Road Trip Leg 3

Salt Lake City, UT > Moab & Arches National Park > Steamboat Springs, CO > Rocky Mountain National Park & Estes Park > Denver, CO > Mount Rushmore > Sioux Falls, SD > HOME

The final leg of the trip began on Sunday, September 15. We departed grizzly country unscathed and made our way to Salt Lake City, UT. As we took down camp in the Tetons, we got to watch one final beautiful sunrise over the range. We had an uneventful five hour drive and arrived to SLC long before our Airbnb was ready. To kill some time, we went out to brunch at a place close to our Airbnb called Avenues Proper. The food was good, but the vibe was a little fancier than we were expecting. Any other day and that would have been fine, but since we were on day eight with no shower, we felt a little uncomfortable amongst all of the people dressed in their Sunday best! During lunch we got word that our Airbnb would be ready early, so we headed over there and started unloading our car. Despite the rental being in a really nice area of town, we managed to attract a drunk neighbor who talked our ear off for a good 45 minutes. Our only respite being that he managed to finish his 128oz tumbler full of a mixed drink and needed a refill. We finally finished bussing our stuff, took some much-needed showers, and rested for a little bit. Undeniably we had some of the best naps of our lives; the difference between a sleeping pad on the hard ground and a nice fluffy bed being incredibly noticeable after seven nights of the former. After transforming ourselves from vagabonds to being acceptable for society, we headed out to explore SLC via Lime scooters (Hans’ favorite). We went out for drinks at a cocktail bar called Lake Effect, woodfired pizza at Settebello, and a final beer and dessert at Red Rock Brewery. To end the night, we Limed back home, and watched an episode of The Great British Bake Off, just as we’d do on a Sunday night back in California.

Big Cottonwood Canyon

The next morning, we grabbed a quick, yet absolutely delicious breakfast of avocado toast and peanut butter/banana/honey toast at a nearby cafe called Publik. From there we set off for Big Cottonwood Canyon to do some outdoor rock climbing. We climbed some routes on the Dogwood Wall which were pretty casual and fun, and the wall was in a great spot, shaded and along a river. At about noon, we left and decided to go check out Park City. The drive there was beautiful, winding further through the canyon and then into the mountains. In Park City, we went into a few shops, the only deterrent to Kay not buying any cozy sweaters from L.L. Bean being that we didn’t have an inch of space to spare in the car. We continued on to lunch at No Name Saloon where we sat on the rooftop and had “the best fries in town”. As it was already getting late, we left Park City pretty quickly, but definitely would love to return for some skiing. Back in the city, we ended up walking around and exploring different parts of town and got dinner at a lively bar called Gracie’s which happened to have live jazz that night. Overall, SLC wasn’t our favorite city that we’d stopped in so far, but the proximity to the mountains was awesome.

Turret Arch

Our stint in Salt Lake City was already over, so come the next morning, we packed up the car yet again, made one final stop at Publik, and left for Moab, UT & Arches National Park. We arrived in Moab around noon and went straight to Salt Flat Campground, another first-come, first-served ground, and luckily had no issue getting a site! Confident our tent would blow away in the strong wind and loose sand, we saved setting up the tent until later. Instead, we drove over to Arches National Park - we did the Delicate Arch Trail which was beautiful but quite busy, and then did a few drive-up sights, our favorites being The Windows & Turret Arch and Double Arches. The stark change of scenery was fun to explore and we couldn’t have asked for better weather that afternoon. Around dinner time we quickly toured around the main street in Moab before heading back to our campsite. We set up camp and ate a Mountain House during the desert sunset.

Fish Creek Falls

On Wednesday the 18th, we left the desert and headed back to the mountains. Our next stop was Steamboat Springs, CO to visit Kay’s brother, Ryan, who just started his freshman year of college there! We arrived early afternoon and to kill time while Ryan was in class, we grabbed some lunch on the cute main street and went to the Old Town Hot Springs where we relaxed in the varying temperature hot springs. The facility also included a fully stocked gym and small indoor rock climbing wall, so Hans got to get a quick climb in too. After Ryan finished up class, we drove over to his campus to give him a big hug, hopefully not embarrassing him in front of his new classmates too much, and to check out his campus. From the beautiful, mountainous campus we headed to the Fish Creek Falls overlook, not having enough time to complete the full five mile hike that evening. We also made the necessary college stop at Walmart so Ryan could grab some super healthy snacks (e.g. Sprite and Goldfish), and then went out to dinner and got some ice cream for dessert.

The next morning, with all of our extra road trip snacks in hand to pass off to Ryan (we may have overbought at Costco just a bit…), we met up at his dorm again where Kay helped him with some laundry. We went out to breakfast, but unfortunately, Ryan had an early class that morning, so we had to say our goodbyes then. Kay was really happy to have been able to see him before we head off, and college seemed to be treating him well so far! While Ryan went off to class, we drove further into the mountains, our next stop being Rocky Mountain National Park. We were staying at Aspenglen Campground, a campground literally as far east in the park as you can get without exiting, so we drove through all of Rocky Mountain National Park, via Milner Pass, to get there. The drive was gorgeous, yet felt a bit treacherous with so many steep drop-offs! Upon arriving, we set up camp, ate a Mountain House for lunch, and went to Estes Park, a small town bordering Rocky Mountain NP, to do the Gem Lake Trail. The trail offered beautiful views of the Estes Park valley and concluded at Gem Lake, a small lake surrounded by interesting rock formations. After the hike, we went down to the main street in Estes Park which was extremely cute but had to have housed the most taffy stores per capita than anywhere else in the world! We resisted having burgers in town for dinner and instead went back to our campsite and finished off the day with our last Mountain House of the trip and our last round of s’mores…they couldn’t have tasted sweeter!

Edge of Time

On Friday, September 20, we woke up, took down camp for the last time of the trip, and drove to Lily Lake, just south of Estes Park, to do some rock climbing. The hike up to the Jurassic Park crag was a little more intense than we were expecting - steep elevation gain on super loose gravel, so we were quickly very sweaty and shedding layers. Additionally, the trail wasn’t marked so we had to take a few breaks to reorient ourselves. We finally made it to the crag though and Hans got a top rope (TR) set up. We each did a couple of runs which were pretty easy; the difficult part of this crag being that you had to belay on a steep slope covered in the same loose gravel that made the hike up, so obnoxious! The belayer ended up falling more than the climber on this route. We wanted a bit more of a challenge, so we went looking for Edge of Time, a famous route just a hundred yards away that’s on the front of all of the guide books for this area. It’s rated 5.9 and claimed to offer TR, so we thought this would be perfect. We found the route no problem; it’s the most obvious thing to climb in the area, a tall meandering arete with small slits on the front face. The problem was that there was no obvious way to set up the TR. You could access the back of the face, but you would have had to hike 50 yards or so on a really narrow section with sheer walls on either side, and even then you wouldn’t have reached the anchors of the route directly. Confused, we consulted a group nearby who seemed to actually knew what they were doing. We learned that it was a father-son duo and a local guide they had hired for the day, perfect group to get some beta on the route from! The guide said they were actually going to try that route soon anyway, so he’d be willing to lead it and set up a TR. The guide did just that, and after the father and son each got a turn on it, they said we could use their TR. Hans gave it a go and fell a couple of times on the tough face climbing lower on the wall, but ended up being able to top out! He was super psyched to make it up and was definitely the most fun route of the trip. After we finished climbing, we hiked back down to the car and set out for Boulder. We made a quick stop at Chautauqua Park to get a good view of the Flatirons and then walked around downtown on Pearl Street. We loved all of the cute shops on the pedestrian streets and agreed it felt like a more bougie Madison. From there, we sped off to Denver to check into our Airbnb and meet Hans’ college friend Andy and his girlfriend, Claire, for dinner. They picked us up and we headed to dinner at SMB, a Mexican dim sum place. With hot delicious food constantly being offered to you from the food carts, it was hard to resist anything, so we tried a lot of dishes. Why doesn’t every cuisine have dim sum? We had a few drinks at their apartment and then went out to a local favorite bar of theirs called The Thin Man. Our night ended pretty late, but it felt great to have a comfy bed to sleep in!

Due to one of our first bits of poor planning, we had only booked one night in our Airbnb, so by the next morning at 9:30am we were already bussing our stuff out to the car again to leave in search of a hotel room for the night. After stopping at a few hotels that ended up being full, and passing up a few for being too expensive, we finally landed on a hotel right downtown that we were happy with, and started loading up the luggage cart to get everything up to our room. All settled, we met Claire and Andy again for brunch at this great place called Dazzle; it was a breakfast buffet that had a big dining room with two stages, one of which had a big jazz band playing all morning! We enjoyed the eclectic breakfast mix of Nutella pancakes and carnitas tacos, cheap mimosas, and the jazz band. There was an Oktoberfest celebration nearby, so that was our next stop. We watched some keg bowling, a funny game where you throw one keg into a pyramid of them hoping you’ll knock them all over in two rolls, and listened to some polka music while enjoying some authentic beers. It was already late afternoon, so we said our goodbyes and then went back to the hotel to rest. That evening, we were able to hang out with Kay’s college friends, Katelyn and Tommy (and their dog, Rio!). We went to one of their favorite nearby breweries, Low Down, and had some tasty pizza and beer for dinner. Afterward, we hung out at their apartment which offered an amazing view of downtown Denver and the mountains. Denver was definitely as social as we’d been the whole trip, and it was so fun for both of us to see friends in their new homes!

We awoke early on Sunday the 22nd and headed for Mount Rushmore. It was both of our first times there and we found it impressive, although the main path that allowed the closest access, was closed for the season. Originally we had planned to camp at Badlands National Park that night, but since it was only about 4pm when we left Mount Rushmore, we wanted to get more of a jump on the remainder of the drive home. We booked it towards Sioux Falls, SD, eliminating about four hours the following day’s drive!

Monday, September 23 sadly marked the last day of our road trip! We woke up early and hit the road for Milwaukee, and made it home by 3pm. We obviously stopped at one of the first Culver’s we saw once back in WI for some tasty lunch (milkshake and cheese curds included!).

It was bittersweet that the trip had reached its end - on the one hand, we don’t think either of us could have handled even one more morning of bussing all of our belongings from the bear box/Airbnb back to the car, but on the other, we were able to experience some of the most beautiful places in the West and were so happy we took this time during our big transition.

For more pictures, check out our Instagram, from_oakland_to_auckland, also linked below, and Hiking, Climbing, and Camping - The Road Trip Details for specifics on where we went and stayed!