Utah – a State of Contrasts - Part 1

(sara & chrisch) We spent two awesome weeks in Utah and experienced many contrasts. First to mention the temperature: extreme hot during the afternoons and freezing cold at night (even below freezing). Although all the five national parks we visited had majestic Navajo sandstone formation in common, they were all unique.

Salt Lake (City)
We arrived in Salt Lake City on Sara’s birthday and enjoyed a nice meal in a down town restaurant. Since we arrived at 9 pm it was hard to find a place that was still open. We immediately felt like home in Bern… 

The next day we did some sight-seeing of the town. However after the guided tour through the Mormon auditorium, an impressive construction which can seat 21’000 people, we had heard enough about their religion and decided to rather explore the Salt Lake. We drove one hour north to the Antelope Island, where we hiked a little bit and went wadding and Sara swimming, respectively floating. The highlights of the island were numerous bison we saw.

Delicate, Landscape and other Arches
After a six hour drive south we arrived at Arches National Park, famous for its Arches as the name indicates. On the first day we did a guided walking tour through the Fiery Furnace, narrow canyons with many smaller Arches. The same evening we hiked up to the famous Delicate Arch and took pictures of it red glowing in the evening light.

The next morning we hiked through Devils Garden, where we saw Landscape and Double-O Arch. The hiking path was really interesting but strenuous, mainly due to the heat. Despite we started early in the morning it was already warm and when we returned around noon it was terrible hot – we understood the meaning of its name now.

We camped inside the national park at Devils Camp ground, with big camp sites and spectacular sun set views. But there was no shade and during the afternoon it really felt like hell. We had to leave the park and find some shade down at the river side.