The Ultimate Winter Road Trip through Southern Utah's National Parks | Highlights

Описание: Here's a highlight reel for the Winter 2019 excursion my girlfriend and I made to a couple of the National Parks in Utah and Arizona. Not many people think to travel to these parks during the winter due to the weather (I now understand why), but seeing the snow compliment the red rock landscape was awesome and made enduring the cold temps totally worth it.

You'll see quick clips from the Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands, and Monument Valley (Navajo Nation equivalent of a National Park). The Grand Canyon was ridiculously crowded when we were there the morning of December 28th despite the slightly icy conditions. We glamped near the Grand Canyon in a fun, but really cold, A-frame that we found on Airbnb before stopping at Monument Valley on the way to Moab, UT. Monument Valley has been featured in many movies and TV shows (my favorite being Forrest Gump) so be prepared to wait your turn for the iconic picture on Highway 163.

Moab is an awesome town where adventure is very obviously the focus and is conveniently located for easy access to Arches and Canyonlands. Arches definitely lives up to the hype of being 1 of the best National Parks in America, but Canyonlands is no slouch either. We spent about 5 hours exploring The Island in the Sky region of Canyonlands which proved to be enough for us.

Our road-trip ended with a 2 night stay (Dec 31 - Jan 2) near Zion National Park. Zion is incredible and it's popularity is evidenced by insane overcrowding when the weather warms up. If you can make it work, I strongly suggest considering visiting this park during the winter because only about 13% of Zion's visitors travel here during the months of November - March. We woke up early New Year's Day to tackle one of Zion's most popular hikes, Angel's Landing. This actually proved to be a great strategy due to lower traffic volume, but traction devices (such as crampons) were strongly recommended for the final 0.5 mile trek along the exposed and icy ridge. I bought some spikes for less than $20 on Amazon and they worked really well, giving me the confidence to conquer the most dangerous part of the hike. Much like the journey up, the views at the top of Angel's Landing were breath taking.

Our trip started and ended in Las Vegas. In total, we put 1,690 miles on the rental car and walked about 55 miles over the course of 7 days. It was a beautifully awesome adventure through some incredible landscape, but definitely required a couple of days to recover. Enjoy!

Song Credit: Higher Ground x Odesza