The West's Best Places to Camp

So right now Anne and I are living at her parent's home in Palo Alto. Last month I came across the May addition of the Sunset magazine my mother-in-law subscribes to and the cover article caught my eye, "The 50 Best Campgrounds in the West". Anne and I love going on adventures and exploring the outdoors and last summer when we were still in Utah, Anne and I went on two big camping trips in the southern part of the state. One trip was a 5 day epic adventure to southeastern Utah where we visited three National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef), two State Parks (Dead Horse Point and Goblin Valley) and one large river (the Colorado). The other camping trip was an amazing 3 day reunion with friends in Zion National Park.



We stayed in some amazing campsites during these trips so I was interested to find out if these sites were listed in the magazine's TOP 50. So I eagerly flipped through the magazine to get to the article and was happy to find that the campsite featured on the opening page was none other than Devil's Garden Campground in Arches National Park, the first campsite Anne and I used during our 5 day trip!

Devil's Garden...Done!

The next thing I did was flip to the Utah section and it was fun to see that Anne and I had stayed at all four of the featured campsites: (1) Devil's Garden Campground, Arches National Park, North of Moab, (2) Dead Horse Point State Park, Northwest of Canyonlands National Park, (3) Colorado Riverway, Moab, (4) Watchman Campground, Zion National Park.

Seeing the magazine article brought back amazing memories from the camping trips Anne and I took last summer and I just wanted to share some of the pictures from our southeastern Utah epic adventure, Summer 2008!

Our first stop was Arches National Park. The scenery was amazing but Delicate Arch pictured here was the most spectacular.



Landscape Arch pictured above is the longest arch in the park. Before we left Arches we had swing by Balance Rock and see this amazing work of nature first hand.

One of the highlights of the trip was when we went to nearby Moab and biked the world-famous Slick Rock Bike Trail.

The mountain biking was amazing, tough and very worth it. Below is some never before seen footage.

We stayed two nights at Dead Horse Point State Park. The park is a mesa located thousands of feet above the Colorado River. The point is connected to the rest of the park by a narrow neck of land with sheer cliffs on each side. Legend has it that Cowboys corralled wild mustangs on the Point then chose the horses they wanted. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst.





Funny little tidbit about the trip is that we had to fight these annoying little bugs (midges or "no see ems") that would fly in our faces and buzz in our noses and ears. They were everywhere and would drive us crazy, we were constantly swatting them away, especially from our ears. So the best solution was to drape a towel over our heads to cover our ears. It looked funny but life was soooo much better around the campsite. I got a picture of Anne modeling the new look.






We explored and hiked around Canyonlands National Park and saw some amazing scenery. The picture below shows you how the creators of the park came up with its name.





Anne and I just had to fit in a little white-water rafting on the Colorado River during the trip as well. We went on a day long guided excursion down the river where we braved the rapids (nothing too big unfortunately), enjoyed an excellent complimentary lunch at a beautiful beach, and jumped into the river to cool off whenever we felt like it.





Throughout the trip we were able to see a lot of Native American rock art sites. It was so amazing to see this art from the past stand the test of time for us to enjoy today.




On the last day of our trip Anne and I drove out to Goblin Valley State Park. The rock formations there are so bizarre and it was so amazing to be there in person. It seemed like we were on another planet.









The last spot we hit before we headed home was Capitol Reef National Park. It was a great conclusion to a wonderful trip.