We climbed the last pass before Virgin, Utah last night at around 8.30pm and pulled off of the highway onto a dirt road that said ‘scenic lookout’. We then quickly pulled off again onto a 4×4 track and climbed upwards until we found flat ground to camp.

As the sun rose the next morning, it shone down into valleys far below us. We had parked way up on the side of one of the huge sandstone mountains that the south west corner of Utah is made up of. It was a beautiful site and a great way to start the day.

After enjoying coffee in the glory of our personal mountainside campsite (to date we have not paid for a single night of camping), we headed out to Zion National Park. We fried up a breakfast of turkey bacon and eggs in the park visitors’ center parking lot, then caught the next shuttle bus up into Zion Canyon. We stopped at the Court of the Patriarchs to take pictures of the towering cliffs around us, then carried on to the Zion Lodge and the trailhead of the Emerald Pools trails. We spent the morning hiking up to the pools nestled amoungst the cliffs then grabbed another shuttle back down to our van.

Back on the road again, we climbed the numerous switchbacks up through Zion and finally passed through the long tunnel to the other side. After winding our way through the mountains, we stopped for another break and a quick climb up the sandstone slabs so that we could enjoy the view.

Realizing that it is already Wednesday and that our time is running out, we decided to skip the Grand Canyon and drive hard through the Escalante National Monument and the Navajo Nation (through Utah, Arizona and into Colorado) so that we could make it to Mesa Verde to camp tonight. I guess we are looking forward to our first showers in 13 days and to exploring the high mountains of Colorado. It is going to be hard to head back to work though.