It’s been a week since I got back from vacation, needless to say it was insanely busy at work. Emails stacked up 8000 feet tall, people sending msn messages non-stop requesting some work done…etc. Anyway, I’d better keep on writing about the trip before I forget any detail of it (even though I’m actually feeling pretty sick right now..dizzy, light-headed feeling)

After visiting Arches National Park, I headed to the Dead Horse Point State Park. It took me a while to figure out how to get there since the route I originally had on the map was actually an unpaved / 4-wheel-drive road and I had to find an alternate route. Since it was a “State” park not a National one, the $80 annual pass I got didn’t work, and I had to pay an extra $10 (or $20?) to get in, kinda pissed. But anyway, the views I got from the park made it all up. The park’s actually being called the “Grand Canyon of Utah”. I couldn’t remember how the Grand Canyon looked since I was really tiny when my parents bought me there, but the view here at Dead Horse Point was, very impressive. It was no any “normal” canyon, but a vast piece of lands (more like plateaus in this case), followed by sudden change in altitude, with cliffs that went down probably like 500 feet on the other side. At the bottom it’s the Green River - the canyon had been carved by this river for millions of years. This art of nature had created a horseshoe-like, U-shaped valley, in the middle of nowhere. It was really impressive and anyone had to be standing there to realize it. Spent an hour or so taking loads of pictures and video, and I was off to my next destination, the Canyonlands National Park.

Canyonlands is vast, and a lot of it is only accessible by 4-wheel-drive vehicles, which unfortunately was out of my budget and I didn’t have. I tried to enjoyed every part of it where a 4-wheel-drive wasn’t needed though. Drove to a couple view points, like the Grand View Point (I actually hiked for an hour there to get to the best part of it where there’s a panorama view), the Upheaval Dome view point - a though-to-be the ground zero of a meteor impact where there’s a huge crater that had a 1-mile diameter, the White Rim view point - very impressive crater crafted by water again. Had fun at the Aztec Butte Trail where there were ancient “granaries” left by Indian people, up on the cliff of some huge sand dunes - it was really tiring and scary (since at the top I was literally walking on the edge of a cliff) but the view I got there were well worth the effort. I got to see these granaries at a very close distance and got a feel of how these ancient people survived at these high attitudes, how it was like to have to climb to the top many times a day…etc. I got so excited at the place I even told some European tourists how cool it was up there when I was on the way down…lol. Anyway. Next morning I got up at 3:45AM, drove 20 miles from Moab to Canyonlands in order to shoot some photographs of the sunrise at place called Mesa Arch. It’s a very popular photographic point where many photographers would get up early and set up their gears there just to get a shot of the sun at its earliest point in the day. I actually got there first at around 4:30AM, but there wasn’t anyone, so I waited as I didn’t want to hike up alone in the dark. People started coming at around 5:15AM and I started to hike this short 15-min walk up to the arch. About 3 to 4 people set up their gears after I did, and we all just sat there waiting for the sun to emerge, kinda cool. But it sucked. It was actually quite cloudy, so we weren’t able to get the epic shot where the sun rises to a point that it is just touching the edge of the arch thus creating a flare on only one side of the stone. Anyway, I got some pretty nice shots of it.

There’s another remote area in the Canyonlands National Park called The Needles which anyone shouldn’t miss. I was off to there next, and it was about a 2-3 hours drive to the southern part of the park. I got a reservation at this camp site called The Needles Outpost. It was a hoot to chat with the owner, she was telling me how to stretch my body as I was mentioning how much walking I just had at the Chesler Park hike (will talk about this next). She gave me a really nice site where I had a huge tree blocking most of the heat from the sun, and needless to say, the site was very very private and cool. It’s all sandy at the ground, but the views was impressive, with huge rock formations at a distance, and on the other side just a piece of vast land that you could see forever. Anyway, the morning of the same day I was actually doing a hike at the Chesler Park trail, the most popular trail at the Needles district. It’s no easy I tell ya, and it felt like I was walking forever, but as always, the views just kept on getting better. I had to first walk past a fairly lengthy trail that began with some fairly standard trail across some flat area with lots and lots of cacti and dessert vegetations. After that I was basically on top of some enormous sandstones, with potholes all over them (potholes - concave “holes” formed by rain water fill up for a period of time at the same spot), and then after that I was surrounded by huge rock formations that piled up like some kind of thick “needles”, in bold red color with white strips in the middle part - there I knew I was close to my destination, the Chesler Park that was pretty much made up of these “needles”. I got to the final destination after climbing over a probably 150 feet tall rock formation, still remember that I got really excited since I couldn’t see at all what’s on the next side unless I climbed over to the other side. Wow, some enormous piece of land, surrounded by countless “needles” and in the middle part it was filled with mushroom-like rocks, with red middle part and a white top, very unique. I was pretty exhausted by then otherwise I could actually walk around the area in a circle. Chesler Park was impressive. In the Needles district I also went for the Cave Spring Trail where there were some interesting rock art and a cowboy camp. Also went to the Big Spring Canyon overlook which was equally impressive as the White Rim. I took a lot of panorama pictures there (which turned out to be great after stitching them up in Photoshop!).

Next it was the Natural Bridges National Monument. It was another 2-3 hours drive from Canyonlands. This park was actually very tiny, I think for people that don’t hike they can finish driving up to all the view points within an hour and half, but I did do some hiking in order to get to the bridges as close as possible. There were basically three enormous natural bridges in the park - Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo bridge. I had only 2 hours total (ended up spending 3 hours there) at the park so I chose to hike down only to the Kachina bridge, while viewing the Sipapu and Owachomo bridge at a distance. The hike 400ft down to the Kachina bridge was piece of cake but hiking back up was brutal! But anyway the bridge WAS impressive, very enormous in size and the hole in the middle was HUGE. Took a bunch of nice shots down there, and also found some rock art that was carved right at the side of the bridge (e.g. a carving of a goat). The three bridges in the park were actually much much older than the arches that were found say at the Arches National Park. They were composed by “cedar mesa” sandstones that were deposited about 250 million years ago (same kind of stone at the Needles district in the Canyonlands National Park). I finished the entire park in about 3 hours and then I was off to Page, Arizona.

On the way to Page, I was at the “Valley of the Gods” unpaved scenic drive at one point, where I planned two hours for it but since I overspent my time at the Natural Bridges I only drove for about 20 minutes into the road to take some shots and I backed out. It was too harsh to drive there anyway with my crappy little Hyundai.. After a long 4-hour drive I finally got to Page. At Page I was first confused about the time since it didn’t follow the standard Arizona time, instead it used the “MST” (Mountain Standard Time, which I had no clue what it was) and the time was actually the same as in Nevada. It wasn’t until I looked up on the internet when I realized that only the Navajo districts (district of the native Indians pretty much) uses MST. I set up the tent and went to “bed” fairly early as I had to wake up early the next morning to drive 30 miles to this place called the “Paria Ranger Station” to do a lucky draw in order to get a hiking permit to this INSANLY popular place called “The Wave”. God wasn’t with me that morning and I failed to get the permit (only 10 available and there were like 2x participants). Anyway, back to Page. The highlight at Page was the Antelope Canyons! They are “slot canyons”, canyons with very narrow passages that you could barely fit your body in at most points inside them. The “slots” were again formed by water, which actually filled up the inside of the canyon after almost every rainfall. I got a 4-hour pass to self-tour the “Lower Antelope Canyon” from Ken’s Tour, which was bascially a crappy little “hut” in the middle of nowhere where they sold the tickets and some small souvenirs like post cards. It was way less crowded there compared to the “Upper Antelope Canyon” (will talk about it next), except occasionally there were large groups of 30 people rushing in, but they would usually be gone in a short period of time as most of the groups were guided tours. I spent a good 3 hours inside the canyon, used two of my lenses, to take a whole bunch of very cool pictures - it was photographer’s heaven. The stones, more like walls at the inside of the canyon were carved constantly by water, creating these very curvy shape with occasional “lines” on the surface of the rocks formed by the wave pattern. The different shapes of patterns of the stones, having different light beams casted on them, in different directions depending on the time of the day, had created a virtually infinite amount of photo opportunities. I was super exciting in there, walking through the entire thing back and forth (it wasn’t too large, probably 15 minutes of walking from beginning to the end), trying to aim my lens to different angles…etc. After that I headed for the “Upper Antelope Canyon”, which was a 1-hour guided tour. Yes it was more or less the same as the “Lower” canyon, but was much more darker as the walls are taller and the gap at the top was narrower so not much light could get in. The guide was very informative though (and nice), giving a lot of information about the formation of the canyon and the various cool spots inside it where people had giving them names. The ride to the entrance of the canyon was cool as well, where we (group of ~20 people) were on a 4-wheel-drive truck (I’d call it a monster truck as the engine/exhaust was SO loud), traveling basically on sand for about 3 miles. The ride was extremely bumpy, but that was what made it so cool.

On the last day I got up early (at 6AM), packed up all my belongings, threw away all the stuff that I couldn’t bring back with me due to the weight (the broken fly of my tent, an axe, my sleeping bag…just to name a few ), and headed towards Las Vegas where I would board my plane 7pm on the same day. I got to Las Vegas at around 11AM, parked at The Venetian’s free 7-story parking. The traffic at LV was really bad and confusing as hell. My GPS didn’t work very well and it took me some scrambling before I was able to get to the hotel. Anyway, I didn’t really have any place in mind to go, except for the M&M’s World where I promised Wendy that I’d get her some souvenirs there, so therefore I was just basically walking along “The Strip”, or the Las Vegas Boulevard. It was so insanely hot and I didn’t wear my hat so it was pretty harsh. The air conditioning inside the malls was very nice though. I went to a couple popular places like the Forum Shop, the Grand Canal at the Venetian, the Bellagio hotel with its huge musical fountain (watched a show there), New York New York (just walked by took some pics and checked out people yelling riding the rollar coaster, didn’t go in), MGM Grand (didn’t go in as well). Had lunch at a Mcdonalds since I was craving for a pop. The place where I spent most of my time was actually at the M&M’s World. It was way too cool - 4 stories of fun, as they called it. Loaded with everything you can imagine, with the M&M’s logo imprinted. I bought a bunch of cool looking M&M’s there with different tastes and colors, and also a few items for Wendy. At next door it was a Coca Cola World, which was kind of cool but I ended up didn’t buy anything there but a bottle of coke, lol. Since it was too hot I decided to get to the airport earlier, which actually was a right decision since my baggage was overweight for 19.X pounds and I had to spend extra time ditching some of my stuff in order to avoid the $50 extra weight fee

That was the trip, and it was a lot of fun. Words simply can’t describe, I guess.

It’s day 15 of the trip, going back to Vancouver tomorrow. I’m sitting at a Mcdonald’s (again) at Page (Arizona) having a Bacon Ranch Salad (not something that I’d usually order but I did for some reason) and it isn’t bad at all! I just finished the Lower Antelope Canyon tour from Ken’s Tour, wandered inside the slot canyon for about 3 hours. It is actually one of the highlights of the trip, and it didn’t disappoint! Great place with lots and lots of interestingly shaped, curvy canyon walls and I had to walk inside this really narrow space, sometimes as little as half a foot across. Sand poured down from time to time, hitting my arms and camera hard, pretty cool.Took tons and tons of photos. The $26 really worth it. I’m going for the Upper Antelope Canyon in an hour or so (3:30pm), not sure if it’ll be a lot different from the Lower one, guess I’ll see. This time it’ll be guided and it’s only going to be an hour long.

Guess I’ll continue from where I left off from my last post. After leaving Bryce Canyon I headed to this place called Calf Creek. It’s about an hour drive and then I arrived at the Calf Creek Recreational Area. There were a couple trails, lower and upper creek, I went for the lower creek trail. It was a pretty straightforward trail, took about an hour and half to reach the end. I picked up a guide from the trailhead and there were numbers along the trail and you could refer to the guide for the description of the numbered area. The trail wasn’t particularly interesting but at the end of it, it was SO COOL. I got to the Lower Calf Creek Fall. It’s as tall as a 20-30 story building, really magnificent. The pouring down force was so strong that the water was splashing outward so even though I stood like 200 meters from it I could still feel it hitting my body. It was so refreshing in the super hot weather, it’s like an air conditioner from nature. I spent half an hour there taking pictures, sitting around, had a sandwich for lunch, saw people getting wet/ kids swimming in the pond of water created by the fall. I didn’t want to leave at all since it was so nice, but I did after half an hour of stay. The hike back was so frigging hot and awful 

My next stop was the Capitol Reef National Park. Again it wasn’t too long of a drive, about 2 hours or so. Okay, the entrance of the park was the most awesome/picturesque out of all parks that I had been to so far. Bloody red, enormous sandstone (or whatever stone, think it’s sandstone though) emerges from the earth spanning like thousands of acres. How could anything possibly be so cool (making me want to see the pictures again right now) The park was gorgeous, countless photo ops. I went to a couple of the most popular trails like the Hickman’s Bridge - enormous arch high up on a mountain, pretty steep trail to hike, Capitol Gorge Trail – walking inside the bottom of some canyon with super tall rocky walls on both sides, Grand Wash Trail – similar to Capitol Gorge with different scenery. Also checked out some petroglyphs – ancient rock arts drawn by Indians – pretty mysterious and cool. Went to a couple view points, with the panorama point being the most memorable and impressive. Giant red stones standing not too far from you, kind of reminded me of the Egyptian pyramids replacing the yellow with bright red. The lower parts of these stony hills looked like veins, or fingers, that crawl on the ground almost looked like they were trying to get you – they have to been seen to be understood.

The next morning I drove to the Goblin Valley State Park. It was a longgg drive and it was confusing as well, as to where to make the turn from the highway into this narrow passage – the guide or road sign didn’t really say where to turn so I had to pay so much attention or I’d miss it. Just the road that leads to the park was like 10 miles long, pretty crazy. There wasn’t anyone else at all too. In fact there were a few places that I went to during the trip which hadn’t too many people (or none) around, and this park was one of them. Kind of weird. Guess was because of the weekday thing, or could have been the long drive into the park. Anyway the drive was so worthy as the park was super cool. You can’t really see what’s going on in there till you park and walk into the park. The moment I went in I was like, holy shit (I literally said that at a few places when I couldn’t really believe in what I saw, this place was one of them, and also said that at the Capitol Reef park, the Subway hike at Zion, the Calf Creek fall…can’t remember the rest for now). Thousands of “goblins”, big and small, scattered around the huge flat piece of land. I actually got to walk into the area and explore. When I was there there were only a few people and a group around, it was really quiet which made it even cooler. I felt like I was a kid, wandering around the nature stone sculptures almost like playing hide-and-seek. The small ones were like my height, there were some mid-size ones that were like twice as tall as I am, and the bigger ones were about 20-30 feet tall. They were really cool, bright orange in color, each one of them was totally unique. Most of them formed in groups, while some just stood there alone quietly. There were probably thousands of them and I spent around 2 hours there taking countless pictures as usual. It was pretty hot though, I had to hide behind some huge “goblins” to take rest and cool down.

It was the same day that I drove to the Arches National Park, probably the most famous among all of the parks that I was visiting – I heard that Indiana Jones and a couple other popular movies had scenes that were shot here. The park was the smallest among all the parks but the drive inside he park itself was actually the lenghthiest – about 18 miles from the entrance all the way to the last view point (Devil’s Garden). There were countless viewpoints here and lots to see, and I’ve spent 3 days here (just enough). The highlight was probably my first night of stay at the Devil’s Garden Campground, a really popular (had to reserve few months in advance) campground that had a super nice setting – nice and private area with natural sandstones close to the site also with huge area where you can probably set up 20 tents without a problem. Oh yes, I was like holy shit when I saw my site, as delightful as a kid that was given a XBOX 360 for birthday present. I actually got to check out the night sky at this site without having other people look at me like an idiot, just because it was so private. The only drawback was that there was no shower facility so I had to wipe clean my body at the end of the day. Anyway. Another highlight (lots of highlights) was the Devil’s Garden Trail. I got to see lots of very cool arches like the Landscape Arch (world’s largest), the Double-O Arch, and some other cool arches. The hike took about 4 hours as I got to the last point of the hike which was the “Dark Angel”, a stone monolith that stood up 20 stories tall. Other than this, also went to “The Windows”, which were two huge openings on stones and I actually got to walk through both of them. The BEST hike at Arches was the guided tour – a hike guided by a ranger that I had to reserve two days in advance. It was on my third day at Arches. We had a group of 30 people, meeting up at the Fiery Furnace viewpoint. The hike was into the super confusing Fiery Furnace area, which were a huge number of “fins” that pile up closely and it was because of that the hike would have been extremely confusing to navigate inside it without a guide. People actually got lost numerous time inside it.

It was a very hot day but the guide was very nice as he led us to cool spots quite often, and he was very talkative and it was very informative. We walked through extremely narrow space, sometimes had to slide down using our butt, and at some point we had to walk side ways moving our bodies in unusual way, making it a very interesting walk. The guide told us a lot about the dessert being very fragile even though it “looks tough”, especially the crypto-something organisms that live in the sand to retain moisture and to support the sand so that it doesn’t flow away – always follow the trail and never step on them. Also learnt a lot about arches that are actually formed by water not by wind – water sip through the rocks and cracks eventually loosen the mud stone part of the structure leaving the sandstone (harder part) intact, thus creating holes. Potholes, holes on the ground that were formed by rain water staying at a certain area for a long long time. Micro-organisms live in it, like waterbears and tiny shrimps, worms…etc. Even if the holes become dry out it’s not a good idea to step into it.

This is day 12 of my 16-day Utah trip. I didn’t think that I’d be writing during the trip but today I’m done with all my hikes and having a break so I’m going to write some. Sitting in a Mcdonal right now (in Moab) and having a Angus burger meal (#13) and just had my Coke refilled (not sure if it’s ok or not but did it anyway)
Can’t really write anything in detail now since I wasn’t recording my activities daily, but I’ll try.
I flew to Las Vegas on the first (Aug) via US Airways and the flight was pretty good (despite the fact that reviews for this airline were pretty bad). Got off the plane pretty swiftly, waited a bit for the baggage and I was on my way to the car rental place. Had to take a shuttle to the “centralized” rental place which was pretty cool. Since I got my car reserved ahead, it was super easy to register and all that, even though I thought it’d cost something like $500 USD (says the online reservation) but the car insurance was another $500 rip off, so the total came to around $1000 Had to do it anyway. Got my car quickly after getting into the lot, thought I’d get an American sedan (bigger/cooler looking one) but all I saw were Hyundai’s. Stupid looking, tiny, silver Hyndai Accent. Well at least it looked pretty new (had only 500 miles on it). When I drove out it was SUPER HOT, worse than baking, so had to max out the air-con, drove to some convenient store and picked up pack of 12 bottle water (smart move), some muffins and food for lunch, and headed towards my first destination - Zion National Park.

Got to Zion pretty quickly. When I drove into the park I was totally awed by the beauty and how sublime it looked, couldn’t wait to get in and start my journey. Can’t really remember what I did first or where I went first…etc, but Zion operates a shuttle (in summer months only) which takes visitors in and out the park. The place I camped at (Quality Inn RV park) was pretty close to the shuttle station so I was pretty happy (and the Zion Adventure Company was just across the camp site, where I had to rent stuff for water hike). I went to a couple view points (same for every national park that I went to, they all have view points that you can just drive to without any hiking), but the highlight was “The Narrows”. I rented hiking shoes specifically designed for water hike, and also a really long wooden stick to assist the hike. It was a “water hike” where I had to literally walk in the water/stream for many hours. It was really fun as it was something that I’ve never done before. Water level was about knee level most of the time, ocassionally went up to the belly. I had my right hand holding my DSLR camera (E-3) most of the time since it was quite difficult to take it in/out my backpack, while holding the wooden stick on my left hand. It was more difficult than I thought to walk around in water, sometimes I had to cross over rapids which was rushing really fast and I could barely move. The stick helped a lot though and without it I could have fallen into the water a dozen time (I did once only, lol) but there were people that did it without any stick, not even sure how they balanced themselves. Just as the name says there were numerous places they were really narrow, like 20 feet across and the walls on both sides went up super high, maybe 500 feet or more. Took lots of pictures of that. There were insteresting rock formations and vegetations along the way too. It took me around 5-6 hours to finish the entire hike (couldn’t go further at one point since the water would go up to my chest and my backpack would be soaked). It was truely unforgettable.

Had another super memorable hike in Zion - the Subway. Apparently I overestimated myself, like my fitness level…etc and also I wasn’t well prepared (ran out of water). So I spent almost a day doing this hike. It was hiking upstream (along the stream), but there wasn’t ANY trail, so I had to figure my way out somehow, which included climbing up/down 6 feet tall rocks (they call it boulders, prehistoric ones), trying out different routes when I couldnt go further, walking in the water (in bare feet since I didn’t know I had to so I just took off my shoes/socks hanged them on my backpack) on super slimy/slippery stones, walking in sand under direct sun (super tiring), using both of my hands to manuver my body so that I could jump across rocks of different sizes…..these are just some highlights. When I was about half way to the end point I knew that I was running out of water (I brought 2L!) I was pretty freaked as I was super thirsty due to the heat, stress, and exercise. There were a couple groups that I came across and I had asked almost all of them for water purification tablets but none of them had it. I was SO LUCKY when at one point I bumped into the guy that was lining up in early morning for the Subway hiking permit with me (yes this hike requires a permit and only 20 people are allowed per day) He was really nice that he used his water filter to pumped about 2 L of water from the stream into my water pack, he even offered to do the pumping! I was literally saved, and was able to move on. I saw dinosaur tracks on the way (as said in the guide book) it was really cool. After about 4 hours of trial and error, I reached the entrance for the Subway where there were countless super pretty red-coloured waterfalls. I finally got to the Subway but I was SO exhausted that I couldn’t force myself to go further INTO the place (I really should have though, it was very pretty inside). I laid at the entrance, had an energy bar, some water, rested for 15 minutes and started to head back. People call it feeling of solitude but I felt alone, and somehow helpless. I was just hoping that I could make my way back, with my worn out body and scratched legs/feet. Anyway as expected the way back was different. There was no way to memorize the route you use to get in. I scrambled around using the same trial-and-error methodology to find my way out. I was soooo exhausted that I was literally just dragging my souless body around. It had been a long time since I actually experienced this kind of fear. I didn’t want to be stranded there at all. I finally made my way back, but the last 1 mile was crazy steep climbs and I thought I couldn’t make it. I had to take a minute rest around every 5 steps that I make, and at one point I even had to lay down and “sleep” for about 20 minutes. It was around 7pm when I finally was able to make my way back to the car, took off the socks and shoes right away, drank SO MUCH water, and started to head to the closest restaurant to have some food. I went to the closest one literally (ended up being a fairly pricey/high-end one), sat down, ordered a coke right away (ended up ordering 3 cokes and 1 sprite), a smoked salmon salad, a chicken breast main, ended up to around $30 USD. I had never at any point in my life drank four huge cups of pop all at once. Anyway I had to take a full day off the next day due to the energy lost and fear and all that. It was truely crazy.

Good that I had this experience early in the trip, learned a lot from it like not going to force myself into difficult hikes, making sure that I always bring enough water, also trying to bring less stuff with me so that my pack could be lighter therefore easier to walk…etc. Time to leave Mcdonald now since some stupid people sat in front of me for no reason and I dun want to sit close to them. Going back to my camp site to keep writing.

Got back to the tent…so hot even though it’s cloudy. Anyway, in Zion I also *tried* to do the infamous Angel’s Landing Trail. I was there on the first day, not sure why but I failed it.. Half way up the steep slope I was out. I guess I was not in the right condition, it was my first day there afterall. Wish I got to the top as everyone says that it was awesome view up there. Anyway.

I usually cook myself for dinner, with the gasoline grill I bought back in Las Vegas (guess I can’t bring it back home since it wouldn’t be allowed on the plane ) The first couple days I had the camp food (dry freeze ones) and they were actually quite yummy. Later on I learned to buy some canned soup and ready-to-eat microwavable food as well. Also I do laundry maybe once per two days or sometimes once per day, with the $1 foldable water holder I got from a dollar store. Ohhh, one shit thing that happened on the 2nd or 3rd day, was that due to the strong wind, my tent was literally blown away! I was away from my site when it happened, and a super nice guy helped secure my tent to a picnic table with some ropes. When I was back to my site I was FREAKED. Tent was torn apart, the fly had a 1-metre wide torn up opening, and the tent itself had a few holes here and there. I checked the stuff I placed inside the tent and luckily they were still there. I rushed to the closest store at Ruby’s Inn and bought some duct tape and an axe (they didn’t have hammers). I spent like an hour to “fix” the tent with the duct tape, under direct sun, and re-setup the tent and tried to hammer all the stakes super securely to make the tent super strong. From this and on I have always been really careful setting up the tent, so far it’s been standing up pretty good in the wind.

After Zion I was off to Bryce Canyon National Park. Just 2 hours drive I believe, got there without a problem. This place was real beauty. I drove to a few view points like the Sunset Point and a few other view points. The views were stunning, full of the so-called “hoodoos” which were eroded red-colored sandstones piling up closely spanding a huge huge area. I’ve never seen anything like that before. But as usual I ran into some shit problem on the 2nd day. I was trying to do the Queens Garden trail, but somehow I missed the trailhead and went into the Fairyland Loop trail. The Queens Garden trail was supposed to be quite easy and I chose to do it since I still wasn’t fully recovered from the Subway hike at Zion. On the other hand, the Fairyland Loop trail was a strenuous one. Well I don’t know if I was lucky or screwed, the views I got from doing the Fairyland trail was CRAZY good. I got to actually walk around the hoodoos and stood up high from the ground, saw some really grand-looking white hoodoos as well. I was okay during the first half of the hike, taking so many pictures while awed by what I saw. After 2 hours or so, I figured that I was doing something wrong. This wasn’t the Queens Garden trail at all, I could tell from looking at my GPS. I didn’t bring a map for the Fairyland Loop trail so I didn’t know when or where was it going to end. I got super tired again, even though I was still full of water. I asked a couple where would the end of the trail be and they said it’s another mile to the Fairyland viewpoint where shuttle bus would stop (The shuttle bus could bring me back to my camp site). So I hiked to the viewpoint, but then realized that the shuttle would NOT stop there. Asked around and a lady (looked like a tour guide) said that the easiest way to get back is to walk alone the paved road (for cars) and it’d bring me back to the visitor’s centre where I can board the shuttle. It’s a 4km trip….but then I had no choice so I was walking and walking like a dead soul. After around 20 minutes of walking, out of surprise a guy stopped his car and asked if I need a ride! I was so happy and jumped onto the car, keep thanking him and learned that he was looking for his son. We picked up his son Andy along the road after a few minutes of driving, and the guy dropped me off at my camp site. My life was spared again by nice people

That was the highlight from Bryce Canyon NP. Other than that I did drive to a few viewpoints like the Natural Bridge, Bryce Point (best view around there! with some stone formation called “Grottos” which looked like huge doorways), Paria View, and some other ones. They were all stunning and made me take 8000 pictures. I also tried to went into the park to Sunset Point and Bryce Point at around 10:30PM to see the hoodoos being lit up by the moonlight. It looked real scary, even though I wasn’t able to capture the views with my camera.

One thing that always freaked me out was that I always worried about locking my car keys inside the car. It’s so stupid that, even though they gave me two keys, they are held with a keychain that was soldered and there’s no way I can seperate the two keys. If I forget my keys inside the car and then lock the car I’d be 100% screwed. I’m a careless person so this is very likely to happen to me, even though it still hasn’t… This car that I got is really piece of shit. It accelerates super slowly, and then the steering is just weird, like when I turn it the car would just drags abrutly making it super scary. Also the brake sucks had to really press it for a super long time to stop the car. Also there’s no centralized lock, so I have to make sure all four doors are lock every single time when I walk away from the car! One good thing though was the air conditioning, it cools up real quick which was really helpful in this extremely hot weather.

I have to had to Moab to get some more iced tea or other drinks now since tomorrow I’d be camping at the Needles Outpost which looks like a super remote/hopeless place and I don’t think I’ll be able to get any tasty drinks/food there…lol. I’m going to write more if I have time tonight, but I doubt it since I have to get up at 3AM tonight to hike to the Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park to photograph the sunrise.