The Mighty Five

For some time now, hiking the Mighty Five has been on my bucket list. It was always going to be a matter of finding the time between the hockey trips, work, and visiting Jake. Last fall the stars aligned, I had taken time off and bought tickets on Delta to visit Jake in Utah already anticipating him going down range again. Fortunately, things changed and he wasn’t going abroad again. Consequently, I decided we should take the time to hike the Mighty Five. After all, it would have been criminal for him to live in Utah for four years and never take advantage of the National Parks in his backyard.

My trip was eight days, which gave us six days to traverse southern Utah and all five of the parks. To plan the trip, I used the Wanderlog app, so I could share our itinerary with our family. This way if something happened on a hike and they didn’t hear from us, they’d have an approximation of where we were going to be that day. This was an important tip I came across when researching the trip. Several trails in these parks must be respected as they can quickly turn dangerous. Also, the parks are in remote areas and cell service isn’t a given.

To fine-tune the itinerary, I leveraged All Trails, the park services app, and several blogs to figure out the best trails to hike. This proved quite helpful although there was some disagreement between the park services and All Trails as to the difficulty of some of the hikes. Before you reach the park, it’s imperative to download the trail maps to your phone. While the trails at Zion and Arches were very well marked, it was not the case at the other parks. Each park has its guide to the park and trails denoting the difficulty of each trail.

There is a little extra planning that needs to go into both Arches National Park and Zion. If you want to hike Angels Landing, apply to the lottery. You can no longer hike this trail without a reservation. Similarly, you’ll need to be extra prepared to hike the Narrows depending on water temperature, depth of the virgin river, and weather conditions. As for Arches, you’ll need to reserve a timed entry window for admittance into the park during the high season. Like Angels Landing, the Fiery Furnace hike requires a reservation.

Even with a lot of planning, go into the trip knowing that you may need to be flexible on your expectations. There could be changes in the weather or rock falls that impact your ability to complete certain hikes. Moreover depending on what season you’re in, there could be road closures up in the mountains. The best time to plan a trip is spring and early fall. This will give you decent weather without all the crowds of high season. We were there in early October and the parks were still super busy. And of course, bring plenty of water both with and without bubbles. Jake and I would enjoy cold, crisp sparkling water at the top of every hike.

We started our trip at Zion staying in Cedar City, which is about 45-55 minutes north of the park. We have two full days at Zion. However, I would have gladly spent more time there. The next park we hit was Bryce Canyon, which was under two hours from Cedar City. We stayed in Cannoville, Utah, which is a tiny town that doesn’t have a post office or cell service right off Utah’s Scenic Byway 12. This was our base for both Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef Park. Our last stay was in Moab, which is near both Canyonlands and Arches National Park.

I planned for a full day at Bryce, Capitol Reef, and Canyonlands with 2-2.5 days at both Arches and Zion. Additionally, I planned 2-4 hikes a day or about 10-13 miles. Jake and I both trained for the trip, so we’d be able to tackle the more challenging hikes. I’d recommend that anyone looking to hike these parks do the same. We could have spent several more days at each park. Moreover, we could have spent another month exploring the incredible landscape around these parks. Interspersed between the national parks are several incredible national monuments, national forests, and state parks. There is something incredible to see at every turn.

What I didn’t expect was the incredible drives between the parks. The drive from Cedar City to Bryce Canyon was breathtaking. Scenic Byway 12 was one of the most harrowing, yet beautiful drives I have ever taken. From the steep drop-offs and beautiful views of the canyons in Grand Staircase Escalante to the beautiful high mountain road with free-range cattle and changing foliage, southern Utah is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The drive alone between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef is worth the flight to Utah. I’ve written about our time at Zion and will be writing about our experiences at the other parks. If you’re on the fence about a trip to the Mighty Five, get off the fence and do it.

Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.

The one thing that never gets checked off the “to-do list” is dropping off the donations at Goodwill. They seem to sit and sit in the garage for months or even years on end. I’m not even sure why that’s the case as it’s not difficult to drop the stuff off. Yet here we are with stacks of bags to be donated.