6 DAYS, 6 NATIONAL PARKS
Four college kids cram into an old Ford Focus for a whirlwind photography road trip
The whole idea started when two of my friends, Kiefer and Phil, were playing with Google Maps to see how far one could drive in six days. Fast forward two months and its 5 a.m. at UBC and we’re departing on what would be one of the craziest photography road trips of our lives.
The goal was to hit six U.S. national parks, but we only had six days to do it since Phil had a plane to catch. So we set off, crammed into a small, aging Ford Focus.
Our first stop was Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park. We foolishly assumed that, since we were headed south, the weather would get better. This idea was immediately destroyed when we were prevented from entering the park on the north side due to a massive wall of snow.
We took the long route around, pulling into an abandoned park blanketed by over a metre of snow. Being unprepared, we got creative in warming ourselves, using socks as gloves, camera bags as tuques and putting on every layer of clothing we had. The next morning, we woke for sunrise and took a few photos before heading off to Yosemite National Park in California.
Along the way, we stopped for gas and two large pizzas to feed us for lunch and dinner, with the leftovers for breakfast.
We pulled into Yosemite in time for sunset and headed straight to tunnel view. We had yet to make sleeping arrangements, but there was a crowd of enthusiastic photographers and a man named Bill invited us back to his campsite for the night.
There, we heated up some leftover pizza over his fire and shared some stories before trying to get five hours of sleep until sunrise.
Right after snapping a few sunrise shots, we were off to California’s Death Valley. We made sure to load up on supplies and even bought a jerry can of fuel due to the distances we were planning to cover.
We pulled into the valley near midnight and decided to camp right in the middle of the salt flats. It was unusually calm as we set up our tent, but right around 2 a.m., I was suddenly awakened by a panicked Phil yelling “we have to get to the car!”
It took me a while to get oriented, but then it became clear by the winds, rain and … lighting! A storm had rolled in and we happened to be the highest point in the middle of the salt flats. We grabbed our tent and sleeping bags and ran to the car, where we got about two hours of shut-eye while waiting for the storm to pass.
We then headed for Las Vegas, where we stopped at the Bellagio Hotel on the strip. There, we cleaned up a bit; I brushed my teeth for the first time in three days.
After walking around for a bit, we decided to take off to Zion National Park in Utah. As we pulled in, we headed straight for the Angels Landing hike. We were running late and everyone else seemed to be going back down with a storm coming in, but we made it to the view and took our pictures. Once again with no sleeping arrangements, all the campsites full, we asked a couple if we could share. Surprisingly, they agreed, and we got four hours of sleep before wak- ing up to do astro photography.
We headed to a viewpoint to photograph the rising sun before taking off toward Monument Valley in Arizona. We pulled into Monument Valley as the sun began to set. I pulled out what remained of our pizza, feeling ill at the sight of it.
We pulled into what looked like an abandoned market and set up camp for the night. We took a few shots of the monuments glowing for sunrise and then headed off toward home in Vancouver!
Along the way, we passed Arches National Park in Utah, so we had to stop and take a few photos of the iconic structures.
After that, it was a non-stop, 26hour drive until we pulled across the border at 6 a.m. the next day.
As we crossed the border, we had a quiet sense of pride that we actually completed an insane road trip that so many people doubted we could do. I joked that the views in Patagonia were nice and, at our rate, we could make it there in 17 days.
A small chuckle was heard — followed by a serious sense of consideration.
We grabbed our tent and sleeping bags and ran to the car, where we got about two hours of shut-eye while waiting for the storm to pass.