RMNP--Day 2

This was a glorious, glorious day.

Because of the various time changes and time zones, we were awake at 4:30 am--and when you're awake that early, why on earth WOULDN'T you go watch the sunrise?

My original hope had been a sunrise hike to Sprague Lake--but I was pretty sure my mom couldn't handle that, and it was honestly so dang cold that I was not sure how pleasant it would be. This ended up being the coldest day of our trip. So, we drove into the park while it was dark, slowly winding our way up the roads. They started off clear but as the elevation crept up, they acquired more snow and ice. I felt fine and comfortable, but my mom was really freaked out by the roads, which was endless amusing to me--we are both originally from Buffalo! Come on, now!

At some point, heading up to Bear Lake, the sun hit the top of Hallett Peak and its surrounding peaks. We pulled off to the side and just watched the sun travel down, lighting up everything in orange and pink. The wind was whipping the snow over the mountains in such a way as to make it look like someone was pulling a translucent sheet over them, all rosy with the sun's glow.

We made it to Bear Lake, and the parking lot was basically empty--and icy. We scooted over to the Bear Lake trail head, poles at the ready, and made our way around the lake. It's a short, flat hike, but oh damn was it COLD. the wind would whip across the ice and throw its daggers into your face. The beauty was unreal though--in many spots, we were the first people to cut a trail through the snow. The sun was just now starting to hit the lake and dance through the trees, and it was silent and lovely and empty. 

We scurried back to the car to warm up and eat a bagel, and drink some hot tea from a thermos I packed. This time, we strapped on microspikes, and headed out on to the Alberta Falls Trail. It was packed with snow and we were clearly the first people of the day on it. We traveled down the trail for about a mile, before my mom decided that she wanted to head back. So, we didn't get to see the falls, but we did have a nice two mile hike there. It was a really beautiful trail, packed with snow and silent, with pines towering overhead and glimpses of the glacier canyon beyond. Throughout this trip, I really encouraged her to just say when she was ready to head back--I didn't want to get in over her head and her abilities. So back we went to the car to warm up, and to head to Sprague Lake. 

Sprague Lake was so beautiful and possibly the coldest place of it all. It's so open and lovely, but that wind whips off the mountain with nothing to block it and just slams into you. The lake was frozen over, and in some spots, probably frozen enough to walk on, though we wisely decided not to test it yet. Around we went, marveling at the gorgeous views and how rapidly winter was closing in on the mountains. 

After a quick drive around Moraine Park--just so that I could show my mom where we were going to hike tomorrow--we headed back to our cabin for soup. We ate some food and slurped some soup and hot chocolate, warming up and relaxing. 

Because we are gluttons for cold punishment, we drove over to Lilly Lake. The flat path around the lake seemed ideal for Mom, plus it's got some great mountain views of Twin Sisters. So around we trundled, all bundled up, stopping for pictures and to throw ice onto the iced over lake and to sit on the benches and admire the view. I took far too many pictures of Twin Sisters and promised them I'd be back to see them specifically.

We headed back into town to pop in a few shops and browse. Mom found a taffy shop and bought salt water taffy--then we ordered barbeque from a restaurant and grabbed it as take out. We brought our glorious BBQ back to the cabin and ate like we were feral wolves, and watched The Bodyguard.

At some point, we realized how dark it was, and decided to drive to the end of the road and look at the stars. It's so incredibly dark that you can see the spiral arm of the Milky Way with your eyes.

I think we slept like rocks, exhausted from all the walking and hiking. 

Travel Planning: Acadia National Park

Plans are coming together for our October trip to Acadia National Park!

Traveling: We had originally planned to fly and rent a car, but ultimately decided that a road trip was the way to go. So the K Caravan will be heading across several states in our van, stuff and all! Our kids are good road trippers, we like being able to carry some of our stuff and gear we couldn't be able to bring easily on a plane, and lord, airports are SUCH a hassle with kids and stuff.

We plan to leave on a Friday and make it to Buffalo, where we can hang with my parents. The next day, we either leave super early in the morning and make it all the way to Acadia, or we decide to make a real road trip out of it and pick a random location before or around Boston to stop. Buffalo to Acadia is anywhere from 10-12 hours from my parents' house. Stopping just prior to Boston is one option, and hanging with JK's sister for the night; the other is a more winding route into some of the small towns in VT or NH. 

We are traveling with friends who will join our caravan in Buffalo. Their child lives out in Maine, so they are combining this with a visit to her.

Stay: We've got a place rented with a local company. We've got a whole house to ourselves, shortly after you get onto Mount Desert Island. I'm excited about this place, because it's got water views. We figured this was a good base for exploring all of MDI, while also giving us easy access to get off MDI and maybe check out parts of the park that are located elsewhere.

Hikes: I mean, as per usual, we have a whole list that we will adapt, depending on weather, kid participation, etc. EK has agreed to get up before sunrise and hike up Cadillac Mountain with me to see sunrise at the top--we shall see if she will do it. It might be JK and I, and our kids may hang with our friends. 

Other stuff: We've got plans for kayaks, renting bikes, a boat ride, time in Bar Harbor, seeing the lighthouse and other landmarks, and more. All weather depending, obviously. We also know that there's the chance to do some tidepooling and other things that will be wildly new experiences for us. 

Indiana Dunes State and National Parks Picture Post

Our trip to Indiana Dunes was both delightful and frustrating--we were foiled by the weather, but we can't wait to go back.

It rained and sleeted the entire time we were there. It was always meant to be just a short trip--there in the early afternoon, hike, stay the night, get up and hike again, then head home. We saw the bad weather forecast, but at that point, we were stuck with the dates we had picked, and decided to just go and have as much fun as we could. 

We did indeed have fun--but it was wet, cold fun, and shorter than we would have liked. We heavily leaned on the visitors center, which was excellent. The informational videos were wonderful, the kids were engaged, and the ranger was just delighted that we were full of questions. 

We did short burst hikes around the dunes in both parks before we got totally soaked and frozen (this was back in March!) and had to call it. 

Picture Post: Canyonlands

If I had to pick one park from our Arches and Canyonlands trip, I would pick Canyonlands. The pictures at Arches were easy to take; the park speaks for itself. It's so hard to capture the vast beauty of Canyonlands on camera. It was stunning, and my tiny taste was not enough. I want more. 

You see this sign and then you keep driving and driving and driving...

Part of Shafer Trail--where you can drive your Jeep down that scary ass road. Yes, please, and thank you, I'll be doing that next time. 

Shafer Trail

Shafer Trail, look, it was just very cool, alright?

Most of my pictures are from the Grand View Point Trail. It was an easy hike, which we definitely needed at that point in our day.

In recent years, I've developed a bit of vertigo when getting close to cliff edges. I'm not afraid, but I do get dizzy. Rather than letting this hold me back, I've taken to getting on my butt to get out to the edge.

It's just canyons, as far as your eyes can see. It's amazing.

I loved this view so much, I did it twice with two different camera lenses.

Same spot on Grand View Point Trail, different camera lens.

This doesn't even really capture the gorgeous color of it all.

And it is SUCH a drop, just RIGHT THERE.

My sister is terrified of heights but I convinced her this would be an amazing picture and she would thank me later. I think she was swearing at me during this picture.

We stopped other places but I honestly don't know what I did with my pictures? I think I may not have offloaded them from my camera. Here, have another picture from Grand View Point Trail.

Canyonlands National Park

After hitting the Arches Visitor Center and getting some snack, we switched drivers and decided it was time to head into Canyonlands National Park. 

I know these national parks looks close together, and they ARE, just not as close you THINK they are. Canyonlands is a bit of a commitment to get into, and oh, it's so worth the commitment. But first: prepare. Once you are in the park, plan on staying in until you are done. Bring your water. No, bring more water than that. Being snacks, again, more snack than you thought. Make sure you have a full tank of gas. As we were driving in, there were multiple signs to the effect of "there's no food, water, gas, or place to stay in here. You sure about this? You got everything you need for a day? Okay, cool, let's go!" 

We only visited Island in the Sky; there are two (three if your count the river) other districts of Canyonlands (the Maze; Needles). Turning onto Island in the Sky Road after leaving Arches took fifteen minutes. It then took a bit more than half an hour from that turn to actually get into the park and to the Visitor's Center, and that was with no traffic and no line for entry. We decided to drive all the way down to Grand View Point with no stops (planning for stops on the way back), and that took another half hour. Like I said: time commitment. 

Canyonlands was such a stunner. The colors are vivid and contrasting; there's a similar feel to the Grand Canyon but the canyons are many, so many, and they are everywhere, and they are open and vast, rather than tall and deep. It feels like there's no end in sight, and you just keep looking at canyon following canyon until your vision can't take anymore. Canyons, mesas, buttes, arches... it's just everything, everywhere, all colors, all at the same time. 

We drove to Grand View Point, and hiked the rim trail. We knew we might only have time or energy for one to two hikes in Canyonlands (remember, at this point, we've basically been awake since yesterday morning), so we wanted to pick our best hikes. 

Grand View Point trail did not disappoint. It's two miles, walking from the point of Island in the Sky along the rim, and you have views of the canyons and mesa from both sides. If you've got a fear of heights, I would try to overlook trail and assess how you feel. You can stay plenty far enough back form the big drops, but it's impossible not to see the drop. It was beyond words. The color, the silence, the views. We frequently stopped for pictures and to just sit on the rim, looking out into the vast beyond. We shared the trail with other people, but even though it was steady traffic, it was not overwhelming and there were still moments of solitude. I saw someone flying a drone, which pissed me off, but I didn't happen to cross paths with them. NO DRONES IN THE PARKS, PEOPLE ugh I am off my soapbox now. 

This hike did not feel particularly strenuous to me, and All Trails rates it as easy. I noticed some people struggling with stairs, but I think that might be more of a product of elevation--which I definitely noticed but YAY all that training has paid off and the elevation change gave me zero trouble. This trail has no shade--they day we hiked was cool (high 40s, low 50s) and honestly, I would not want to be there when it was much hotter. It would be easy to overheated and become quite ill. 

Other trails and overlook points we hiked: White Rim (also amazing, highly recommend) and Shafer Canyon Overlook. We did quite a bit of the "jump out of the car, race up to overlook for the scenic view" type behavior, because we were rapidly running out of gas, the human variety. Our car was fine. The same commentary applies for all of Canyons--vast, overwhelming beauty. We desperately wanted to stay longer, but also did not want to drive four hours back to SLC in the dark. We stayed in Canyonlands for about 3.5 hours and it was no where near enough. It was like licking one small lick of your favorite dessert platter. I can't wait to go back here. 

One thing we saw was that there was an off road vehicle trail--a Jeep trail. In fact there are quite a few opportunities to use a 4WD, high clearance vehicle and do some "scenic auto touring", as the NPS website calls it. It looked AMAZING--we could see some far off Jeeps, looking like tiny specks--on the list for the future. 

Also on the list for the future is going to Canyonlands before sunrise and watching sunrise there. A popular place for this is Mesa Arch, but I really want to see sunrise at Grand View Point trail, along that rim trial some where, or on the White Rim trail.

Picture Post: Arches National Park

I haven't grabbed the pictures off my actual camera yet, so these are shots with my phone. I'll circle back sometime with pictures from a real camera.

I want to put in a plug for sunrise here. There were very few people on the trails we were on, and there was plenty of parking. It was silent. We had some arches and trails to ourselves. Cannot recommend enough.

 

Turret Arch, as the sun was starting to rise. 

We got up close and personal with Turret Arch later on as it got a bit brighter, but we wanted to watch the sunrise from the North Window Arch. Walking up to Turret Arch was amazing though; you go up the path and around a slight curve and BOOM, huge arch and bonus sweeping mountain and canyon views beyond it. 

We had to hustle to The Windows so we could watch the sunrise. Although it looks quite bright in the picture, the sun was not up yet, and it was actually dark--I brightened the image so you could actually see the landscape.

Up we went, into the North Window Arch (the arch on the left in the previous picture) to watch the sunrise. It was glorious. It was us and one other couple. Total silence other than occasional quiet talking. 

One sister, on the rocks. 

Honestly, the whole thing was a pristine and magical experience. Highly recommend foregoing sleep to watch the sunrise. I have a picture of the North Window Arch looking up from standing under it, but it's shaky at best.

After sunrise, we moved on to other areas of the park--primitive trails, Double Arch, Delicate Arch, Balanced Rock, and Devil's Garden. 

We hiked around the loop of the Windows Trail, and there's some fun, very mild scrabbling to follow the trail. 

The Windows Arches from the backside, and I think they missed a real opportunity here to call it Owl Eyes Arches.

Double Arch was by far my favorite arch.

Double Arch felt like a religious experience in a temple to me. It stunned me while at the same time, brought serenity. I hung out in Double Arch for awhile, soaking in the silence and the views. 

Looking out of Double Arch back towards the trial head, the Windows, and Turret Arch is nothing to sneeze at. 

One of the many roadside scenic pullouts--just me and my favorite hat. 

From here, we went on to Delicate Arch, Balanced Rock, past Fiery Furnace, and into Devil's Garden. Those pictures are all on my camera, so I will pull them off soon and do a Arches Picture Post 2.0.