If you were looking for a chance to commune with nature in a landscape that’s both ancient and dramatic, Amangiri’s new Camp Sarika just might be the glamping experience for you.
Headed to Salt Lake City for Sundance? Setting out to carve the slopes of Powder Mountain? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to explore the mesmerising arches and rock formations of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument? Fair call, it’s a beautiful part of the world, but you’ll need suitably adventurous digs from which to base your exploration.
Adding the finer things in life to a Utah camping trip, Camp Sarika opens in April, a 30-minute hike (or five-minute drive) from sister property Amangiri, a luxurious hideaway that opened in this breathtaking desert landscape in 2009.
The camp’s ten Luxury Frontiers-designed tented pavilions, blissfully marooned in a 245-hectare sea of raw wilderness, will each include private plunge pools for those baking afternoon dips, one or two bedrooms, living and dining areas, and a wet bar where you can mix up sundowners that are best sipped on the extensive terrace, complete with a fire pit where s’more construction under a starry skyscape is all but mandatory.
If you feel like being social, you’ll meet like-minded travellers at the main pool and jacuzzi (don’t hot tubs just have a way of drawing in the curious and conversational?), in the camp’s Selldorf Architects-designed main pavilion, at the restaurant’s rotisserie grill, or en route to the intimate but indulgent spa, where traditional Navajo wellness practices have been incorporated into contemporary treatments.
You’ll also be able to escape on hiking trips on the camp’s own trails, canyoneering outings on the camp’s Via Ferrata route, day trips into one of the five surrounding national parks, guided horseback riding excursions and even visits to Native American communities where storytelling around a roaring fire is a tradition that is passed down from generation to generation.
No, there probably won’t be any peyote.
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