We left Lake Mead after our early morning swim and headed to Utah!
If you haven’t read the previous post, click here! We drove through Arizona again briefly before getting into Utah.
One of the mountain passes we went through had construction the whole way through, but the views were so cool.
A lot of the rest of the drive was pretty interesting, too. The landscape changed a lot. It was super hot – even with the air conditioning blasting.
We eventually made it to the area near the park and the landscape started to look more like the park.
We took a detour to a small “ghost town.”
It was really a Mormon settlement. The buildings were in really good condition, so it wasn’t the real ghost town experience I wanted. But it was still cool.
Then we headed into the park properly.
We didn’t realize you have to park somewhere and then take the shuttle around the main valley. So luckily we got there mid-afternoon and there were some spots near the shuttle. We stopped at a couple of the early stops, then headed to the Narrows.
We were in luck – low flash flood warning level!
I think it was a mile or two each way – we didn’t go to the end, but it was a nice walk, even though it was pretty busy.
After the first part of the walk, you have to walk through the river for a while. I wasn’t really prepared and brought too much stuff with me, so we didn’t go all the way to the end. Also it was too busy.
The water was SO COLD. My feet were numb after walking through the water for only a minute or two.
We then walked back and they had some deer in a fenced in area.
We then got in the car and went to a different part of the park. To get there, you have to go through a mile-long tunnel.
We then decided to head to the campsite, because the sun was setting. We camped at Quail Creek State Park, because we only booked things about three weeks in advance. By then, all the national park campsites had been booked up. We found a lot of state park campsites nearby to the national parks we wanted to go to, so we only stayed in state parks for the whole time we were in Utah. It worked out pretty well. We were very pleasantly surprised by how nice the view was at Quail Creek.
The campsite is on a slope, so every campsite overlooks the lake (from a less-mosquito-y distance). We got there right as the sun was setting, so we took a dip in the lake. We were there for 2 nights, so it functioned as our “bath,” but it also helped us cool down because it was still about 100F at sunset.
We then made dinner and watched the stars come out. This was one of the less-good views of the stars we got in Utah, and it was pretty much the most stars I had ever seen. We took these pictures about 30 minutes after sunset, and there were so many stars visible. This picture is completely unedited.
And that concluded our first day in Utah, a visit to Zion, and our first night at Quail Creek State Park!
