Boondocking Our Way From Bryce to Zion | Full Time RV Living

In the last episode, we left off on visiting Bryce Canyon National Park and finding our boondocking spot at Tom's Best Spring Dispersed Camping in the Dixie National Forest. This area was about 20 minutes from the National Park and had easy access gravel roads and really did feel like a state campground with numerous well-marked spots. Nice little campsite here in the trees. So far, the BLM land has been pretty good in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Well, I think we'll stay here for the night. We'll take it. The next morning, we were extremely excited to head back to Bryce Canyon National Park and tackle Peekaboo Trail. This hike is usually a heavily trafficked 5.2-mile loop with almost 1,500 feet of elevation gain. But on this day in early May 2020, we felt like it was just us and the hoodoos. If you only have one day in Bryce Canyon National Park and you had to choose between the Rim Trails and going down into it like we are today on day number two, we're going to the Peekaboo Trail, what would you choose, Chris? This one. Totally go down into it. At first, I thought, well, yesterday I thought that if we were inside, it would be that phenomenon where you can't see the trees if you're in the middle of a forest. But that's not true at all. It's like the deeper you walk down... You can't see the forest through the trees. However it goes. Like, the views are just continually better as you walk down in here. It's going to be quite a hike coming back up this. Like, it's just all down right now. Yeah, it's a 5.5-mile loop, but it's pretty strenuous. I think it's almost 2,000 feet elevation change, which we started at 8,000, so it's pretty high. And then you go down into the canyon and back out. Yeah, this is amazing. It's really cool to see both views. You'll see enough of the trail rim as you park and, like, get up there. You can do a little mini rim walk. But this is, like, incredible. So it'll be interesting to see what it looks like as we get further and further down into the forests. This is something special, that's for sure. Absolutely amazing. And then our stop after this, as of now, will be going towards Zion National Park, which there's a ton of boondocking opportunities there. And that national park is scheduled to soft open in, like, a week or so. So that's our plan. And if Zion's anything like Bryce, we're in for another treat. Where we get a private tour. But walking amongst all of these hoodoos, as they call them... It's pretty special. It is. It is pretty cool. So if you are anywhere near Bryce Canyon National Park, I'm not recommending anybody travel right now, but there's absolutely nobody here. It's extremely peaceful. It's extremely quiet. And it's extremely beautiful. Yes, it's life-changing. And otherworldly. This is like the red planet. You're on Mars. Oxygen levels are low. It may seem like a crazy idea to visit national parks in early May 2020, but I think it turned out to be a pretty good idea, at least so far. It's such a different experience being in a park when there's so few people. It's like our own private tour. Yeah, and the worst thing about national parks is the people. Yellowstone was so packed when we went there last year. It kind of ruins the experience a little bit. I mean, it's just... It's a maze. It's a zoo. It's crazy. But the hike here at Bryce Canyon was awesome. It was awesome. It was our favorite hike ever. Yeah. We did get a little thirsty on the last two miles. Could have used some water. That's a trek a mile back up to the top here. Yeah, it was a good workout. Yeah. Yeah, two miles. Or I mean, two days. If you're not used to walking, that's going to be a tough one for you. Yeah, good. So we're going to do the scenic drive as much as we can. I think it's called Rainbow... Rainbow Overlook? Rainbow Overlook or Rainbow Point. Rainbow Point. And just kind of see the rest of Bryce Canyon Park. I know it's partially closed, but it seems like it's a smaller park. But it is really, really stunning and beautiful here. If you have not hit Bryce Canyon National Park up yet, totally recommend it. As we always say, it's our favorite national park so far. This is the best thing we've ever done. So far. We liked Bryce Canyon so much, we even came back a third time to watch the sunset over the amphitheater. While this wasn't the most epic sunset we've ever seen, it was still worth the visit while staying so close in the National Forest. And after six peaceful nights, we started to get that familiar itch to start traveling again. It still amazes me as I look back on how close this free dispersed camping was to a national park. We enjoyed our time here and it was a good balance of relaxing with nature, working out in the forest, sightseeing and hiking, and catching up on work. Chris got to experiment more with the thermal cooker and we even met up with some friends that were staying in the same area. But it was time to say goodbye to Bryce and hello to Zion. As we got closer to the park, the asphalt turned red and the views started to get vast. On the way, I read about the Zion Mount Caramel Tunnel, which was built in the 1920s and created direct access to Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon from Zion. Oversized vehicles, including many RVs, need a $15 tunnel permit to get escorted through. Being in a sprinter van, we didn't need to worry about the 7'10 width and the 11'4 height restrictions. Although I did pop the mirrors in. As we went through the tunnel, we saw these side access holes that were quite awe inspiring and gave a little glimpse of what's about to come. Once the tunnel ended and the blue skies emerged, it felt like a whole other world. As we neared the end of the scenic drive, we realized we weren't the only ones who had the idea to visit Zion on the opener. It is May 13th, the soft opener for Zion National Park here in 2020 amongst the COVID-19. And we just came from Bryce National Park and it's quite a bit different. Bryce was full of locals. And I don't want to say full, it had a few locals. There was not really that many people there. A few people passing through. But as soon as we got into Zion, it's a bit of a different story. Yeah, Bryce was pretty empty. Zion's feeling a little crowded. Yeah, we came down the scenic, actually, we came down the 9. The 9 was awesome. Went through the tunnel. I mean, what a beautiful park to drive through. This is absolutely amazing. But I don't really actually want to get out and hike. We're going to stay in here. So the parking lot, what was it called? Gada or Gots? Ghetto? Wait. No. Gado. The Gado. El Gato. Which you park at for Angels Landing and a couple other attractions. That was completely full. This parking lot is completely full. And if you look at the license plate, each plate is a different state. So if people are driving to come here, or there's rental cars, I don't know. But it looks like a lot of personal owned cars. Versus Bryce, that was really empty and a lot of Utah plates. And the couple people that we did see on the trail, they were from St. George going up to Bryce. And it's just totally different here. But it makes sense because this park is so much bigger. And this is definitely a driving park. When you compare the two, Bryce is a good walking trail. Hiking. And this is good drive. You drive through and it's a lot of oohs and ahhs. Yeah, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. But it's a little too packed for my liking. This is what I was hoping not to see when we first got to Bryce on, I think we got there May 7th. The day after it opened. And it was quite dead. Oh yeah, this is day number one. This is the opener. So I think a lot of people have just been kind of waiting for this for Zion, I think. Yeah, because we were saying Zion is close driving distance to a lot of major cities like Phoenix, St. George, Vegas. It's a little bit more conveniently located for multiple areas. Yes. Oh, that's cool. Hawaii. Even Hawaiians are on vacation in Zion. I don't think we've seen that rainbow plate yet. No, it's quite weird. So it's 1030, 1130? What time is it? 1030, yeah. It's 1130. That's off. It's 1130 on a Wednesday. We just made the drive from Bryce to here. It was a good drive. Short drive, it was like an hour and 45 minutes, hour and a half. I know it said two on the map, but that was to the- I think it was a couple over, a couple. Easy drive, great gas mileage, like 21 miles per gallon. Just had breakfast, scoped it out. And we'll still enjoy the drive back, but we're going to head and find somewhere to park for the night. Some BLM land. And then we'll show you where we find it. So leaving Zion, we had to go to three different spots to find our overnight BLM. The first, once we started driving to it, we read the entrance closest to Zion had really bad ruts and was really difficult to get to without four-wheel drive. And you should come from the other way, which happened to be like an hour drive around. And then we checked a second spot where it was just over-packed and there was probably 30, 40 people in a little tiny area by a creek. It was beautiful, but way over-packed. I got the heebie-jeebies. For any particular reason? No. No particular reason. No, they just came over me. Yeah, just too many people maybe. And then we went to the third place and it's just absolutely beautiful here. There's, I think, 20 designated 14-day BLM spots. And just look outside our slider here. So there's maybe like five or so campsites around us that are hundreds and hundreds of feet away. And there's houses in the hills. It's unbelievable. It's really, really nice here. And I was just saying like, God, it makes it so much better to take an extra like 30 minutes, hour, whatever, to find something that you're really comfortable with. Like this spot's way better than the second spot. Yeah, it's just a lot more private. A lot more private and breathtaking. Yeah, the views are vast. I love it. Word of the day. From Zion. So here's our spot for a couple days. And we'll see how long we want to stay. Yeah.