In early April, Rick and I decided to travel to Utah on our continued exploration of National Parks. I had always thought the desert was ugly but boy was I wrong! We were gone a total of eleven days - between travel dates we saw a total of five parks in seven days. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend such a whirlwind trip, I thought I'd summarize it here, along with what we learned during our adventures. I'll add "deep dives" for each park to go into more detail in future blogs. The first challenge is to pick a photo to show first, when each park had such different types of beauty. Since we voted Bryce Canyon our favorite, I'll show one of the favorite views here. This was taken in the late evening from "Sunset Point".
One of the things I want to convey in these blogs is how beautiful each of these parks appear. While it takes awhile to get to Utah from California, once there you can see a lot in a short amount of time. Here was the route we took to see the parks:
We flew into St. George (via Salt Lake City) and started in Zion, then spent a day in each park, drove in between and usually saw some of the next park that day, then stayed a day, then went on. For Arches and Canyonlands we stayed in Moab, and from there drove up to Salt Lake City for our flight home. Some people I know have driven the whole trip, and stayed in campgrounds vs. hotels. I think next time we would fly into Salt Lake City and reverse the trip, and potentially fly home from Las Vegas since it's only a couple hours more driving and a less expensive/bigger airport. I would also like to spend more time in certain parks to do a better job seeing the whole thing.
This map shows you the relative size of the parks. I would not necessarily say that "bigger is better". Each park has it's "attractions". For example, Zion has some very famous hikes (The Narrows and Angel's Landing), while others have more of an "offroad" culture (Canyonlands). Each one definitely had something unique to offer, and as we went on, we continually marveled at the "new beauty" we found.
Interestingly, the most popular parks were not the ones we liked the most. According to this 2019 data, Capitol Reef and Canyonlands are some of the least visited, yet we found them to have just as much beauty. We voted Bryce Canyon our favorite. Between the absolutely amazing scenery and the organization of the park, we had a fabulous experience (nice scenic drive with lots of turnouts, big visitor center, lots of parking, good food nearby). A close second was Capitol Reef, although it was more "in the middle of nowhere" it definitely had a very different beauty and some unique aspects (orchards, petroglyphs, PIE!).
A quick overview of our experience follows, with links to each park added as I write them:
Day 1 - land in St. George - locate hotel - get settled and get dinner. We mostly relied on google maps and ratings for restaurant choices, and opted for dinner at a nearby restaurant called Magelby's.
While the restaurant was good, the real treasure was a brochure we picked up while waiting. It was put out by an app called "Just Ahead" which provides audio tours of National Parks. We never downloaded the app, but found the map to be most useful.
It called out special attractions we wouldn't have known about otherwise. Since we planned this trip in a very short amount of time, we didn't do as much research as we would have liked, and this map turned out to be very useful.
Day 2 - visit Zion's. We had heard about The Narrows and Angel's Landing, but Angel's Landing required reservations, which we didn't have, plus it's pretty strenuous. The Narrows requires hikers to walk through water during a portion of the hike, and we weren't sure we were up for this. Plus, as the name indicates, you are funneled into a much smaller amount of trail and we didn't want to deal with the large crowds. We ended up picking the Emerald Pool hike, which we enjoyed. Even being one of the less popular hikes, it was very crowded. Later we found out that it was Spring Break in that area, so many families were traveling. Since most schools where we live have Spring Break in March, we were caught by surprise.
Day 3 - drive through Zion's to Bryce Canyon. This required us to drive through the 1.1 mile tunnel, which was quite an adventure (both in scenery and traffic), but after that the drive went smoothly. We arrived in Bryce Canyon mid-afternoon, in time to visit the Visitor's Center and take the scenic drive. This turned out to be our best move, as it gave us a good overview of the park without requiring much exertion.
Day 4 - hike Bryce Canyon. All the scenery at Bryce is centered around the amphitheater, so we picked the most popular hike there that met our desired exertion level: Navajo Loop and Queen's Garden. After that we went back to our hotel to rest up, and dragged ourselves back to the park to see the sunset from Sunset Point. The views and photos were well worth it.
Day 5 - drive to Capitol Reef. Given our experience in Bryce Canyon, we stopped at the Visitor's Center and then took the scenic drive. Right away you can tell this park is less popular. The visitor center is much smaller, but very nice. The "entry booth" was "self-service" so I guess the amount of traffic (and missed fees) is not worth the amount they would need to pay someone to work the entrance. At the perceived end of the scenic tour was a parking lot, so we stopped and took photos. Then we noticed people exiting a dirt road that appeared to go further into the canyon, so this piqued our interest into braving the drive. It was so worth it! The "Capitol Gorge" was one of the most scenic places we visited.
Day 6 - hike Capitol Reef. We took Jerry's advice and hiked Cassidy Arch, and given it was a weekend we decided to get up early (we had been lazing around all vacation and getting going around 10 a.m.). We were at the trailhead by 8 a.m. and I'm glad we were as it got very crowded later. Feeling accomplished after that hike, we went back to the town of Torrey for a coffee (Dark Sky, highly recommended) and a scenic drive down highway 12, then lunch (Capitol Burger food truck, also highly recommended) and back to the hotel.
Day 7 - drive from Capitol Reef to Moab, stopping to see petroglyphs along the way. Luckily Rick double-checked our Arches reservations and it was THAT DAY at 3 p.m., so we checked into our hotel and got in line at Arches. Even with a reservation it took over 30 minutes of waiting in line, but after your arrival at the entry booth the process was very smooth. Soon we were driving through the park. We decided to hike to Delicate Arch (another Jerry recommendation) that day since the next day was forecast to be windy. I'm so glad we did! It was an absolutely breathtaking experience. After that we drove a bit further, took "sunset pictures" with the La Sal Mountains in the background, and headed back to the hotel.
Day 8 - Hit Canyonlands in the morning and Arches for our next 3 p.m. reservation. We opted to enter Canyonlands at Islands in the Sky entrance, the closest one to Moab. It was absolutely gorgeous with all the breathtaking beauty is in the canyons below you. We hiked White Rim Trail, mostly because it was pretty flat and we were looking for an easy hike. On the way back we drove to the Green River Overlook and the Mesa Arch, both absolutely worth the stop. Needing to get back for our reservation, we hustled back to Moab, grabbed a quick lunch, and got in line for our Arches reservation. This time we decided to take the many short hikes right off the parking lots for Windows Trail and Double Arch. We continued driving through the park, hoping for more sunset pictures, but the weather didn't cooperate. This day was so windy we literally had sand in our ears when we got back to the hotel to shower up.
Day 9 - not being up for more hiking, we explored Moab and hit a couple of thrift stores. My best souvenier was a tiny little glass vase, just the right size for my garden bouquets, $1.25 at the "Little Suitcases" thrift shop!
Day 10 - before heading to Salt Lake City we took a detour to "The Hole in the Rock", a historic tourist destination just below Moab. Dug out of a mountain, it was a couple's house and diner for many decades, and is now open for tours. Very interesting place, definitely worth the stop! The drive to Salt Lake City was more adventurous than we thought, given we hit heavy snow over the mountains. We arrived in SLC, grabbed a bite to eat, and headed for our hotel.
Day 11 - up early, shuttle to the airport, and caught our flight home. Whew!
For convenience, here are blogs on the individual parks:
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