Sam and Leah: PAGE + ZION NATIONAL PARK + GOBLIN VALLEY

Hi,

A fair bit has happened since Monument Valley. We started driving west towards Page, which is a cool little town with more churches than people. We booked a site at a place called Lone Rock, which is on Lake Powell. The site was basically desert meets water and it was beautiful apart from the fact that the wind was blowing about 3 million km an hour. After hanging there for about 10 minutes and eating a literal SAND WICH, i got the shits and we headed for the Holiday Inn. It was a shame about the wind at Page caus we would have stayed longer.

Next morning we headed for Zion National Park. We got there in the afternoon and all of the camping sites were booked out so we stayed in a private campground which was only 1km down the road. Zion looked awesome, we went through this tunnel that went staaight through one of the mountains for about 1mile, it was built in 1924 or something, I cant imagine them builing that thing back then with the crap tools they would have had.

There were free shuttle buses at the Park that took you wherever you wanted to go so we saw a few sights and then decided to do the most famous hike at Zion, 'The Angels Landing Hike'. We were super prepared, We both had about 5 hours sleep, had drank little to no water, and we just finished veggie burgers, chips and Coke for lunch, so we were in tip top shape for this strenuous hike.

It was meant to take 5 hours, but we did it in 3 and a half, so those Veggie burgers must have had something good in em. It was by far the best hike we have ever done. The last part of the hike you have to hang on to chains, similar to Mt Warning, but there are just sheer cliffs on both sides of you and some parts of the trail are no more than 3 feet wide. I was properly scared. Leah took it in her stride.

After Zion, we headed for Goblin Valley, which was only about 3 inches on the map, but it turned into one epic drive. We took the scenic route which involved us taking the Windstar down a dirt road for 50 km through mud and rock and dry dust. We got to the other side and their was a big sign that read " THIS ROAD MAY BE IMPASSABLE DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS". There was no sign at the other end of the road where we started.

Anyway we got to that campground and it was full which wasnt very refreshing. We ended up camping at an old abandoned uranium mine just down the road. Its easy finding stuff when you glow in the dark.

We checked out Goblin Valley this morning and are now at a town called Moab to check out the Arches Nat park.

Here is some photos and a low quality video of stuff from the last few days.

Climbing up Angels Landing.