swirls of yellow and white Navajo sandstone rise up

White Pocket

This morning we got the bad news that none of our geo-fenced lottery permits had come through. It wasn鈥檛 too surprising, but it meant we had no plans for the day. Should we just call it and drive home? Should we try to find some other feature to explore? We opted to visit one of the other amazing places inside Vermilion Cliffs National Monument that Mark had heard about. None of us knew anything about it other than it鈥檚 usually pretty crowded because it鈥檚 supposed to be pretty awesome. I have never hiked Coyote Buttes at all. I haven鈥檛 seen The Wave in person. But I can鈥檛 imagine it鈥檚 any better than what we experienced at White Pocket. This place was amazing and we had it completely to ourselves. There were a couple people there when we arrived, but they all left before we walked out to the formations. It doesn鈥檛 get better than that. ...

May 13, 2023 路 3 min 路 jtalbot
a canvas tent is pitched under pinyon pines next to a stunning red and orange sandstone outcropping

Mother's Day in Kanab

Mother鈥檚 Day weekend is a great weekend to go camping. Nobody else is doing it. We decided to head east to Kanab, Utah with some of our friends from Orem. It never turns out how we thought we wanted it to, but sometimes it turns out great. This was one of those times. When we decided to move to Southern Utah, I thought we would probably visit Zion National Park all the time. It鈥檚 been 18 months and we haven鈥檛 been even once. We actually visited Zion more often when we lived hundreds of miles away. That may seem pretty pathetic until you realize we are surrounded by magical places that we haven鈥檛 ever seen. One of those places is Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. ...

May 12, 2023 路 7 min 路 jtalbot