour. Even though our campsite at Arches wasn't the best, the campground itself was awesome. It had beautiful views and gave us great access to hiking trails. This is Anthony's pick. In a surprising turn of events, Nicole has decided to give the edge to Beas Lewis Flat dispersed camping area. Once we got over our little incident pulling into our site, we had tons of space and privacy, good views, and it was so wonderfully quiet and unspoiled.
Least Favorites
There was a lot of good in our Utah Redemption Tour, but in life, we can't only have ups. We always say that the bad times make our adventures that much sweeter, and they always help us learn something.
Least favorite hike:
Sorry, Emerald Pools in Zion. The pools were disappointing, and we say that even in springtime when the waterfalls were flowing. The trail was super crowded, people weren't following hiking etiquette, and the Upper Pool trail especially was too much work for a mediocre payoff. That being said, we actually thought the Kayenta Trail (which took us to the Emerald Pools Trail) was quite nice, if we ignore the fact that we constantly had to stop and move over for passersby. Emerald Pools was a hike that we almost skipped, but we got sucked into going simply because it was a "popular trail" at the park.
Least favorite moment:
You know what's sad? When we can accrue $4500 worth of damage to our rig, and that still doesn't make our pick for our least favorite moment. Our arrival to Zion and the events that transpired that evening in Watchman Campground left us feeling disappointed on multiple levels. Nicole was recovering from a stomach bug, had a migraine and couldn't even rest. We felt like all our effort booking Watchman was being ruined by forces out of our control. And we couldn't help but think about how much this beautiful place had become inundated with crowds way too big for the staff to manage. Unfortunately, the pattern of inconsiderate neighbs continued throughout the week. We had several more nights of people being loud and obnoxious.
Least favorite campground:
None of the campgrounds were bad at all, but our experiences at Zion and Goblin Valley bumped these two a little lower in the ranks. Goblin Valley is by far the best place to stay for visiting the state park because everything else is far away, but the sites were closer together than we expected, and one of our neighbs had a very loud generator. The dump station also smelled really bad. Our experience at Zion wasn't the park's fault, except that we wish there were more staff and camp hosts to keep things more contained. Our site had a view of the Watchman rock formation, but it backed right up to the camping area of our neigbhs, so whatever they were doing came right in through our ramp door, whether it was making noise, trying to light a campfire in the rain, or smoking. All of those happened.
Lessons Learned
Thankfully, every adventure is a learning experience. We already talked about one big lesson, that we could have divvied up our time in each place differently. Here are a few other things we learned.
Lots of these national parks are suffering from "backwards visitation." This is where all the advice to "go early and a weekday" has come to a head, and now so many people are heeding that advice that the weekends and midday crowds are a lot less bad! All in all, though, we did not deal with as many crowds as we could have. Going to these parks in the shoulder season was a great choice. The worst experience with crowds was at Zion, and this was a mistake on our end. When we booked Zion, we got so worried about National Park Week, that we scheduled our visit the week prior. Turns out, that was an even more hectic week because so many families took their vacations leading up to Easter Weekend. Once that weekend came and went, things settled down nicely, despite it being National Park Week.
We'd like to say we learned something about dispersed camping other than "DON'T DO IT," but we're still obviously getting the hang of that style of camping. We learned that we can have an enjoyable, peaceful experience in a dispersed camping site, so that's a win. Will we try dispersed camping again in the future? Probably. We'll just be sure to choose a more open space.
We won't say this last one was a lesson, but it reiterated something that we talked about in our very first Utah Redemption Tour post: We will definitely feel FOMO, but we need to be cool with not seeing everything in one go. We know there is still so much to see in Red Rock Country, as well as in Utah, but we were happy with everything we accomplished.
Which brings us to the most important question...
Did we successfully redeem Utah?!
Absolutely! Our tour was exactly what we had hoped, giving us opportunities to embrace beauty and adventure in this state. We had waited years to see some of these places in real life, and we had several moments where we needed to remind ourselves how amazing it was to actually be there, in the flesh, seeing these landscapes with our own eyes. We also had several moments on this tour that didn't make the blog, like getting to stop in small local towns and getting to meet up with friends at Zion. We are so happy to be able to add our experiences to our Utah memory book.
There's still lots more to talk about, so we'll officially sum up our Utah Redemption Tour Series with a livestream! Join us Tuesday, May 6 at 8PM EDT/7PM CDT/5PM PDT. This livestream will be for subscribers only, so if you're not signed up for the blog yet, do it here. It's free!
Bring your questions for the chat! If you can't make the live, it'll be available on playback. Click the link below to gain access to the live (you must be signed in to see the link).