Rocky Mountain Roadtrip

2026-05-17

[WORK IN PROGRESS] In the summer of 2025, I spent three weeks on the road traveling to New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming. Explore the 4,000 miles of driving, 7 national parks visited, and 75 miles of hiking through interactive visuals, while listening to Rocky Mountain High by John Denver!

Why National Parks?

When I was younger, going on a hike was my absolute nightmare weekend activity. Growing up going to New Mexico, I would avoid hiking at all costs. If I was forced to go, I would either wait at the trailhead or stick earbuds in and get it over as quickly as possible.

This all changed in July 2023, hiking in the Swiss Alps. Walking up into the mountains, by waterfalls, huts, and wildlife, I felt at peace listening to the sounds of the birds, the cowbells, the flowing water, and the wind. All of a sudden, hiking wasn't so bad.

I started thinking of my summer graduation trip that year, and continued to plan it into 2024 and nail down the specifics in 2025. Meanwhile, we went to Glacier in January. As I planned, the Trump administration ripped away staffing and funding from the parks. I felt determined to continue supporting our parks as the government continued to turn their backs on these lands. After seeing these parks, I've seen natural beauty unlike any other and places that feel like true magic. These lands must be protected for generations to come to find the same happiness and inspiration I found in them.

Taos, New Mexico

After a long day of driving, we arrived at our b&b in Taos, ate dinner at the Taos Inn in downtown, and visited the Rio Grande Gorge the next morning.

Mesa Verde National Park

We visited Cliff Palace, toured the Mesa Top Loop, and hiked to see Balcony House.

Page, Arizona

Page is home to the Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell, and the iconic Antelope Canyons. The orange stone where the light reached the walls creates such a cool effect, we took a lot of photos!

Zion National Park — Angels Landing

We got permits to do Angels Landing, and even though I almost chickened out, my mom and I made it all the way up the chains and the view was 100% worth it.

Zion National Park — The Narrows

The next morning, our tired legs carried us to the Narrows. We walked about 8 miles and made it all the way to Floating Rock — at some points we had the canyon all to ourselves.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce is otherworldly, the rocks are so vivid and the wind rustling in the pines while you look out at the amphitheater of rock formations is so peaceful. The Paiute tribes called the rock formations “oo’doo”, which refers to something that you’re fearful of. They believed that people were turned into rock, hence the people-like appearance of the rocks. The Navajo believed it to be a resting place for the wind people, who brought sand with them from wherever they have been, causing the various colors of the rock.

Capitol Reef National Park

We didn't originally have this one on the itinerary but made a detour on our way to Salt Lake City to see the petroglyphs, strange rock formations, and the historical LDS settlement in Capitol Reef. If your first guess for why it's named that is that there's a rock that looks like the US Capitol and the others look like coral reef, you'd be correct! My mom got to enjoy a piece of cherry pie made with local fruit, and I had some ice cream.

Grand Teton National Park

We spent three full days in the Tetons. Beyond the obvious views of the mountains, have incredible lakes. Some are as easy to access as walking out of the parking lot, while others require you hike 4 miles and over 2,000 feet of vertical ascent, but each and every one of them are worth the visit! The Tetons are magical, I've truly never felt anything like watching the sun rise over the hills and make the mountains glow.

Yellowstone National Park

Beyond the famous Old Faithful, Yellowstone has so much to offer from its own Grand Canyon to mountains. We saw waterfalls, wildlife from wolves to bison, and plenty of geysers.

Rocky Mountain National Park

The first time I listened to “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver, I thought it was a good song but didn't think it was anything extraordinary. But hiking up to these alpine lakes in RMNP, I now understand what he meant.

Bear Run, Colorado

Finally, we spent two days in southern Colorado at a friend's place in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. We hiked to over 12,000ft to a mountain lake at the foot of the Crestone peaks, sat on the porch with ciders chatting and playing with the dogs, and watched the sun set behind Pikes Peak on the horizon.

While hiking in national parks and forests this year, I totaled more than 70 miles and 17,000 feet of elevation gain. The longest hike was in a National Forest in Colorado, which also had the most elevation gain. We hiked up to over 12,500 feet to see lakes at the base of several 14ers, it was absolutely stunning.

My Hiking Stats

We did the most hiking in Yellowstone - almost 18 miles - followed by Zion, RMNP, and GTNP. Interestingly, this seems to be correlated with which parks were my favorites, though Yosemite is an outlier with that trend since we visited in winter where more trails are closed/covered in snow.

Aside from these tracked activities, we walked *a lot*. I broke 30,000 steps twice over the course of the trip, and only had less than 10,000 steps on days we were only driving (such as from Wyoming to Colorado) and three other days that were partial drive days. On July 30th, I got just over 30,000 steps. In the morning, we'd gone to watch Old Faithful erupt, walked the Upper Geyser Basin, and saw Grand Prismatic. While we didn't track any of these activities as hikes, they added up to a lot of steps. In addition, we hiked to Artist Point in the afternoon, which was almost 4 miles.

These parks are under attack by our government, who would rather strip these parks bare for their natural resources. Public lands are crucial to biodiversity and our environment, sacred to Indigenous communities, and important for so many other reasons.

Whether you’ve visited a national park, monument, or historical site, intend to, or just happen to read this, these public lands need our support. Call your representatives, visit responsibly, donate, volunteer! Keep these lands beautiful, sacred, and enjoyable for generations to come.

For further information on how these parks have been affected or how you can help, check out the below resources.

My Hiking Stats

For further information on how these parks have been affected or how you can help, check out the below resources.