The Wave at Coyote Buttes, Northern Arizona
Another month on the road! Here is the tally of facts and figures for our roadtrip as of May 3rd (a few days over the month mark!):
Miles Driven: 4,070 miles (6,772 miles cumulative for the trip!) [58,621 as of May 3rd]
Days on the Trip: 51
States Visited: 3 – Nevada, Arizona, Utah (4 cumulative for the trip, adding California)
National Parks Visited: 3 Parks – Saguaro, Grand Canyon and Zion (5 cumulative for the trip, adding Joshua Tree and Death Valley). If you count national recreation areas, national monuments, etc., we have covered 4 extras (Lake Mead, Monument Castle, Sonoran Desert and Glen Canyon). We’ve also covered so many state parks, which are beautiful gems in themselves.
Campsites: 12 for April – Lake Mead, Cattail Cove State Park, Gilbert Ray, Molino Basin Campground (in Rincon Mountains), Fools Hollow Lake, Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Cave Springs campground in Sedona (Ryan), Mather Campground Grand Canyon, Bright Angel Campground, Watchman campground Zion, South campground Zion, Lee’s Ferry
BLM and dispersed camping (off the grid): 5 sites for April – Sonoran Desert, Highway 89B Sedona (Ryan), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Glen Canyon Recreation Area near Page, AZ, Valley of the Gods
Hotels: 1 night for April – Kanab, Utah after the Grand Canyon hike. Hoping for a bathtub to soak our sore muscles but when we checked in the room had a shower only – womp!
Miles Hiked: 66.4 for April (93.1 miles cumulative on the trip)
Hikes Completed: 14 hikes (21 hikes cumulative): Arizona Hot Springs (7 mi), Kings Canyon Trail to Wasson Peak (7 miles), West Fork Trail (6 miles), Broken Arrow Trail (4 miles), Hermit Trail to Santa Maria Springs (5 mi), South Kaibab Trail and into Phantom Canyon (9.5 mi), Bright Angel Trail (9.5 mi), Cottonwood Canyons (1 mi), Water Canyon Canyoneering (3 miles), the Wave Coyote Buttes (6.4 miles), Canyon Overlook Trail in Zion (1 mile), Kolob Canyon Overlook Trail (1 mile), Angel’s Landing (5 miles), Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend (combined 1 mile).
Visitors: 2 (kind of) – we ran into Kate and Jake on the Bright Angel trail in the Grand Canyon – they are on their honeymoon roadtripping around Arizona and Utah, what a fun surprise that was!
Fish Caught: 6 (by Ryan) – one Rainbow Trout in Lee’s Ferry and 4 Rainbows and 1 Brown Trout in Sedona. I’ve got to up my fishing game, it’s clear.
Books Read: 3.5 (by Jackie): The second half of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, Troublemaker by Leah Remini, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 0.25 by Ryan – He is slogging his way through Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. We are also listening to Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything on audiobook in the car, which is SO interesting and really quite relevant as we wander around these amazing geological wonders in northern Arizona and southern Utah!
Flies Tied: 9 – And Ryan caught his first fish on one of his flies! He caught a rainbow trout in Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River using a red zebra midge that he tied. A very exciting day for him and @swigflies.
I cannot believe it’s May already – we are nearly 2 months into our sabbatical, and loving nearly every minute of it, we’ve seen such beautiful parts of our country, spent lots of time in places that we’ve never been before and frankly hadn’t given too much thought to before, and have met some wonderful people along the way. May will see us finishing up Southern Utah (though we have to skip so many great spots that we’d love to stay and see, but time’s a ticking so we’ll just have to come back to those places in the future!), shooting back over to California and heading north towards Oregon and Washington along the coast.
BY Jackie
BLOGGED FROM Valley of the Gods, Utah
