I have been trying to plan a big trip for Kellen, Aaron, and I to go on and when I realized we all had the same time off I had to capitalize on the opportunity. Kellen has been so busy with family stuff and our schedules haven’t always lined up just right. He works night shift and with us working day shift, it can make doing things together difficult. Thankfully, it worked out that we all had a week off and Kellen’s girlfriend, Meghan, was able to join us for part of the trip!
This trip took A LOT of planning. This is because a lot of the activities we wanted to do required reservations and this being a great time to travel, reservations are difficult. If you read our Bryce and Zion posts, you’d know that those were originally planned for this trip, but with Angels Landing implementing a permit system, we changed things up making that a separate trip.
THE ITINERARY:
4.5 DAYS
Lake Havasu, AZ > Las Vegas, NV > Kanab, UT > Page, AZ > Flagstaff, AZ > Sedona, AZ
Thursday night: Went to Vegas in the evening, 2.5 hour drive, stayed the night at the Cosmopolitan.
Friday: Got up EARLY and drove to Kanab, UT, 3.7 hour drive. Tour booked with Coral Cliffs Tours at 3pm-7pm. Ate in Kanab and drove to Lake Powell Resort, 1 hour drive from Kanab, UT.
Saturday: Tour with Kayak Lake Powell at 9:30am – 12pm. Ate lunch in Page, AZ and then drove to Horseshoe Bend. After this, drove to Flagstaff, AZ, 2 hours and 13 minutes.
Sunday: Drove to Sedona (shuttle service was running so no parking at the trailheads). Hiked Soldiers Pass (5 miles) and Cathedral Rock (1.2 miles). Stayed the night at Los Abrigados Resort & Spa by Diamond Resorts (was a cheap place close to town).
Monday: Drove to Mescal Trailhead to hike to Devil’s Bridge (4 miles). Then parked near the trailhead for Birthing Cave (2.0 miles) which is just down the road from the Mescal Trailhead. Drove back to Lake Havasu City, 3 hours and 44 minutes.
I’ll post this itinerary on all the posts following this so that you know it was all part of this trip. So, anyways, we took the drive up to Vegas first on Thursday night. This was not only to break up the 5 hour drive to Kanab, but also to pick up Meghan, Kellen’s girlfriend, at the airport. We all shared a room at the Cosmopolitan for the night.
For dinner we went to STK located inside the Cosmopolitan.
Honestly, we would not recommend going here for steak. The atmosphere is what you are paying for, not your meal. Our steaks were not cooked properly and the flavor was not worth the price. They were nice enough to bring out a candle for Kellen’s birthday though!
We walked around our hotel a little and saw the Bellagio fountain outside one of the windows.
We asked if we could walk into the restaurant and they said it was fine. Come to find out, we were in a private room that people can reserve for dinners. They had a beautiful wall of wine with a ladder… and they said it was ok for us to get on so we did.
The next day we headed out for Kanab, UT to go on a tour with Coral Cliff Tours. I believe they are also combined with Expedition Kanab. The drive from Vegas to Kanab was a nightmare. There was a lot of construction that caused us to be almost an hour late. Thankfully, we were the only tour booked for that time so no one else, but our tour guide was waiting.
When we arrived to meet Brayden, we all apologized endlessly about how late we were. He reassured us it was not a big deal and he gave us a run down on ATVs. Brayden took off like a hot rod when we started up the ATVs! We couldn’t believe it! It was so fun!
Our first stop was dune boarding.
We all were shocked at how difficult dune boarding was and how we were winded from walking back up the hill to go down again. Brayden said it is somewhat common for people to feel this way. He said kids are usually running up and down it. When we were done, we headed to Peak-a-boo slot canyon.
After this we drove to the Great Chamber. I saw this online about 2 weeks prior to the trip and said wow we have to see that! I had no idea it existed and once I saw that there is a high chance of getting stuck with your own vehicle, I found the tour which was well worth it.
Brayden was awesome and took so many pictures of us!
This was probably the highlight of our trip. Brayden was an awesome tour guide and made it really fun. Aaron was an amazing driver too! You could tell when he was driving that he was going back to his dirt bike days growing up. Meghan and Kellen wanted to drive originally, but quickly changed their minds once we were going through the sand and getting bounced around. We laughed so much on this ATV ride and 100% would do it again.
After this, we headed to Rocking V Café. When Aaron and I went to Bryce and Zion, we were trying to find a place to eat. We walked into a place that had a menu on the front, but once we got inside they told us they are just moving things inside to open up later this year. While talking, they recommended us to drive to Kanab and eat at Rocking V Café. We ended up finding another place to eat, but when planned this tour I knew we had to go!
Everything was delicious and the hot cocoa hit the spot for me since we were a little sun burnt from the ATV ride and the temperature had dropped.
That night we drove to Lake Powell Resort in Page, AZ to stay the night. We all were absolutely exhausted by the time we got there and were very happy to shower since we were covered in dirt!
This marks the end of part 1 of 3 blog posts for our 4.5 day itinerary!
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