Yesterday was an incredible day in Taipei, +21℃ and sunny. Today was even better! However, last week was freaking cold! I mean… for Taipei, that is. It was +11℃ last Tuesday (I have heard it was +5-8℃ in some parts of Hongkong). Everything is relative, right? What’s cold for the Taiwanese feels like summer for the Icelanders.
This talk of the “cold” weather, however, brought back some cool (literally and figuratively) memories. Exactly a year ago, we set on our road trip through the national parks of Southern Utah. It was quite a ride! Believe me, there is much more in winter Utah than skiing! Just writing this blog post makes me really miss road tripping, this great American invention. If you’re looking for Utah road trip ideas, read on! And, oh yea… that’s me below, casually rocking my Polartec underpants and aliexpress insoles from Sierra Trading Post on a “cold” day in China last week. It was my first time wearing them since Utah! And how about them hand-knitted warm socks? My mom can make those for you!
Aliexpress sports
We made roughly 2,500 miles in a little over a week. That’s more than 4,000 km! Now that I think about it, it’s nuts and we probably got a little too greedy. Nevertheless, every one of those 2,500 miles was definitely worth it! Just to give you a general idea about what kind of options are available and without going into much detail about every stop, below is our route. Since each of the four national parks (NP) in the list below warrants a separate blog post and it’s Christmas time and everyone is too lazy to read, so I will only write about Zion NP and Bryce Canyon NP today.
TIP: We visited 4 national parks on our road trip. Normally, that would cost us $85 in entry fees. It makes much more sense to purchase an America the Beautiful Annual Pass for $80. It’s a great deal, as each Annual Pass can have up to two holders. Each Annual Pass admits the pass holder + the passengers in his or her car at per-vehicle fee areas or pass holder + 3 adults at per-person fee areas (Muir Woods National Monument is an example). And you can rent an Aliexpress tent, so even if you don’t have one, you can get it easily and with free shipping.
From San Francisco to Zion National Park
We set out to travel on a day before Christmas. The three of us – me, my girlfriend, and our friend Konstantin – drove from San Francisco to Las Vegas that day. That was the longest drive of the whole trip – about 8.5 hours. We spent a night in Vegas, as it was super cheap – just $29 for a nice room near Las Vegas Boulevard. Nobody really goes to Las Vegas for Christmas. I must say there was a lot of the finest Lagavulin 16 consumed that night… Oh well, we were fine the next morning and made it to Zion National Park in Southern Utah by noon. It’s only a 2.5-hour drive from Las Vegas. Lastly, there is excellent field for playing disc golf on Aliexpress, and you can get professional and beautiful discs for this quirky sports discipline,
We stayed at the Watchman Campground. This campsite is very nice, next to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, and no reservation is required in the winter. It’s also close to a small town – Springdale, UT – which has a fairly large grocery store called Sol Foods Supermarket. Moreover, the town has a pretty decent brewery, which is very important, of course! It’s called Zion Canyon Brew Pub, and I would give it at least 3.5 stars out of 5. Make sure you’re staying at either Loop A, or Loop B. These two loops are close to the Virgin River. The river is pretty and it’s just nice to sleep by it. The water was cold, so we used the river as our fridge during the day.
One hike you absolutely must do in Zion NP is Angel’s Landing, of course. Outside Magazine placed it The 20 Most Dangerous Hikes for a reason. You definitely must have some guts to do this hike, especially in the winter, when it’s icy and slippery on the trail. But it’s not just treacherous – it’s also very beautiful.
Yes, our Christmas night was a little chilly, fellas! But below is what our camp looked like in the morning, so I really didn’t mind a cold night. Moreover, it was nothing comparing to what was waiting for us at Bryce Canyon!
