Jordan Voth | Portrait & Lifestyle Photographer

Gillian and I had wanted to take a road trip somewhere and we ended up deciding on Utah. Seriously, there are not many places as beautiful as Southern Utah. We got to planning and had a solid five day trip planned out. Our goal for the trip was to visit four of the five national parks; Canyonlands, Arches, Zion & Bryce Canyon. We flew into Salt Lake City, rented a car (a rad Chevy Spark that cost around $17 to fill up!) & drove over to a café to meet up with my good friends, Brittni & Trent. It was so rad getting to see them again. Shortly after, we were on our way to Moab.

We arrived later that evening and went to bed pretty early in order to make it to Canyonlands for sunrise. Mesa Arch may be one of the most photographed areas in Canyonlands due to the beautiful light coming through during sunrise that lights up the underside of the arch. During the summer months, there can be upwards of 30-40 photographers ready to shoot, which means this area can get extremely packed. To our complete surprise, we were the only ones there! Seriously. We had the whole place to ourselves. We spent some time there for a while before heading out and venturing to other areas of the park. Over the course of our time there, we probably saw 5-10 other people. The park was extremely empty due to it being the off-season. On our way out we stopped by Dead Horse Point State Park for sunset.

Our next stop was Arches. This park is a short 5-10 minute drive outside of Moab and extremely easy to get to. Delicate Arch (what’s shown on the Utah license plate) is probably the most recognizable and visited arch in the park. Again, we made it a point to get out to this Arch for sunrise. This was one of my favorite things to see. To see and think about how this arch has formed over time is amazing. It’s extremely tall in person (look for the photo of Gillian jumping beneath it). We also stopped by and saw Double Arch, Balanced Rock, the North & South Windows, Landscape Arch & a few others. Landscape Arch is quite impressive and seeing that part of it broke off in recent years, it’s hard to wonder if it’ll be around much longer.

While on our way to Zion, we stopped by Monument Valley & Horseshoe Bend. Monument Valley was amazing and a place I had wanted to see for some time. While we were Gillian made friends with a stray dog that was such a sweet heart. We gave her some peanut butter and water before heading down into Arizona. On the Utah/Arizona border, sits Horseshoe Bend, a perfect symmetrically shaped meander through the canyon. We caught the most amazing sunset there. The blue sky with cotton candy clouds sitting above the red glow coming off the canyon walls was beautiful. We stayed in Page for the night with intentions of visiting Antelope Canyon in the morning. Unfortunately, Antelope Canyon is not very good to visit during winter months since the sun does not generally appear directly above the slot canyons. Pair that with a cloudy morning and it was pretty dark inside. Nonetheless, it was still amazing to see. The guides were very informative and even pointed out how much the sand levels change during flash floods (referring to Peter Lik’s “Ghost” & what it was at currently).

Zion is probably my favorite national park. The large ridge lines are extremely beautiful and the hiking there is so much fun. We went on a couple hikes while we were there. Observation Point, which is a grueling 8-mile hike, takes you up through a multitude of switchbacks and through canyons before spitting you out at the summit of a ridge that overlooks the valley & Angels Landing. The view was breathtaking.

While making our way back to the airport, we took a quick pit stop at Bryce Canyon. We tried to hike down into the canyon a bit but unfortunately, the clay was very soft and built up on our boots pretty quick resulting in our feet becoming heavier and heavier with every step. We decided to turn back and just enjoy the views up top over looking all of the formations in the canyon. We couldn’t have asked for this trip to go any better and we were extremely happy that we were able to see everything we had wanted to. We’ll be visiting Utah again next Feb and can hardly wait. Enjoy the photos.