#Gates50States

Just like with Hawaii, though for different reasons, we knew this one was going to be huge. Along with Alaska and Hawaii, this one took the most effort at the outset in ~2014 in determining when in the grand scheme of #Gates50States we’d visit.

When we considered Utah and what we’d want to do, hiking and the Big Five came to mind, and we couldn’t do much of that if the kids were too little. And speaking of the Big Five, our regular readers have grown tired of hearing from us: the hardest part of our #Gates50States tour and travel adventures is saying, “No,” to really good things in each state… there just isn’t enough time to do it all in our travel time budget. Because of this, a whole bunch of Utah was to be left for future visits, and we’ve come to accept this.

But this post isn’t about what we didn’t do, it’s about what we did do, and we had some really cool experiences. Before we get to those, though, we’ve got a couple of additional travel tips for families considering a Utah visit.

To enjoy and experience Utah, you must commit to driving. No two amazing places you want to visit (and there are a multitude of amazing places you want to visit in Utah) are close together. The National Parks are hours apart, and Salt Lake City is another big drive. Even some of the ski resorts and towns are separated by long drives. Don’t let this prevent you from going! A big part of what we enjoyed was specifically appreciating the landscape’s beauty.

Elevation is a thing. We’re used to ~2200’, and we came from Kaua’i where it’s essentially 0’. By the time we arrived at Bryce Canyon NP, we were feeling the altitude a bit. Not so much that it limited what we wanted to do, but it was definitely noticeable. But so was the landscape!

We hit Utah on the way back from Hawaii to break up the jet lag, and this proved to be a good idea. After landing in Vegas from Kaua’i, we drove north.

Blink and you’ll miss Alton, UT. But the Wild Rose Ranch was waiting for us, and its remoteness and quiet was so nice.

The long, gravel driveway, and then the miles to Bryce Canyon NP made for some time in the car. The winding Sevier River reminded us of our Cuyahoga River not in terms of size and flow, but of curves and bends.

And that landscape…

Bryce Canyon NP is definitely not one to explore only by car. We drove the scenic drive on our first day, and it was… neat. But not much more than that. At one of the scenic overlooks, Lincoln said, “If this was the only national park I’d been to, I’d say it was pretty cool, but having been to so many, it’s ‘meh.’”

That ushered in several levels of conversation, one about how each park is unique and some individuals like one more than others, and another about how fortunate these kids are to be able to compare so many at such a young age.

The short loop trail at the end of the scenic drive, Bristlecone Loop, gave a good look at some of the typical formations from above.

Then we hiked down into the hoodoos and formations and it was stunning.

Most of our memorable hiking locations are mountains, with climbs to start (Storm King, Blue Lake, and Crater Lake come to mind). This was different. Our first hike took us to Tower Bridge. While Bryce Canyon isn’t really a canyon, the hiking is just like a canyon in that the trails go down first, reminiscent of our hike out to Ooh-Aah Point at Grand Canyon National Park.

Lincoln took some really good photos along the way…

Showdowns is a decent little restaurant in Tropic with good live music that offers the type of food and drink you’ll enjoy after a day of hiking and exploring in the park. They’ve got a fire pit in their front yard if you’re interested in making s’mores, and they’ll fix you up with all you need.

We saved our big hike for the second day at the park. Queens Garden to Peakaboo to Navajo (Wall Street section) Figure Eight. And it was beautiful. These are the most popular trailheads, but as we’ve learned from experience, getting a mile away from the trailhead really thins out the crowd. Definitely start this hike first thing in the morning, and while much of what we read and were told advised starting at Wall Street, we started with Queens Garden and were really glad we did given how QG would have played out going uphill. We all preferred WS uphill.

It was the dustiest hike we’d experienced, and we’re thankful for the facilities at the Navajo Trailhead to wash our feet before a long drive. The route through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from Alton to Grover is not to be missed in your lifetime. In fact, we submit Utah State Route 12 is one of America’s great drives. No kidding. We enjoyed it more than the Road To Hana, and we’d put it on par with the Going To The Sun Road… except this one is stretched over scores of miles, leading to simply more time of enjoyment and fascination.

On the way, we stopped at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park for a leg stretcher and to kill some time before dinner at Hell’s Backbone Grill. The color in the petrified wood is beautiful, and we’re thankful the state has preserved some of it in the form of the park. The folks working the gate and store couldn’t have been friendlier.

At dinner, the award-winning chefs put together an amazingly creative menu that was somewhat lost on the kids, but absolutely thrilled Jenn and me. It’s worth the drive from anywhere in southern Utah.

Unfortunately, we dove into our desserts before we could take photos, but they were very sophisticated and lick-your-plate-clean good. Many gluten free choices were available, including several fabulous desserts. Jenn gets tired of the same choices of ice cream or crème brûlée, so several unique choices was a real treat.

The following morning we met Tim with Capitol Reef Adventure Company at Chuckwagon General Store (the gold standard of general stores!) and followed him to the Sunglow Campground in the Fish Lake National Forest. The Middle Ranger Trail wandered along some spring fed greenery and then up a steady climb to arrive at the canyon’s start. (The USGS calls this Red Canyon. It has many other names, including Pete’s Dragon on the CRAC website, and there are other locations also named Red Canyon. I’m told Search & Rescue lOvEs these multiple names.) We scrambled and shimmied our way down some relatively short drops before we came to our first rappelling location.

They started short, around 30-40 feet, and ended with a long drop of around 100 feet. Every one was unique in its own way. This was one of those adventures where we were all so locked in, enjoying ourselves, and having a good time that we eventually looked down at our watches and said, “Holy cow! Three hours have passed!”

This proved to be the highlight of our Utah travels, which is saying something given the fun described below.

We’ve learned from previous travels and tour stops how it’s just not a good plan to try and cram everything possible into every day. Too many days in a row of that leads to meltdowns and wishes we’d never come up with this plan. We’ve made “striking a balance” one of our family themes over the years, and this is a balance we’ve had to strike: trying to do many cool things but at the same time not drive the kids (and ourselves) into the ground.

So we took a slow day to sleep in… we usually hit the trailheads at or shortly after sunrise. We ate breakfast in the kitchen… we’ll often pack food to eat on the way to our destination. We drove to Fish Lake with some general idea of what we wanted to do, but we didn’t have any specific plan… this is highly unusual for our first event of the day.

Our rental in Grover featured pickle ball courts! Not distinctly a Utah thing, but how often do midwesterners get to play pickle ball in the middle mountains?

Utah does dark skies amazingly well, and Grover has no appreciable city lights. I was excited to leave my camera out overnight to capture the Milky Way and obtain a bank of photos for star trails. I even captured Andromeda galaxy!

Before we took off, while Henry and Lydia took some early morning time to sleep in, Lincoln joined Jenn and me for a quick hike out to Hickman Bridge in Capitol Reef National Park. Unfortunately, our experience opportunities were limited in CRNP due to widespread road closures for maintenance. Even the scenic drive was unavailable. The trails were advertised as remaining open, but that was a little disingenuous because accessing the trailheads required parking on the road and walking miles in, adding significantly to the distance to travel.

Honestly, we were a little disappointed the improvements weren’t phased, but nobody asked us. Some places we visit and conclude we’ll never return. CRNP is definitely a place we’d like to revisit, though, especially with a 4Runner. Much of CRNP is best accessed with four-wheel drive and high clearance.

An afternoon check in and a hot sun (more on this below) prompted us to swing by the Park City area on our drive from the Capitol Reef area before going to Salt Lake City in an effort to visit the High West distillery and restaurant. Utah laws prevented the kids from tagging along on a tour of the distillery, so we settled for lunch at the restaurant. High West isn’t our favorite distillery by any means, but we like their story of starting out in a small ski town saloon and turning themselves into a brand desirable to a big time corporate entity. They’re a classic American story of an outfit that started out with a couple of guys and a dream and ended in a >$150 million sale. Much respect from us for the men and women who did the legwork to build a good brand. Their story really speaks to us, their branding and delivery is impressive, their restaurant’s food is fantastic, their whiskey is… good. But the food and branding! It makes us very excited for Whiskey Del Bac. (Message us on IG if you’re interested in this.)

We tend to avoid politics and religion here on this blog, but it’s difficult to ignore the impact of religion on Salt Lake City. We were interested to see all that’s involved with Temple Square, and even more so we wanted to see what is now called The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Their Thursday evening rehearsal is free and open to the public in The Conference Center across the street from the presently-being-renovated Temple and surrounding structures. The Tabernacle was open, though it is not big enough to meet the summertime demand.

Around the Christmas season for the past twenty or so years I’ve listened to what was then known as The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing the choruses of Handel’s Messiah. It was, I believe, a divinely inspired composition, and they produced a wonderful cover. Listening to the present choir and orchestra in the acoustically designed hall of The Conference Center was quite the experience. The organ will impress anyone and everyone, as well.

It’s also worth mentioning and acknowledging the cleanliness of the downtown area of Salt Lake City, including the public restrooms. Having visited some dirty cities, SLC stands apart.

Utah Olympic Park maintained itself following its use in 2002 through the effort of dedicated volunteers and fundraisers, and is a premier winter games training facility year round to one degree or another, depending on the sport. They’ve also monetized it nicely by making portions of the venue accessible in warm weather for tourists like ourselves. We took a tour through the sledding venue, the ski jump venues, and the aerial training jumps and pool.

On top of this, the two museums, one interpreting the history of skiing and snowboarding, another commemorating the 2002 Salt Lake City winter games, are first class. Jenn and I remembered as we moved through the second museum moments watching the games on television and following in Sports Illustrated when we were first year vet students.

The kids got to ride ski lifts, zip lines, inner tubes down the long jump landing slopes, and climb through a ropes course. Definitely worth the price of admission. Each of them list their day at UOP as a highlight of their HI/UT trip.

We also got to watch some athletes train on the moguls ramp!

Park City Brewing, located just minutes from UOP, had really good food, and some clever beers and ciders. If you want to avoid the chains and shop local, PCB is your best bet just outside the city limits.

Salt Lake City is hot. Not summer in Vegas or Phoenix hot, but still really hot. The shade is really quite pleasant; the direct sun is miserable. Once the sun got behind the mountains, we boys walked the downtown area to the mall and around the very pretty capitol building. Many were enjoying picnics, wine, and/or a cool twilight on the lawn surrounding.

On getaway day, the timing of our checkout, rental car return, and flight was such that we had some morning hours to kill, so we drove to Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake. Because of the heat and bugs (noseeums and mosquitoes), we stayed in the car, but the views across such an interesting lake to the city and the mountains, and seeing bison and pronghorn within a short drive from the city was a cool experience.

Someday we may return to float in the high saline water, hike over to the west side of the island, and photograph the thousands of birds picking their meals in the shallows with mountain reflections around them. It really was a unique kind of beautiful.

While we’ve got more travel plans in the works for the next year, the biggest of them all is on the horizon: Alaska in 2026. Before then, we’ll visit some portion of the New England states. There really aren’t that many to go!

We just took off from the SLC airport after a long delay… bad weather in Denver. Yes, we’re all tired after two weeks of big travel and events, but we’ve all been pretty chill through the multiple delays this afternoon and evening. This #gates50states plan has taught the kids a lot. Most importantly today, it has manifested in kids who aren’t bent out of shape with changes outside of our control and waiting. This makes mom and dad proud. 🙂