Skip to main content

The King of Canyons - Part 3

Second stop was the Roaring River falls, a slightly longer walk to a much bigger water fall. There was no playing in the pool at the bottom of this falls, the current was much stronger. We climbed on some rocks to get a good view, admired the ferocity, and then headed back to the car. The power of the water to carve through rock is always impressive especially when the cliffs are so imposing. 


Our last stop was the Zumwalt Meadow. We crossed a suspension bridge that the kids loved. They caught sight of a small beach and wanted back in the water but we kept on walking. We caught sight of the meadow and saw a deer grazing. John and Charlotte thought this was enough and I took them back to the beach to play in the water. Mary, Gen and Aisling continued and saw a beautiful, but slightly underwhelming, meadow. Mary didn’t want to give up on another hike so kept going but was disappointed by the result. John and Charlotte loved playing in the water. 


We caught our last views of the towering canyon walls fading with the sun’s light on our way out. We took the switchbacks back up the mountain to pick up the trailer before going down the mountain on our way out of the park. There was some debate about whether to press on to Yosemite or find a place on the edge of Sequoia National Park. We decided to push onwards with a quick stop in Fresno for groceries and Jack in the Box.


 Refreshed we pushed on to Yosemite with a fantastic site right outside the park as our goal. While doing a casual check into what Yosemite National Park consists of, we found that they required a reservation and there weren’t any reservations available for two weeks. We have never experienced this before. You are allowed to go in without a reservation if you enter before 6am or after 4pm. We pushed on into the park to try to find a campsite. After scouring a campground for a spot, we decided to set-up just outside of the park. It was 1am, a lazy morning was in our future, we decided to wait until 4pm the next day to enter. 

We found a beautiful little site in the woods and spent some time levelling. It wasn’t until the next morning we realized there was a level parking lot with a washroom 1 minute away.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Desert Forest

Saturday, May 28th – Joshua Tree National Park - North to Joshua Tree National Park - South, California– Day 107 Our campsite was a large open dirt area with some scrub around the outside. In the dark we had managed to park beside the pile of horse poo and shaving. Horses were allowed in this site. Gen stepped in the middle of a pile.   The Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre was a five-minute drive away. The town of Joshua Tree was packed with college age millennials communing with nature. There was a market with kombucha, organic greens and a few small tortoises. It was all very pleasant but very busy. The laundromat was at the edge of the market, I charged the devices and did the laundry. Gen bought some produce from a guy loading a truck. I even snuck in to buy some watermelon kombucha.   The drive into the park was ten minutes followed by a ten-minute line to show our pass. A quick stop to fill up our water bottles and we were into the park. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meow Wolf and O

Wednesday, May 25th –Lake Mead National Recreation Area to Las Vegas, Nevada – Day 104  We woke up in our roadside turn out and got ready for the day. Our plan was to go for a swim at Lake Mead, see the Hoover Dam and head back into Vegas. The morning was stifling hot, we were looking forward to the swim.   We drove to the visitor centre at Lake Mead Recreation Centre. We could see Lake Mead on the way. The water was well below the high-water line on the rocks. At the visitor centre we got our passport stamped, filled our water bottles, and received junior ranger booklets. The air conditioning was so nice we set up the kids to work on their booklets and hung around. The kids finished up enough activities that they were sworn in by a very nice ranger before we left.   We decided to go see the Hoover Dam first. We dropped the trailer in the parking lot. We heard it might need to be opened at the security checkpoint and we couldn’t be bothered. The H...
Post a Comment
Read more

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 1

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91  Utah is another planet. I cannot do justice to the sights that I have seen in Canyonlands National Park. They are beyond compare. I would encourage everyone to visit. The pictures we have taken do not convey the beauty of the scenery we witnessed.   We woke up in the morning after a late night. The kids did some schoolwork. We ate our oatmeal. We tried to clean up the dust that was all over the trailer. The wind had subsided in the night and the morning was pleasant and warm. Aisling had made us promise that we would climb the rock that they had all been climbing on. We strapped on our hiking boots and started towards the rock. A quick climb later we were at the top; on the way down, we were looking for pretty rocks.  The road to Canyonlands sits between two buttes with their cliffs rising on either side. The drive was thirty minutes to the entrance. The visitor centre had displays that detailed what each layer of the canyo...
Post a Comment
Read more