a weekend in the southwest
Geographical Curiosity:
The song “When We Drive” by Death Cab for Cutie is a wonderful way to introduce this trip. The lyrics I would most like to highlight, never in one place for too long a time, when we drive, I like the way your hair tangles, we always keep the windows open wide, climb into the backseat and close your eyes, if you have never listened to the song I highly recommend pausing your reading here & looking it up. In the Hinz family, road tripping is multi- generational love affair. My Grandma, Mom, and I will sit around tables looking maps comparing all the different roads we have driven. A few years ago my family spent a week driving around the southwest. We drove down through Salt Lake, and then stayed in the small town of Escalante for a few nights, seeing Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef Parks. By the time we got home it felt like we had seen a lot, stopping at Mammoth and Tahoe on the way back up to Washington. Having never been to the southwest, this trip was quite the eye opener, and left me ready to go back and explore more.
The Grand Canyon is the longest canyon in the would, attracting millions of tourist each year. Up until the late 1800s, the grand canyon had been relatively untouched, In 1869 explorer John Westly Powell, rafted the Colorado River, writing in depth noted and mapping the area. Fall of 2020 I decided this would be the year I finally see the Grand Canyon. I logged into my recreation.gov account and made campsite reservations at the North Rim campground for May 2021.
I fully admit to having a minor google earth addiction. Seeing how different, rivers, lakes, valleys, and mountains all connect into the bigger geography picture is fascinating to me. Mapping is one most incredible things that humans have thus accomplished. One of my favorite feelings, is finally walking somewhere that I have been looking at on a map for years. This cold be something as small as a new trail near my house or as far as a different country. After months of looking at the Southwest on google maps, this was really my only goal, waking & driving all the places I have been obsessively looking at for years.
Day One: San Diego | Phoenix
One beautiful thing about online school is that you can pretty much go to class from any where you want, as long as you have a hot spot and the zoom app. Last fall, during the second week of school, I thought it would be fun to do school from Yosemite Valley. I pulled my car into one of the many scenic parking lots in the valley, pulled out a camp chair, computer, camp stove to make coffee, and attended my 8am ethics class. Unfortunately, this semester one of my only in person classes happened to be my fifty five minute “Introduction to Music” class at 2:30 pm on Thursdays. This is really not an ideal time for class when your tying to hit the road. Lindsey and I were finally able to leave San Diego around 4pm and made the obligatory coffee stop at OB beans. We also stopped at my favorite local grocery store, Ocean Beach Organic Peoples Market to grab some kombucha, chips and bitchin sauce. From there we hopped on the i-8 and made our way east. We made our first stop of the trip at the Imperial San Dunes, which are located right off the freeway. The dunes boarder Arizona and Baja Mexico and are some of most well known dunes in the US. We stopped in Yuma Arizona, a few minutes down the road, to pick up some coffee. The rest of our drive was done mostly in the dark through Arizona Desert. We ended up getting into Phoenix a little before 10pm, where we were very warmly greeted by my great aunt and uncle Bo & Don.
Day Two: Phoenix | Sedona | Flagstaff
Friday morning we woke up and had an absolutely wonderful poached egg breakfast, perfectly prepared for us. Lindsey and I worked on school for a few hours at the house, an then decided to check out Fillmore Coffee in downtown Phoenix to finish up a few essays. After Phoenix we drove north to Sedona, and arrived around 3pm. We hiked Devils Bridge trail, which was gorgeous, but also extremely crowded. At the rock bridge there were forty plus people waiting in line to take a pictures, so if your looking to do something away from the crowds, I would not recommend this trail. Overall, I was a huge fan of Sedona. The colors were so unique, red rock contrasting the many forests. Unfortunately we were not in Sedona long enough to check out Slide Rock state park but that’s defiantly on the list for next time. Listening to the song “Sedona” by Houndmouth, when driving into town is a must do. We grabbed a few groceries at the natural grocers in town and also got some Thai food. Then we drove forty five minutes up to our campsite at the local KOA in Flagstaff. Highly recommend this campground https://koa.com/campgrounds/flagstaff/, since we were entering Flagstaff late, we made the decision to reserve in advance rather than depend on a forest road pullover. This KOA had wonderful showers and bathrooms along with being in a optimal location.
Day Three: Flagstaff | Horseshoe Bend | Lake Powell | Grand Canyon
On Saturday, we woke up with the sun and our neighbor driving away at 5am. It was very cool waking up and seeing the landscape of Flagstaff for the first time. Coming from the Pacific Northwest I assumed that the entirety of Arizona would be desert, cactuses, and the Grand Canyon. We cooked up some oatmeal, showered, and packed up the car. We stopped for coffee at White Dove Coffee (very good, highly recommend) and then went into Downtown Flagstaff which is very cute and worth checking out. There is a enchanting book store, a bunch of good outdoor recreation stores, and tasty food. There was also a Whole Foods, so we stopped there to get all our grocery needs for the next few days. Horseshoe Bend was about a two hour drive from Flagstaff, and the bend itself is a half mile walk from the parking lot. I was worried that it was not going to live up to expectation, but wow it was a big bend. Seeing the Colorado river make that crazy of a turn and looking 1,000 feet down is worth seeing. Next we decided to take a detour to Lake Powell only 20 minutes down the road. This is somewhere that I would love to go back to. The lake has ton of house boats, and looks like mars. The blue water that directly contrasts the orange cliffs is insane when glancing across the water. We ran down and touched the water, then made some coffee out of the back of the car. I am a firm believer that coffee will always taste better when made on a Colman stove on a dirt road. North Rim Grand Canyon ended up being about a two and a half hour drive from Lake Powell. Going through Vermillion Cliffs National Monument as well as Kanab National Forest is a wild trip, driving through dramatic cliffs and then the great expanse of forest. If you need gas and or food, do not expect to find any on this stretch of road. We made it to the Grand Canyon for sunset and had the most incredible view sitting at bright angle point. The north rim is closed October - May and so even when we were there mid- may it was getting down into the teens at night. I would highly recommend the north rim campground https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232489, as it sits right in the edge of the grand canyon. It’s one for the books. If you don’t want to deal with campground reservations there is also plenty of dispersed camping right before the park entrance, in Kanab National Forest.
Day Four: Grand Canyon | Zion
Sunrise at the grand canyon is a must do, waking up at 4:15 am is worth it. We watched sunrise from bright angle point. After sitting in awe for an hour we went into the North Rim Historic Lodge. This lodge is incredible, you can sip your coffee from the comfort of a warm building and stare directly at the Grand Canyon. We grabbed our computers and phones from the car and took advantage of the accessible outlets and cell reception at the lodge, to attack some school work. Around 7am we went back to the campsite and cooked some apple oatmeal. Its also excellent walking around this campground, since its on the rim, there are tons of cool little trails with canyon views. After oatmeal, we drove to check out the Cape Royal Lookout. This is just fifteen mins off the main road and its’ spectacular to see the Grand Canyon from a different vantage point! Then we were off to Zion! We thought about also adding Bryce Canyon, to the trip but it would have added another three hours of driving. It’s only two and half hour drive from the North Rim to the entrance of Zion. On the way we stopped in the town of Kanab and grabbed food at a grocery store. We also detoured onto Best Friends Animal Society land, which hosts a a number of animal hospital buildings, horse riding areas, and public access. At the entrance to Zion we pulled over, made some coffee, and took some pictures with the ‘welcome to Zion’ sign. Driving through the park is just such a neat experience, we pulled over and hiked to the Pine Creek Canyon Overlook, which is a sight you won’t want to miss! We finished driving through the park and then jumped in the river! Word to the wise, do not jump in the river, we later found out that there is a huge toxic bloom at the moment so defiantly check out the status of that before jumping in. Since I tacked Zion onto the end of this trip I was not able to get us a campsite in the park so we ended up camping on the side of Smithsonian Butte Road. Do not try and drive on this road if your car is not four wheel drive, its some pretty intense off-roading, but worth the views if your car is able. There is a small unofficial campground less than a mile in, that has a bunch of “no camping” signs but we had no problems and there were a bunch of other people doing the same thing. We cooked up our dinner and then just sat and enjoyed the views the rest of the night!
Day Five: Zion | San Diego
Final day of the trip! We were going to wake up and see sunrise but ended up sleeping till around seven. We drove back into Springdale (the town at the entrance to Zion on the west side) and got breakfast at Deep Creek Coffee Company. Unfortunately, we were in a bit of a time crunch all morning, Lindsey had a Spanish quiz to take and we also wanted to make it back to San Diego before it got to late. May is peak season for Zion so to get into the second valley at the park you have to reserve shuttle tickets, which we were not able to get, so we walked up the valley instead. We left Zion around noon, and make it back to San Diego before Eight pm!
This was such an amazing trip. I absolutely love challenging myself when it comes to the outdoors. It is really easy to get caught up in the tiny every day details of life and I find that the best way for me to reset is to just drive away. I hope this blog gives a good little summery of my trip and can maybe help you plan something similar ;)
Gear & Food
We ended up sleeping in the car every night since we were hitting below zero. A tent is probably ideal for most people, since you will not need to move all your stuff around everyday. For food, I brought a baby cooler to store veggies, yogurts, and such, then cooked everything on a coleman camp stove and brought two bottles of propane. As well as the stove, some pots, pans, plates, bowls, coffee device, and silverware / cutlery. I would also recommend, paper towels, sponge, and a small bin to clean dirty dishes. The two dinners we made were Gracie classics; “Bitchn Pasta” made with noodles, original bitchn sauce, salt & pepper, bell peppers, broccolini, and onion & “Enchilada Bowl” made with rice, lentils, enchilada sauce, broccolini, bell peppers, avocado, and siete chips. Breakfasts and lunch were pretty simple with oatmeal and sandwiches.
