Where is it?
Near the Arizona/Utah border is this truly spectacular sandstone rock formation called the Wave that looks more like a surrealist painting than an actual place you can visit. Only 20 hikers are allowed per day (though I think recently the limit was increased) and there is a lottery system in place to distribute the permits to the thousands that apply. I've been applying every month for the last 3 years and have finally won the permit at the beginning of 2020 to go in mid-April.
Pandemic
Fast forward to March and we are in middle of a pandemic with shelter-in-place orders and restrictions on travel making it seem less and less likely I'll actually be able to use the permit. In early April the county where the trailhead is located has restricted access to public lands to local residents only, causing me to give up and cancel my flight and hotel reservations.
Going!
However a few days before my permit date, in an unexpected twist, the county the trailhead is located in has passed a resolution excluding existing Wave permit holders from the initial ban. Excited, the following Saturday I leave San Francisco Bay Area where I live for southern Utah, a 12 hour drive, which I would normally shorten by flying to Vegas and renting a car there. The long drive is extremely uneventful with highways emptier than usual and I only stop for gas eating all my meals out of the food I brought with me.
Mishaps continue
Next day I wake up before sunrise and drive to the trailhead. The road is pretty rough and in my excitement to start hiking early I drive my low clearance 2wd faster than I should - with the trailhead in sight I realize that I got a flat tire. Not the best place for car trouble as there's no one else at the trailhead yet and I have no cell signal here though at least I know in the worst case scenario a ranger must pass this road at least once a day. Fortunately I manage to put on a spare quickly and get started with the hike.
Finally there
Navigating to the Wave is harder than I expected as there's no visible trail and I'm not good at finding all the landmarks marked on the map that came with my permit. At some point I realize I must have gone off trail because I confused one landmark for another and took a wrong turn. At that moment I make a first smart decision that day and start using my GPS and closely follow the trail marked on Google Maps. With the help of technology I make it to Wave and the view made all this trouble worth it - it is as beautiful as I saw it in the photos. Soon, in the late morning, these beautiful fluffy clouds appear forming a perfect backdrop to the colorful rocks below.
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I wish one day I could visit Utah :( nice pics!
I haven't been there, but it's definitely on the list.
Start applying now, it takes a while to get it :)
What an incredible place!
What's the reasoning behind the limit? To keep it natural or to protect hikers?
It's sandstone and thus pretty fragile, so it would be get destroyed if thousands of people walked on it every day
Very interesting place!
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Pretty impressive landscape!
Wish I could travel to see places like this too!