7 - Day Road Trip around Nevada + Utah

A couple weeks ago (APRIL) my friend Pancake Pete popped over for a visit from Aus (he was here for coachella, but lets pretend it was for me)… ANYWAY post coachella we caught up in Death Valley and began the circuit. Note Pete and I are both geologists, him more so than me. So this trip was largely focused around this interest area.

DAY 1. Death Valley National Park

Woohoo day one of holidays. We each were coming from seperate directions for this one, me from northern Nevada and Pete from Southern California - regardless we both had approximately 8 hours of driving to do. (Somehow his took him closer to 12, which I’ll never figure out).

It was a pearler of a day and a bucket list item was ticked off for me as I pulled into Beatty, a tiny western town just outside of the park, and saw a few donkeys grazing on the side of the road. Currently I have an obsession with donkeys so I knew this was an indicator I was in for a good trip!

Nearly an hour later I pulled up to the campsite I’d booked. I just to book a site at the Oasis, Fiddlers Campground, this trip as Pete snagged the last one at Furnace Creek right next door! In reality we could have shared his site at furnace creek but, I quite enjoyed Fiddlers and will likely return. The other cool and noteworthy thing about the Oasis is that it is home to the lowest elevation golf course in the entire world, 214’ below sea level!

Given it was such a long drive day (and Pete got in later than anticipated) we grabbed dinner at the Ranch 1849 located at the campgrounds. We both had BISON burgers - I don’t consider myself a very adventurous eater so this was a big deal to try. Did I love it? No. Am I pleased I tried it? Sure.

DAY 2. Death Valley + Las Vegas

We got up early this morning, given Pete had rented a jeep for us to use from Farrabees (also located at Furnace Creek) to take the 4WD trail out to Racetrack Playa. Now the road to Racetrack is advertised as 4x4 only, do I think this is necessary after we completed it? No. I think my little AWD would have been fine, it was essentially a single lane gravel road. It was however nice to know that any sharp rocks or berms that required slightly higher clearance (when getting out of the way for other vehicles) would be handled by a rental designed for it.

After ~1.5hours of driving out (and a quick stop at tea kettle junction) we reached the playa, where we hopped out of the vehicle and began searching. It didn’t take long to find the drag marks that had been created by the movement of the rocks.

TIP: Head towards the mountain line, they are more pronounced and plentiful over that side.

Pete had to explain the movement logic to me on this one. In summary the rocks move because during winter after rainfall the water turns to ice, as it melts it creates slicker icy surfaces, the wind whistles through here and send the rocks flying in different directions. It’s kind of cool and it’s definitely interesting if you consider how long this mechanism was a mystery.

We spent probably an hour to two out here wandering around and checking it all out before it was time to head back and move onto our next location. Death Valley being the ginormous park that it is, there are still loads of things I want to see down there. So stay tuned for next winter when I give it a proper crack!

After returning the car, we hit the road to Vegas. A 2.5 hour drive rapidly increasing as we got caught up in road works. No complaints from me though because have you ever seen a helicopter install power poles? Because I have now and it’s bloody fascinating.

Pete was down bad with the Coachella cough so nothing big or exciting in Vegas, we had a BBQ dinner, Pete bought the largest bag of lollies you’ve ever seen and we saw the Bellagio Fountain show before an early night in bed!

DAY 3. Zion National Park

After a quick stop to buy Pete some cowboy boots (watch me convince him to move here), we were on the road again!

We did a little detour out of town to see the Hoover Dam. It was definitely very big and very cool. But I think the sheer amount of ‘annoying’ tourists that were there kind of spoiled the insane engineering that was right in front of us for me.

Continuing on with our drive. Damn the highway along this drive is gorgeous, especially around St George. Is it my favourite highway I’ve ever driven on? no not really. But I know for a lot of people it is. And so definitely shouldn’t be missed.

We rocked into Zion National Park quite late unfortunately. Luckily we had booked a campsite at the Hi-Road Campgrounds on the eastern side of the park, so we still got to enjoy the scenery of driving through Zion (4x that night because we then ducked back down to the Springdale Pub for dinner). I will definitely be returning to these campgrounds next time I camp at Zion, laundry, showers, electricity and wifi in the game room. It was great. Although… some movement in the bushes had me terrified all night that there was a skunk just waiting to spray my brand new tent.

Unfortunately we had to forego exploring Zion due to time constraints. It was still cool to get a taster of it and I will be returning with my family later in the year so now I have some better ideas in mind of what we need to be doing when that time comes!

DAY 4. Monument Valley (Moab)

The deal we agreed upon for day four was that if we drove past a rock shop we must stop and enter. Pete had fortunately been to one last year for coffee, and it was possibly the coolest rock shop I’ve ever been in. Picture below:

We also stopped at every single Navajo stall or store we could find too - unfortunately not with a whole heap of success, but we still had a few more days to find just what Pete was chasing.

As we rocked into Monument Valley, it was windy - and not just a little like extremely. We had a campsite booked from the View campgrounds (which the view from actually looked fucking insaneeeee. We checked in but ultimately a few hours later decided we were better off driving to Moab that night instead of tomorrow. I wasn’t confident Petes Walmart tent could handle the wind.

We did the loop through Monument Valley, stopping at most pull off points to take more photos. Simply the buttes and mesa’s just were not getting old. I loved them. The dust flying through the air also made the photos look even more spectacular. I had been a little anxious taking my AWD along the trail after it was clearly signed as a 4x4 trail. Confirmed it was completely fine, just don’t drive like an idiot and your 2wd would probably be fine too.

As we drove out of town we had to stop at the iconic Forrest Gump viewpoint (I’ve never seen it before so didn’t really understand the hype). The drive to Moab was sick, lots of geology to look at along the way. As we pulled into town there was one hell of a lightning show. So we were definitely glad we’d booked a last minute hotel for the next few nights instead of camping.

DAY 5. Canyonlands National Park (Moab)

Day 5 did not go as planned. We’d intended to check out Arches National Park, but neither of us had thought to research for it at all and turns out you need a time based entry pass. Which can be bought when they are first released or an additional release is completed the night before at 7pm. So we had to think fast and come up with an alternative plan as not to waste the day.

So we kept driving a little way up the road and went to Canyonlands National Park instead. Given neither of us had done any research into this park and neither of us had any phone reception we decided to just play it by ear. This resulted in us checking out all the view points but not completing any hikes. This was probably for the best, given at this point in the trip we were both getting pretty tired and grumpy.

I really liked Canyonlands and would definitely like to return with a little more of a structured plan on a day that it doesn’t feel as though its going to snow. Pete liked it a lot less, but I think that was more closely related to his hyperfixation on getting to see dinosaur footprints as soon as we left!

Pete managed to purchase a dinosaur footprint book from the visitor centre, so we whipped around to a few of other spots on that list. I don’t remember the name of any of them and if I’m honest I didn’t get out and look at any of them with him. My social battery was pretty flat and it was very cold. So I just tool some time for me and read my book instead.

We checked out a few of the local stores and rock shops, which I would highly recommend to everyone. As they were some of the best local craft stores I’ve seen in the US so far. And then called it a very early night.

DAY 6. Arches National Park

After managing to snag the 7pm timed entry release tickets we were off to Arches National Park. Pete and I each had come up with different priorities of things we wanted to see this day and so we managed to split up and make them both work. Pete wanted to hike to delicate arch, and I wanted to see as much of the park as possible.

So initially we checked out double arch, the windows and the delicate arch view point together before I dropped him at the trailhead for delicate arch and headed on my way. Managing to check out the fiery furnace viewpoint, sky arch, sand arch, pine tree arch and tunnel arch before returning to collect Pete.

Honestly Arches was so cool and I’m already beginning to mentally plan my next trip here. Next time I want to camp in the park, hike to delicate and get a permit to do the fiery furnace hike too!

Just after lunch we hit the road to SLC. This part of the drive was pretty uneventful - we stopped at a few diners on the way in search of a milkshake (I had an insanely good one at the Moab Diner). Overall it was an uneventful rest of the day with a jacket potato dinner and an early sleep.

DAY 7. Salt Lake City

A quick breakfast at the rose establishment, and then Pete was off to the airport and I had the short drive back home. A fun week over!

THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY:

• This trip was great fun and we saw so many different things, but sometimes its better to see more detail and less variety and that’s how I felt by the end of the trip.

• It is absolutely ok to spend a night doing nothing, some down time factored in probably would have been a game changer towards the end of the trip.

• Plan in a little more detail what you want to do at the park before you get there; there were plenty of things I would have liked to do but had not been organised enough to arrange for the correct permits.

• This trip ended up being super expensive because we were eating out so frequently, do some meal planning and cook on the nights you camp. It’ll also feel good getting in those veggies.

Regardless of these things I’d do differently, it was a great trip and so lovely to spend some time with Pancake Pete on this side of the world!!