5 Parks, 1,513 Miles, and 15.6 oz of Wild Berry Skittles

---

It felt like we had been planning this trip for months; reader: we had been. When the question of where to go for spring break came up, it was pre-Trail+Hearth. We ruled out Florida, because, well, Florida. We’d done Miami the year before for Ultra, which was its own adventure, and the idea of spring break crowds in Florida held exactly zero appeal. We drew on a different memory: an abbreviated Utah experience after bailing from EDC in 2017 and decided we wanted to give it the full treatment. I’d traveled to Utah in a previous life, and the desert in spring has always made sense to me: before the real heat arrives, while the desert plants have their brief window of growth, while the minimal water is actually moving. Most importantly, it lined up with school spring break.

Allison took the lodging research and ran with it. I built a rough itinerary, knowing full well that no plan survives first contact. We settled on a framework: Moab for Arches and Canyonlands, a night in Monument Valley, Zion, and Capitol Reef. Five parks in eleven days. Ambitious, yes. Probably too ambitious. We did it anyway.

Landing in Salt Lake City, we grabbed our bags, found the rental counter, and ended up with a black Ford Explorer — which I would come to appreciate far more than I expected. We installed the Bubble Bum Teleport booster seat (the first travel seat solution that has actually worked, full stop), turned on the car, and were immediately greeted by Diplo’s Revolution broadcasting live from Ultra Music Festival on Sirius XM. The travel gods, it seemed, had smiled on us. We pointed the Explorer south.

We left the airport hotel before sunrise. Starbucks was the only thing open — it’s across from a medical center, which explains the five o’clock hours — and we were grateful for it. Consistent beats closed.

Somewhere south of Salt Lake, we missed the Green River turnoff. It looks like nothing from the highway; you see a sign, you see desert, and your brain says that can’t be right. It was right. Four miles later we doubled back, which is how we ended up at Jackass Joe’s — a UFO-themed gas station at Exit 187 off I-70 in Thompson Springs, Utah, home to a painted Mystery Machine, a painted Lightning McQueen, and at least one alien statue willing to take a selfie. It was the first hint that Utah operates on its own frequency.

After the alien encounter, we made our first real stop: the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail near Moab, where dinosaur footprints and bones sit exposed in situ, right there in the desert, found only in 2009. No museum lighting, no placards with artist renderings — just the actual thing, in the actual rock, under the actual sky. Bigger than I expected. The child was transfixed, which was not a given. A brief detour through the new Utah Raptor State Park followed, where a very friendly ranger answered every single one of Warren’s questions with genuine enthusiasm.

Then: Canyonlands. We stopped for lunch at the picnic tables outside the visitor center (thankfully in the cool shade), wind threatening to give our sandwiches and snacks to the ever-present ravens. Our first pass through the Island in the Sky district included Shafer Trail overlook, the neck, and the hike out to Mesa Arch.

The sandstorm that rolled through while we were admiring Mesa Arch was less welcome leaving all of us chewing sand for a solid ten minutes.

By the time we reached Moab proper, we were sunburned, tired, and running on fumes. We landed at the Trailhead Public House and Eatery for dinner, where the service was average (perhaps that was the hanger surfacing) but the pork green chili poutine with two runny eggs was hot and exactly what the moment called for.

The desert delivered its first lesson of the trip: put the sunscreen on. Even if you’re only going to be outside for twenty minutes. Even if you don’t think you need it. The desert does not negotiate.

We checked into the Hyatt, Allison having booked a casita — two bedrooms, a patio, a small pergola — and the child had his own room, which was good for everyone. The Milky Way conditions that night were perfect. I was asleep by nine.

The original plan was a sunrise shoot back in Canyonlands, either Mesa Arch or Shafer Trail overlook. But the fatigue from Day 1 was real, and a close look at the cloud cover and sunrise timing made the decision easy. We pivoted. That pivot started at Doughbird in Moab, where we got coffee and doughnuts before the crowds arrived. Get the apple fritter. This is not optional.

From there, Potash Road. It runs along the Colorado River with towering sandstone walls on one side and the river on the other, and across the water you can watch Jeep after Jeep do things that automobiles really shouldn’t do on the canyon trails. I got the reflection shot I was after. Then we pulled into the Corona Arch trailhead and geared up.

Corona Arch would end up being the most consistently praised hike of the entire trip. There’s a chain climb, a ladder, and Corona Arch. Warren had been asking how long to the chains and ladder since we crossed the railroad tracks. As he worked the chains, Allison watched him go up ahead of her, doing the math on what a fall there would look like — the chains had more air under them than the ladder. The ladder would have hurt. The chains had consequences. Corona Arch throws a shadow wide enough to eat lunch in. We took it, eating our PBJs, still before ten, the desert sun already making its presence known on the trail back down and providing a reminder that the 12-to-2 window is not a suggestion.

A note on the trail bribe: Warren had selected Wild Berry Skittles for this trip. Not M&Ms — those melt. Skittles do not.

The afternoon followed the 12-2 rule — lunch, ice cream, out of the sun — before viewpoints from Dead Horse Point and various Canyonlands overlooks in the late afternoon, where views were exactly what the brochures promise.

The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. This was my idea.

We were the third car in the Delicate Arch parking lot at 5:30. On the trail by 5:50, headlamps on, the sky still fully dark. We had agreed that I would push ahead and Allison and Warren would take their time.

Hiking Delicate Arch in the dark is a different experience. The trail markings that are obvious in daylight become suggestions. I lost it once or twice, as did the handful of other early risers whose bobbing headlamps I was using as trail markers ahead of me. When the arch appeared at blue hour I set up the tripod and started working. The color was happening almost ninety degrees behind me, a low orange strip along the horizon, partially blocked by rock. The arch was in flat blue light. I shot both directions and let the morning sort itself out. The moon was still up. The La Sal Mountains were visible through the arch. Worth every minute of the 4:30 alarm.

Allison and Warren arrived about twenty minutes later, Warren’s breath carrying a distinct Wild Berry Skittles signature, both of them smiling. Allison found a composition I hadn’t seen — the arch framed through an upper window in the rock — and I scrambled up to take the shot. By the time we started back down, the trail had become a parade of people moving up. The parking lot we’d had nearly to ourselves was now full, with cars circling for spots.

Devil’s Garden and Landscape Arch followed. The sun had done its work and Landscape Arch was far enough. We ate another PBJ in the shade and headed back to the casita for laundry and the pool. Dinner was at the Broken Oar where Warren “borrowed” a few shrimp from Allison’s excellent pasta and housed his cheeseburger there without complaint or negotiation. Best burger of his trip, by his own unspoken verdict.

The drive to Monument Valley had four stops before we even set car tire in Arizona.

One last pass through Arches on the way out — the Windows section, Turret Arch, a failed hunt for a specific composition on the south window primitive trail. Double Arch was the next stop: enormous, and nearly impossible to photograph well. I watched another photographer get the shot I wanted from a position that required some risky scrambling and leaving Allison and Warren in the car. That felt like the wrong call. Park Avenue got a brief stop and an immediate promise to return, deserving more than a glance from a moving itinerary.

Departing Moab, we grabbed coffee from Snake Oil Coffee Co (iced mocha, delicious) and sandwiches from Bella’s Desert Deli, a club for Allison, an Italian for me. We ate them in the shadow of Wilson Arch. Those sandwiches were some of the best we have ever eaten. No hyperbole. Allison’s club was perfect in every ratio. My Italian sat in a category occupied by exactly two previous sandwiches: one from Cy’s in Grand Lake, Colorado, and the Zingerman’s version. That’s the tier.

Newspaper Rock stopped us longer than expected. The entire face of the stone is covered, not with a few carvings, but hundreds, layered over centuries. We pointed at shapes, made up stories, got back in the car. Arriving at the Canyonlands Needles district, we did the scenic drive, stopped at a few overlooks to see the needles in the distance, and noted it for a proper return trip. Druid Arch is on the list.

DuckTales was discovered sometime around Monticello. From the backseat, unprompted: Ducktales — awoo-oo.

Forrest Gump Point arrived in the late afternoon, overcast, crawling with people reenacting the running scene while dodging active traffic. A semi laid on its horn at full volume and sent everyone scattering. I tried to get the shot I wanted but failed, planning a return trip at a quieter time with better light. Reader, the return trip did not happen.

We chose Goulding’s for dinner: excellent chicken burrito. My only regret was not doubling the green chili. Allison had the Navajo fry bread taco, and the child had, wait for it, another cheeseburger. We checked into our cabin at the View and sat in silence contemplating the mittens. I scouted the rim for sunrise shots. The rain that had been threatening all day was now falling.

The scenic drive we’d planned for the morning didn’t happen. The rain had opinions, and desert mud has consequences for vehicles you don’t own. I got out early and shot the valley in the wet: moody, low cloud, the reds and oranges saturated in a way they wouldn’t be in flat blue-sky light. Rain in Monument Valley is rare. I wanted the cliche but the desert had other plans.

We visited the gift shop. Allison found a Navajo blanket, I found a piece of sandstone to match one I’d brought home from a previous life, and Warren ended up with a bag full of polished rocks and gems. Explorer nosing towards Page, we drove on.

Breakfast in Page: the only place open was a classic Southwest diner — Huevos Rancheros (more green chili), Mickey Mouse pancakes for Warren. It did the job.

We’d debated the route: Highway 89 straight to Zion, or 89A through the Navajo Bridges and the Vermilion Cliffs. 89A and the Navajo Bridges won. The descent from the plateau to the canyon floor is visually jarring in the best way with the Colorado cutting a canyon through the desert floor, the Vermilion Cliffs on the far side.

Parking just before crossing the bridges, we got out of the car into wind that immediately had opinions about hats and camera straps. Two steel spans crossing the Colorado, the 1929 original now a pedestrian bridge and its 1995 replacement carrying the traffic, the canyon dropping 467 feet to the river below, the Vermilion Cliffs burning on the far side. Before the bridge, the only crossing for 600 miles was a ferry. We stayed longer than the itinerary allowed.

The drive west on 89A along the Vermilion Cliffs felt like a fever dream of Route 66 — a long ribbon of road with nothing on either side but landscape that refuses to be ignored. Then the Kaibab Plateau: the road climbed, the temperature dropped, and within a few miles we’d gone from desert sun to sleet, surrounded by the charred evidence of last year’s forest fires at eight thousand feet. We stopped at the Lefevre Overlook long enough to confirm it was still cold and windy, shot a few frames, and got back in the car to Ducktales — awoo-oo from the back seat.

Coming into Zion from the east, you drop through the Mount Carmel Tunnel- one-way when a large vehicle is coming through, so expect a wait. Ours was long enough to watch a small parade of cars jockeying for the handful of spots in the Canyon Overlook lot, moving cones, cutting each other off, general chaos. Once you stopped being annoyed about it, the extended look at the canyon walls around the entrance was actually worth having.

Dinner at the lodge restaurant, which was better than the setting suggested. Warren ordered the mac and cheese, which arrived in a bechamel with the wrong noodles — not what he signed up for. He had fortunately eaten the pretzels earlier and found a few bites of salmon on Allison’s plate. The adults had green chicken chili and no complaints.

After dinner, Warren was running laps on the lodge lawn with a pack of other children burning the last of their energy before bed; I grabbed the camera and tripod and took the car down to the gate in search of the Watchman sunset composition from a bridge. Hiking quickly on the Pa’rus trail, I knew I found the bridge when I saw a slew of tripods in the distance. Joining them, I set up my tripod and GoPro for the timelapse, dialed in the settings and began to wait. Reader, this sounds peaceful, it was not. Every cyclist in Springdale, it seemed, was also crossing that bridge. Each bike rattled the metal decking, sending vibrations up through the tripod legs. My GoPro tipped over mid-timelapse. I caught my main rig before it followed. Scrapping the timelapse, I focused on not breaking expensive equipment.

Canned coffee and an early start to the Grotto trailhead, destination: Emerald Pools. Before we’d gone fifty yards, the turkeys appeared, males and females both, strutting and gobbling along the trail with complete indifference to our presence. The child was delighted. So were we.

The trail up to the upper pools offers steady views of Angel’s Landing, the Virgin River, and the valley floor. The lighting was harsh, early-morning desert sun high above canyon walls, brutal for photography, but the recent rains had done something guidebooks can’t guarantee: running waterfalls. The upper pools had depth and a towering ribbon of water falling into a boulder-rimmed pool below, the surrounding red and white rock going full contrast against the green. I’d left my 20mm lens in the hotel room to save weight, which I regretted the moment I arrived on the scene. Sandy Skittles were consumed. After a failed family selfie attempt, we descended towards the lower pools, with the promise of something other than PB+J for lunch.

Oscar’s for lunch. This requires context. Oscar’s Café in Springdale is not just a restaurant; for us it is a pilgrimage, occurring on roughly a five-year cycle whenever the stars align and we happen to be in Zion. Allison’s summary, delivered in her best David Attenborough impression: “This is the once every five years Williams family migration to Oscar’s for the green chili cheeseburger.” She was not wrong. Oscar’s cheeseburgers never fail.

We needed wifi and coffee, which Deep Creek Coffee provided — best coffee of the entire trip, full stop — along with Allison sending off a Trail+Hearth coaster order from the table. Another Springdale institution, Sol Foods, handled our supply run.

The afternoon involved a drive (serenaded by Duck Tales – awoo ooo from the backseat) out to the Kolob Canyons section of the park, which most Zion visitors skip entirely. The Timber Creek Overlook trail at the end of the road delivers a more rugged Zion experience; deep red canyon walls, interesting shadow play across the canyon faces and the just slightly fewer people than the crowded main valley. Skittles at the turnaround.

For dinner, we ended up at the lodge snack bar with the remnants of the day’s menu — a cheeseburger, two DiGiorno-adjacent pizzas, and a non-alcoholic Corona that still required a valid ID, a wristband, and consumption in a designated area.

Utah.

Canyon Coffee is tiny, attached to the municipal lot near the park entrance. At seven in the morning in late March, that means a line in the cold. The baristas were in constant motion and still not moving.

Then: ebikes.

After the waivers and a safety briefing that was brief in every sense of the word, we picked up helmets and our assigned bikes. Here is something nobody tells you: knowing how to ride a bicycle and knowing how to start a heavy electric bike in the middle of a town at peak tourist season are two entirely separate skill sets. Give yourself approximately twenty minutes of panic and ego-crushing relearning before you find anything resembling your legs. We haltingly made it across the road and to the park entrance.

Then the valley opened up, and the bikes became the right answer. Warren rotated between the trailer — “it’s cold!” — and the back of my RadWagon — “go faster” — as we settled into the Pa’rus Trail and found our rhythm. Canyon walls on both sides, the Virgin River running alongside, other cyclists who had clearly done this before passing us without effort. We stopped at the Court of the Patriarchs so I could try to get a shot that included the bridge, the river, and the formations. High water and poorly positioned trees foiled the perfect shot, but I still enjoyed the stop.

Cruising up the valley, we reached the Narrows trailhead, which can be described as the Old Faithful of Zion: throngs of people in rented water gear, vloggers recording themselves getting hyped at the entrance, the new waves of river goers with every shuttle. We hiked in and found a sunny spot on the riverbank, ate the day’s PBJ, threw rocks in the water until Warren was satisfied, and rode back.

After the DiGiorno pizza and the wristband incident the night before, we had reservations at Anu and we were ready for them. Peruvian ceviche, a beet salad brimming with acid, lomo saltado that was a perfectly salty umami bomb. Two desserts. Black coffees. One of the two best meals of the trip — the stark contrast with the night before was not lost on anyone.

The family headed out at five forty-five, begrudgingly, so I could be at the Canyon Overlook trailhead at blue hour. We’d been taking bets on how many cars would already be in the small lot — there were five when we arrived, and we got one of the last spaces.

I grabbed the headlamp, tripod, and camera and set off. The trail is short and manageable, less navigational adventure than Delicate Arch. A group of twenty-somethings was already at the overlook, reveling loudly at the view and at life generally, which I noted, having been awake since five with minimal caffeine. I set up the tripod, extended one leg slightly too far and had to reset it, discovered my camera wasn’t fully level for the first sequence of shots (that’s what digital and post-processing is for!), and then watched the moon set and the sun rise over the canyon switchbacks below. Warren and Allison arrived, Warren shivering and seeking Skittles. Taking one last look, Warren was on a mission to get back to the warm car and continue the adventure.

Bryce Canyon: we made the strategic bet of driving to the far end of the scenic drive and working our way back. On the return pass, every parking lot — Inspiration Point, Bryce Point, Sunset Point — was full. We never really got the full amphitheater experience. Go early, or go to the viewpoints first.

Utah 12 toward Capitol Reef: for the first stretch, maybe an hour, you’re wondering what the fuss is about. It’s fine. It’s scenic, sure. Then you crest Head of the Rocks Overlook, and it stops being fine and becomes obvious, and it bonks you over the head with how could you have ever doubted this. We arrived at the Kiva Coffeehouse twenty minutes before closing: excellent coffee, prickly pear lemonade, and what Warren declared to be the best cold hot chocolate he had ever had in his life. Don’t miss it. Arrive before it closes.

We drove on through Boulder, past the Pando aspen grove — one of the largest living organisms on earth, through Larb Hollow Overlook and the series of pull-offs where Capitol Reef starts to announce itself: rugged, prehistoric, uncurated. What national parks used to feel like.

Hungry and driving into Torrey, a last-minute spot opened at Hunt and Gather. Bison pot pie topped with puff pastry, perfectly comforting after a long day in the car. A filet that Allison shared exactly one bite of, because it was that good. Trout that Warren actually ate without negotiation. A great asparagus appetizer. Ten out of ten.

We started at Hickman Bridge trail at eight-thirty: cold start, rapid warming, the desert sun resuming its standard schedule. This trail has personality; fields of black lava boulders, a small cave Warren disappeared into briefly, sandstone hollows deep enough to climb inside of, and a wall of red handprints before the bridge itself comes into view. Approaching the base of the bridge, there is a small sign that implores you to go counterclockwise around the bridge- this is a good way and gets you an ok photo. Allison found the better photograph by walking around back, the bridge framing the Henry Mountains beyond.

Stopping at the Gifford House in Fruita for post-hike provisions, the cinnamon rolls were sold out, which is the kind of news you receive with resigned sadness. I got a cherry pie and a strawberry rhubarb pie, a perfectly acceptable breakfast/trail snack option as was the ice cream Allison and Warren chose instead of pie.

We took our midday rest per standing desert protocol and planned the scenic drive in the afternoon. The drive itself was a thin line threading through prehistoric rock formations, the kind of landscape that you feel as much as see. At the end of the drive, we had planned a short walk in the Grand Wash, but the trail was flat enough and the walls tall enough that we ended up walking all the way to the register — generations of early settlers scratching their names and dates into the canyon wall. As the sun was winding down, we did our final scenic elements: Fruita barn at golden hour, Goosenecks (slightly overated and a sketchy scramble), and Sunset Point as the cliffs were going full red.

I sent a text to my parents before we left: if you don’t hear from us by a certain time, contact the Garfield County Sheriff. Perhaps overly cautious. Also: we were driving a dirt road into the middle of nowhere Utah with a child in the car. The desert doesn’t grade on a curve.

We started at Dark Sky Coffee in Torrey for coffee and a breakfast burrito — hearty, filling, and sadly lacking in green chili, but otherwise excellent. Then into the park for a return trip to the Grand Wash narrows: a flat walk up a wash between walls of sandstone so high and close that voices and footsteps echo back at you from all directions. The last bathroom in the park, and then out onto Notom-Bullfrog Road.

On one side: a massive wall of tilted rock in shades of red, and green, gray, and white, the Waterpocket Fold announcing itself. On the other: something approximating pasture and cows roaming freely. Once the pavement ends the landscape shifts. The rock colors have no business existing — deep red against white against gray-green, tilted and compressed into formations that are simultaneously round and jagged, smooth and fractured. Allison found fossilized oyster shells embedded in roadside rock. I photographed the red Carmel formation triangles against white sandstone. We kept one overly paranoid eye on the sky for any hint of rain; a dirt road in the desert in spring is a different proposition wet than dry.

The Burr Trail switchbacks were less terrifying than their reputation suggested. Wide, gradual, and if you went off the edge, you would land on the switchback below rather than in the canyon — painful, but likely not death. We stopped at the top for the view and the breath. Later, the switchbacks out of Long Canyon were a different story: narrower, steeper, the fall below considerably more consequential.

Fatigued and full from dinner at the Broken Spur, we crashed out at the cabin.

Breakfast was a leftover green chili chicken tamale from the night before, black coffee and a chomp for the child. Fuel for the final hike of the trip.

The Cassidy Arch parking lot was nearly full at eight-thirty. The trail begins in the wash and then ascends in earnest, the arch somewhere in the distance. Somewhere. Halfway up, in a rare patch of shade, we stopped for the family photo of the trip. Fueled by Skittles, we crested the ridge and saw the arch for the first time, the slickrock approach stretching out between us and it.

We stood well back from the ledge. Others did not as a full rotation of visitors took their turn standing on the arch for the shot, which looked safe enough and was not for us regardless. Warren ate the last PBJ of the trip while we watched a group of rope climbers gear up to rappel below the arch. The sun was relentless, as it had been every day. We started down.

Back in Torrey, Capitol Burger: a local food truck that promised the best cheeseburger in Capitol Reef. Allison’s take on her burger: “upscale Big Mac, not in a bad way.” My mushroom and blue cheese was an absolute mess of a burger — flat top smash style, buried in mushrooms and bleu cheese — that did not last long. Warren was finicky about the cheese-to-sauce ratio on his cheeseburger until adjustments were made, at which point he ate it. His feelings about the Broken Oar burger in Moab, by contrast, had been immediate and uncomplicated.

Afternoon: packing, resting, the ready to be home feeling at the end of an adventure. We ordered takeout pizza from across the road. I went back out at sunset for one more run at the Fruita barn, one more pass at Sunset Point. Found a different composition on the barn. Found a new spot on the bluff. Both shots worked. When I got back to the cabin, the child was asleep.

We flew home the next afternoon. Somewhere over the Rockies, the landscape that had occupied eleven days and 1,513 miles disappeared under cloud cover and then under the suburbs of the Midwest.

The size and scale land first; impossible not to feel. The age takes longer. It accumulates across eleven days until you stop registering it as geology and start feeling it as something you’re standing inside of.

Each park finds a different way to make these points: Arches with the impossible geometry, Canyonlands with the distance that defeats your sense of scale, Monument Valley — technically Arizona, spiritually its own country — with the mythology you can feel even in the rain, Zion with the color and the canyon walls and a river that has been cutting through sandstone longer than anything has been watching, Capitol Reef last, the one that feels least managed and most ancient, like it was never told it was supposed to be a destination.

The desert has rules: start early, stop between noon and two, carry more water than you think, wear sun protection even for the twenty-minute hike. The desert doesn’t argue; it simply collects.

Bring Wild Berry Skittles. They don’t melt.