Entering Utah, Zion NP - Manni

Leaving Vegas, we went north towards Utah. For the German readers, Utah is a Mormon dominated state. From my observations so far, Mormons are basically people(.) who strongly (and strangely) believe in God and the strength of their community. To ensure their power and existence of their communities, they encourage their members to have LOADS of children.

This mindset leads to some crazy laws like alcohol is only allowed up to 3,2%. I don’t know why I fulfill the Germany-cliché in every single post, but YES, I was a bit bothered by their 3,2% beer!

The nice part of that conservative state is, that they have tons of National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests etc… the landscape is undoubtedly gorgeous!

Also they have large areas of so called BLM-land. These areas belong to every American citizen and can therefore be used for whatever you want, as long as you do it respectfully. In our case, we are using it for free-camping in the middle of nowhere!

Arriving in Zion at night time made the search for “the middle of nowhere” a little bit more complicated. We ended up finding ourselves on a steep, muddy, wet dirt road, with a cliff right next to us. Even with 4wheel-drive it was an obstacle we could not pass. Giving up in the middle of that road, however, required sliding back down the muddy way we came from. Scary! Almost at the end, we bypassed a car. The driver basically told us, that we are –right- next to one of the turn-outs we were looking for! Perfect! Free-Camping it is!

Only after waking up and opening our curtains, we found out how beautiful this camp spot was.

After arriving in the Zion National Park, we got some written information on hikes and things to view and do in the park – in Zion, this is a lot. The ecosystem of Zion is very special, as desert environment and forest environment merge. Therefore there are parts where you walk on a sand dune with pine trees, meadows and cacti around you. Also there are huge bizarre shaped sandstone walls all over Zion. After some research, we decided to get a backcountry permit to be able to camp on the trail and do parts of the East Rim Trail. It is probably not the most popular hike, but it is very beautiful. And it is not a Zoo. (We didn’t meet very many people on the track). These circumstances gave us the exciting feeling of being in the wilderness! When it started hailing approx. 1,5 hours before we wanted to set up our tent, we realized, we ARE in the wilderness. Fortunately, it stopped hailing! Unfortunately, it rained instead. Our first outdoor camping experience in our new tent was therefore a cold and wet one. We enjoyed it nevertheless.