After our night in Green River, where by the way exactly opposite of our hotel in campground was, which had quite a lot of campers, we wanted to visit Arches first. What we did not know was that you have to register here online in advance, because so many people want to go to the park and otherwise the park becomes too crowded. Once again, the park was full and we could not enter at all this time. This was now the third or fourth park we could not enjoy. I anticipate that this will rule out trips to the western US for me in the future. We tried to get a ticket online, but it was impossible. So we drove to Canyonlands National Park which is right next door. I already suspected bad, but strangely enough the park was not so much visited. The park is one of my favorite parks in the US at all. Much better than the Grand Canyon and so many other national parks. So we did some hiking over the day there.
Continue reading “🗺️ Exploring Canyonlands | Utah’s Vast Desert Wilderness”🚗 Driving Through Utah | Road to Green River
It was hard to believe, but once again there was a cold snap in April in the USA. As on the previous day, we drove again through Zion National Park and then the highway towards Green River in the direction of Moab. I knew that in Moab the hotels are very expensive and in Green River reasonably affordable. In the end, we got a Motel 6 for $120, which is quite outrageous by German standards. The last time I was there in 2015 I paid just $40 in any of the motels there. The landscape on the way to Green River was quite nice, but different than expected. In the end, it went from Zion National Park to a fairly high plateau, which also caused the temperatures to drop sharply. From there we finally had snowstorms all the way to Green River and I was a bit worried about the road conditions.
Continue reading “🚗 Driving Through Utah | Road to Green River”🛣️ Zion National Park Adventure | Canyon Landscapes & River Trails
The day before we ended our trip in St George in Utah. The weather was not that bad in St George itself, i.e. no storms or other adversities. So as planned we visited Zion National Park near St George. But here we had another surprise. The actual valley with the sights was only pe bus shuttle to reach. Actually, no problem, but this time the park was again so extremely crowded with tourists so that I was spoiled the fun. So I decided to drive through the park and make a turn around and drive back to St. George.
Continue reading “🛣️ Zion National Park Adventure | Canyon Landscapes & River Trails”🏜️ Golden Canyon & Rhyolite | Death Valley Hike + Ghost Town Visit
This day we were supposed to hike through Death Valley again. We started early in the morning around 0900 and drove to the Golden Canyon. The good thing about the relatively bad weather was that also relatively few people were on the road. But that was enough to occupy the few parking spaces almost completely, so that we just got a parking space. In the end I had to realize that the National Parks in the USA are completely overcrowded. No wonder why the prices go higher and higher. After this hike we drove in the direction of Nevada to the next town outside Death Valley to Beatty and finally to the Ghost Town Rhyolite, which was once an extremely large town with three railroad lines and also visited a bottle house.
Continue reading “🏜️ Golden Canyon & Rhyolite | Death Valley Hike + Ghost Town Visit”✨ Two Sides of Death Valley | Mosaic Canyon & Dante’s View
The temperatures in Death Valley were extremely pleasant at around 37 degrees Celsius, after we had come almost straight from winter in California. So we decided to do a little hike in Death Valley. The distances are quite short for European conditions, however, one should not neglect the heat and especially the solar radiation. Later we visited other places in Death Valley and finally Dante’s View with quite a nice view. Here, unfortunately, the storm still made itself felt, which met us now already for 10 days often times and made us the camping life difficult. The next day it should become a full-blown sandstorm.
Continue reading “✨ Two Sides of Death Valley | Mosaic Canyon & Dante’s View”🚗 Driving from Ridgecrest to Death Valley | Desert Road Trip
After spending a night in the strange place with its strange surroundings Ridgecrest, we now continued towards Death Valley. Once again, I had completely underestimated the distance – in the end, there were still a few hundred kilometers to go. So we drove north out of Ridgecrest through a nearby strange desert town and finally just through the desert in the parallel valley to Death Valley. On the way there were also two ghost towns to visit, but they were not really ghost towns. We ended the day finally in the campground directly in the center of Death Valley.
Continue reading “🚗 Driving from Ridgecrest to Death Valley | Desert Road Trip”🛣️ Yosemite to Ridgecrest Road Trip | Mountains, Valleys & Desert
We had left the campground at Yosemite National Park early because the next day was going to be colder and also rainier. So the park made no sense at all, especially after we had seen that the pass was closed. So we drove back the way south over the Tehachapi Pass and then in the direction of Ridgecrest. Actually, I wanted to go directly to Death Valley, but I had forgotten how big the distances are. So we made there in this city, which survives primarily only by the nearby military base a stay of one evening and visited among other things old original gold mining villages.
Continue reading “🛣️ Yosemite to Ridgecrest Road Trip | Mountains, Valleys & Desert”🌲 Discover Yosemite | Granite Walls & Giant Waterfalls
As planned, after the rather cold experience of the day before in Sequoia National Park, this time we drove to Yosemite National Parke a little further north. Since the distance was much greater this time, we also needed a new campsite at the same time. We looked for a campground at the edge of the mountains, whereby the place was already quite high, but was quite pleasant in the sun. Afterwards we drove further in the direction of the park. This time the park was quite full and unfortunately to our disappointment the higher roads were still closed due to snow. This meant not only that we could not see the beautiful higher areas, but also the drama of having to drive around the Rockies again. Actually, I had planned to drive to Death Valley on the other side after visiting Yosemite. However, we still made the best of it and ran something through the area in the valley. Unfortunately, the valley was completely overcrowded, so that we were also later still over an hour in the traffic jam to get out of the valley again.Due to the closure of the roads we decided to go to Death Valley the very next day.
Continue reading “🌲 Discover Yosemite | Granite Walls & Giant Waterfalls”