a Utah roadtrip

In divine timing, I started reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey just days before I left for Utah to see the state that is the literal existence of my favorite color. Funny enough, in the preface, before the pages even begin he writes a word of caution, “Do not jump in our automobile next June and rush out to the canyon country hoping to see some of that which I have attempted to evoke in these pages. In the first place, you can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees…” I will use his writing to help better describe my experience.

I like to think of myself as a traveler, not a tourist. I would prefer to be on my feet, better yet, hands and knees, in the desert than in a car or at a resort. I want to touch everything, feel the ridges in the rocks, walk barefoot through the sand. Sometimes I even find it hard to wear sunglasses because I feel like I'm not able to fully experience the colors that lay ahead of me.

I must admit that I had no idea there were places this beautiful and so accessible in the United States. I’ve traveled all over, seen the deserts in Africa, but Utah is something completely different, unreal, ethereal.

I worked Tuesday morning, made it to happy hour, and then went to the airport. This seems to be a common theme of mine. If you have the time to take off work — I suggest spending as much time as you can in this beautiful state. However, I did this trip in three and a half days and was able to see everything I wanted to see. I landed at 10 PM, spent the night in Salt Lake City, had a lovely breakfast downtown before renting a car and driving South.

The entire drive was stunning, the landscape changed every hour or so leaving my head on a swivel. We made a quick stop in Provo so I could visit the Lonely Ghost store. Quick side note: the owner of Lonely Ghost, Indy Blue, is the reason I got into filmmaking when I was 14 or so. So this was a nostalgic and sentimental pitstop.

Our timed entry for Arches National Park was at 2 PM which ended up being perfect timing. My dad and I had plenty of time to catch up on the 5 hour drive. We parked at the Delicate Arch trail head and started our first trek of the trip. Delicate arch is the most famous arch, it is literally on their license plate. We spent the hour hike there trying to address every person we passed with the corresponding letter of the alphabet.

“A lovely day today, huh?

“Better down than up, am I right?”

“Can you believe these views?”

Abbey described Delicate Arch as such, “The beauty of Delicate Arch explains nothing, for each thing in its own way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. If Delicate Arch has any significance it lies, I will venture, in the power of the odd and unexpected to startle the sense and surprise the mind out of their ruts of habit, to compel us into a reawakened awareness of the wonderful — that which is full of wonder.”

Arches National Park doesn’t feel like earth, maybe more like how I would expect Mars to be. The line of sight goes on for miles until you’re blocked by the La Sal mountains which even in the summer remain snowcapped. However, everywhere you look are orange rock formations that look like little villages dispersed all throughout the land. Each formation is unique and wildly impressive. It’s hard to comprehend how they are balanced so perfectly and remain standing after all this time.

We spent a few more hours in the sun, touching sandstone that has been around longer than I can comprehend, then we went to get a burger and a beer. I received some pretty tragic news at dinner, one of my dear friends was admitted to the ICU. It’s funny how life always catches up to you, even when you’re having a magical day with your father. The news made me and my dad both think of a boy I went to high school with, who died in his sleep due to complications of the flu, neither of us brought it up. That funeral was the first time I saw my dad cry.

Although anxious, I decided there was one more thing I wanted to see before we started our drive towards Zion. I had heard of a bend in the Colorado River that was a must see, with no service, we decided we could use our park maps and find it. We drove through the Canyonlands National Park gate where no one was accepting passes. We drove not even a quarter of a mile before we found ourselves on a cliff, with no witnesses to the beauty except us. In silence, my dad stopped the car, and we both walked to the edge in awe.

The sun was starting to lower, which made the air crisp, and the shadows forming in the canyon made the lifetime of eroding sediment change from shades of orange to deep purples in the most marvelous way. Better yet, we were all alone. Not a single soul, not a car, no bikes, nor dogs, just us, the setting sun, and miles of empty canyon. We couldn't help but stop every couple of minutes to get out and wander to the cliff side. We saw a road with no signage, a switchback that zig zagged all the way through to the bottom, what did we have to lose? We ended up on a road that had clearly not been used in days, if not weeks, that took us to the best landscape I have ever seen in my life. My words, nor pictures, will ever describe the magical panoramic views we encountered in the canyon. Soon after, it got dark and the stars were visible even with a dimly lit sky. The moon shone through the canyon and reflected on the river showing us deer who were out to graze. Our appetite for discovery added a three hour trip through unmarked roads back to Moab.

My father and I are wildly similar, and insanely spontaneous — that’s why we are great travel buddies. This trip was not planned, rather booked on a whim and the rest was left to intuitive decisions. Every time things got rocky I would say, “eh, I trust it”, my dad admitted at the end of the day the smartest thing I had done all day was repeat, “eh, I trust it.” Had I been with anyone else, we probably wouldn’t have found ourselves three hours deep in the canyon. We spent all day saying, “hey, that’s cool, let’s stop here” which is my favorite way to explore.

Once we finally exited the canyon and found a real road, we decided to see how far we could get towards Zion. Had we been prepared, I imagine we would’ve camped in the beautiful canyon we discovered. We stopped at a random motel around 1 AM to crash for the night somewhere between Moab and Zion.

In the morning we continued the drive to Zion, we had an early lunch where we ate on the patio overlooking the incredible formations of Zion National Park. A friend recommended renting bikes as the best way to see the park, having done no research whatsoever, we rented bikes at the closest bike shop.

This was epic. Renting bikes is a must.

We spent all day on our bikes. We rode through the park, down trails, over bridges, stopped for snakes, and continued on. We parked our bikes and went for hikes, got in the river, and took in all the views. We sat in the grass and ate sandwiches, peering out at the towering orange giants. We even drove our bikes to a neighboring town for dinner. We watched the sun set and the shadows roll in over the mountains as the moon came up. We stayed in the valley for a while in awe of the changing colors and appearance of the stars. Then we did one final ride all the way to the end of the park in the dark. It’s baffling to me that the park remains open 24 hours a day, yet, the park was empty after sunset. Everything looked completely different in the dark, nothing felt familiar, like I was seeing it all again for the first time. The deer came out to graze and were by no means afraid of us. Abbey says, “A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.” I couldn’t agree more.

The next morning we inevitably went back for more. We rented the same bikes but this time we had a mission. We cruised to the final part of the road where the narrows start. The narrows are cracks in the sandstone that have water flowing through them, cold water might I add, where you can explore only by foot. At some points in the narrows the water rises chest high. We hoped to beat the tourist but they flood the narrows early in the morning, crowding the sandstone walls until they realize they have to get wet, where they cowardly turn away. We waded through the water, climbed over rocks, slipped a few times and definitely got wet but we made it to a point in the narrows where we couldn't go any further. The walls close in on both sides, the air is thin and brisk, and when you look around and above, you realize just how small you are.

We hiked 6 miles in the cold, light blue water, gazing at the red and orange structures that surrounded us. We navigated our way back to our bikes, returned them for the next people to experience the insane ride, and drove to Bryce Canyon National Park. This drive is another stunning hour of changing rock formations and shades of orange I didn’t know existed.

After our long day of hiking opposite the current, we didn't have it in us to do much exploring in Bryce Canyon. We walked a route along the cliff to Sunrise Point. This provided full panoramic views of strange orange and white rock formations. It’s incredibly fascinating how these rocks, which have eroded in strange ways due to the freezing and expanding of water particles, is completely different from the erosion process of the arches in Moab. These strange formations, called hoodoos, looked like little ancient towns or ruins of such towns.

Just outside of the park, we saw a sign that said “LOCAL RODEO EVERY WEDS-SAT” so obviously we put on our cowboy boots and Levis to see what all this was about. As we pulled up, we noticed we were the only ones there, and there was in fact, no rodeo. We said hi to the cattle and went to dinner where we had steak that was “sourced and cut locally.”

Sorry.

That evening we drove all the way back to SLC in the dark. I could barely keep my eyes open. In the morning, we drove out to the Great Salt Lake. I am utterly in awe at how this one state has a lake that looks more like an ocean, with islands and an insane salt content, while also hosting huge mountain ranges known for skiing, the colorful desert where strange arches have formed, and canyons that cut deep into the earth. Utah is stunning.

My dad and I parted at the airport, he flew back to South Carolina and I went home to Los Angeles. In three days we managed to see several biomes, ecosystems, formations and wonders. I can only imagine what one could see in a week or a month, or in Edward Abbey’s 3 seasons in the park. This was one hell of a way to celebrate my dad’s 50th birthday, I’m honored to have spent this time with him. I’m even more honored to have such an awesome father who will go on adventures like this with me.