45 Miles,
3 Parks,
and a Pair
of Crocs.

Left: The welcome amenity that launched a thousand laughs. Right: The Four Seasons elevator, on our way to Momofuku — can you tell he is doing the SIX SEVEN hands??

A note on the welcome tray: the Four Seasons sent up a beautiful Las Vegas-themed plate of treats to greet us — macarons, chocolates, playing card figurines. Among them were two small chocolate playing cards stamped with a 6 and a 7. Andy saw them and lost his mind laughing. He shouted "SIX SEVEN!" hysterically for the rest of the night. IYKYK. I still don't fully understand why. But I will hear him saying it for years.

The Four Seasons Las Vegas is, in my opinion, the only way to stay on the Strip with kids. It sits within the Mandalay Bay complex but operates entirely separately — no casino floor to navigate, no cigarette smoke, just genuine quiet luxury and the best sleep you'll have before several nights in a tent. We also visited the aquarium nearby, which Andy declared one of the highlights of the trip. (Competition was stiff.)

There are places that photographs cannot prepare you for. Zion National Park is one of them. The canyon walls rise so impossibly high, in such impossible shades of red and orange and ivory, that your brain keeps trying to decide whether you're looking at something real. You are. It's real. And it's better than the pictures.

We arrived in Springdale — the charming, walkable town that sits right at the park's south entrance — and learned immediately the first rule of Zion: the parking lot fills by 8am and they are not joking. One useful thing I discovered: if you pay for a spot in one of the paid lots, use your license plate number rather than the spot number when you pay. That way if you leave midday to rest and come back, you won't have to pay a second time. Day one was a gentle orientation. We walked the Pa'rus Trail along the Virgin River, let Andy wade in with his walking stick like a tiny wilderness explorer, and figured out the shuttle system so we could hit the ground running the next morning.

Day two was the real thing. We started early on the Kayenta Trail — which became, without question, my favorite hike of the entire trip. There is something about that trail in the morning light, moving through the canyon before the crowds arrive, the air still cool and the red rock walls glowing warm above you. When we reached the Lower Emerald Pools, the water cascading down the rock face in a fine silver mist, with the canyon spread out below us — I understood completely why people come back to Zion over and over again.

After Kayenta, we did the Watchman Trail. Mid-afternoon. In full Utah sun. This was perhaps not our most strategically timed decision. The views from the top are spectacular — you can see the whole Springdale valley spread out below, the canyon walls in every direction — but we arrived there, as Andy accurately described it, "completely cooked." Andy and I have discussed this hike primarily in terms of survival.

And then came Angels Landing. Or rather — the accidental version of it.

By the end of day two I was lobbying hard for an easy final hike. Andy, who had been eyeing every difficult trail on the map with barely concealed excitement, relented and agreed to the Grotto Trail. His actual preference was anything with the triangle man falling icon — which he had decided meant "fun." I want to be clear that it does not mean fun. It means the opposite of fun for mothers with tired legs.

Anyway. We did the Grotto Trail, and then we simply... stumbled upon the entrance to Scout's Lookout. I said I'd be willing to try it. Andy was immediately and unreasonably thrilled. In my mind, we'd go about thirty minutes and turn around — it was already 5pm, the park closes at 7, and I had absolutely no intention of getting stuck on a cliff face with no way back to our car. We hiked the Walter's Wiggles, the famous series of switchbacks carved directly into the canyon wall, and made it all the way to Scout's Lookout. From there, you can look back down every switchback you just climbed and feel proud of yourself. You can also look forward at the chain-assisted ridge that leads to the actual Angels Landing summit, assess your 10-year-old's footwear situation, and make a wise parenting decision.

He has no shoes. We made the sensible call. Scout's Lookout is legitimately one of the most beautiful viewpoints in the American Southwest and getting there is a real accomplishment. The chains section requires a permit anyway, and my legs were approximately one more step away from total mutiny.

Before I move on from Zion: stay in Springdale, not at a glamping property. The town is lovely — walkable, full of good restaurants, and positioned right at the park entrance so you can be on the shuttle at the crack of dawn. We stayed at Under Canvas Zion, which I'll get to in the accommodations section, but if I were doing it again I would base myself in town and walk to dinner every night.

We did visit a local hot springs facility, which was wonderful, and I wish we'd saved it for after our big hiking day rather than before. Consider this your PSA.

Bryce Canyon is a different planet. Where Zion is red and vertical and lush, Bryce is orange and vast and alien — an amphitheater of hoodoos stretching as far as you can see, these improbable spires of limestone that look like something a geological process did on a dare. The first time you stand at the rim and look down into them, you cannot quite believe the Earth made this.

We started with the Navajo Loop and Queen's Garden combo — a beautiful, memorable hike down through the hoodoos that's challenging enough to feel earned but not soul-destroying. I would recommend this to anyone visiting Bryce for the first time. The colors, the scale, the way the canyon walls close in around you in the narrow sections — it's unlike anywhere else.

And then there was Peekaboo Loop.

Peekaboo Loop is listed as strenuous. It is listed correctly. What the listing does not fully convey is that "strenuous" in this context means roughly 1,500 feet of elevation change — but spread across a loop that climbs and descends repeatedly, so that just when you think you've survived the worst of it, there is another descent. And then another ascent. For nearly four hours.

We arrived at the trailhead having already done a long hike. It was warm. Andy was wearing Crocs. (He wore Crocs for the entirety of Bryce Canyon. Multiple days. Multiple hikes. I have the photos.) Only an hour in, Andy was already lying flat on the trail in the dust. I was not far behind him in terms of composure.

We survived. The views are extraordinary — standing under a natural arch with the full hoodoo amphitheater spread out through it, there's a moment where the difficulty stops mattering. But I want to be honest with you: if you are doing Bryce in a single day with a child, do the Navajo/Queen's Garden combo and stop there. You will be satisfied and you will be able to walk the next morning.

We also did horseback riding at Bryce, which Andy declared one of the best experiences of his life and has since asked to continue at home. He rode with the confidence of someone who has been doing this for years. He has not been doing this for years. I also learned to lasso, which is now a skill I possess and have no context for using. The cowboy running the ranch did not look worried.

By the time we reached Moab, we had covered Zion and Bryce in four days and our legs were operating on sheer determination. Moab is a different kind of beauty — more exposed, more dramatic, more brutally hot. Arches National Park contains over 2,000 natural stone arches, which is remarkable, and which you feel acutely when you are hiking under a midday sun that has decided to be personally unkind to you.

We hiked Park Avenue and the Windows section. Park Avenue is a short, straightforward trail through towering canyon walls that's more impressive for its scale than its difficulty. Windows gave us the arches up close — the North Window, the South Window, Turret Arch — and the crowds that come with being one of the park's most popular destinations. We earned our way under each arch and took photos that look like postcards and make me slightly tired just looking at them now.

Honest take: Arches is worth a day. Once you've seen Zion and Bryce, the visual language of red rock and dramatic geology starts to feel familiar, and Moab is the hottest of the three. I would not make it the centerpiece of a trip. I would, however, return to stay at Ulum again in a heartbeat.

And then there is Ulum. Ulum is the reason I now tell people that glamping exists on a spectrum, and that the top of that spectrum is a different category entirely.

The Honest Glamping Comparison

Under Canvas Zion · Clear Sky Resorts Bryce · Ulum Moab

The Parks, Ranked

In order of "would I fly back tomorrow"