Utah Spring 2020

This past May we drove to Utah to meet up with Jon and Sarah and their 6-month old, Mason, for his first ever camping trip. It ended up being a lazy car camping trip, without any of the usual canyoneering adventures.

The Holmes’s hit up Muley point again on the way up, as usual. Our spot this time was my favorite so far. The next day we drove way out to a point overlooking Lake Powell, in a remote area called Ticaboo Mesa. It was stunningly beautiful, and also annoyingly windy. After I took some good photos and video of the boys getting blown off the rock, I spent most of an hour tying our tent down every which way to withstand the weather. We settled down to a sleepless night of loud wind and sand constantly filtering through the mesh to coat us. On the positive side, our tent was reassuringly secure so we didn’t have to deal with a collapsed tent in the middle of the night.

Jon and I were originally supposed to hike the slot canyon Paradiso, about an hour from the campsite. The women, however, were not interested in spending the day battling the on-going wind and Utah sun by themselves, with 4 children to manage. We headed down to the shores of Lake Powell instead, fighting the wind there. We attempted a barricade made of the cars and the canopy, but still ended up with sand in unmentionable places.

The final night, we escaped to a different location which was perfectly suitable. It was next to a stream and under some trees for shade, just down the road from the Caterpillar Campsite we discovered on last year’s trip.

I believe it was a five-day trip total, three of which we spent on the beach at Lake Powell. Each day I dug a new pit in the sand for the boys, which has become our inescapable tradition. Baby Mason seemed to have a great time, and his busy parents even seemed to enjoy Mason’s first camping trip as well.