Utah national parks trip in June
We will be visiting a few of Utah's national parks in June for the first time. Over two weeks, we will be staying in Zion, Bryce, Grand Staircase/Escalante, and then Arches/Moab (in that order). Reser...
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We are back from our trip and had a great time visiting Southern Utah's national parks. Thought I'd share a few experiences from our trip in case anyone else stumbles across this and is going to be going there. We did a "sampling" of 4 different places at 3 nights each.
1. Zion - The Narrows was one of the coolest things we did on our trip. We rented boots, neoprene socks and walking sticks from Zion Guru in Springdale where we stayed. We hiked for about 2 1/2 hours up the narrows and then back out. The scenery was awesome and it only seemed to get better the farther in you go. The Emerald pools hike was fun as was the short hike to weeping rock.
2. Bryce canyon - The Queen's garden hike was probably the highlight of the Bryce canyon stay. Its one of the best ways to hike through the Hoodoos without having to take a super long hike. I think it was about 2 miles long if you hike the trail down into the canyon and then take one of the Navaho loop hikes back up the canyon. Both Navaho loop trails have steep zig zagy parts as they go back up the canyon. beautiful hike! Rubys inn campground gave us one of there best spots overlooking a field and small lake. Pronghorn would come down to the field and graze every day that we were there.
3. Grand Staircase / Escalante - The cotton wood narrows was a cool hike that we only saw one other family on during the hike. Kodachrome state park was really cool though we only drove through it to see the sites. it looked like there were some good hikes there. The petrified forest hike near Escalante was really cool. Its not a whole forest of petrified trees, just the remanence of some petrified trees but we really enjoyed the hike.The highlight of our Escalante stay was the Dry fork slot canyons. Not an easy trek but well worth it. You do have to hike a ways don into a wash to get to the slot canyons. We first hiked the dry fork narrows trail as far in as we could go and then back out. We then hiked peek-a-boo. Entering this slot canyon is NOT EASY. Once in you are pretty much committed as you don't want to go back down out of the entrance. The slot canyon is beautiful but not easy to navigate. You eventually have to hike up a rock face out of it and a trail leads you back to the main wash. Im not going to lie. this slot canyon had us a little nervous as it was pretty late in the day when we started it. On the way out to these slot canyons, along Hole in the rock road was Devils Garden. Really cool rock formations here.
4. Arches N.P. / Moab - We towed our Jeep to the Jeep mecca of the U.S. - Moab, UT. I didn't wand to take it on one of the many hardcore trails and have something bad happen too us while 850 miles from home so I found a cool 3.2 mile moderate Jeep trail (as they are called in Moab) to Tower Arch within Arches N.P.. The trail was a lot of fun. Arches was very busy with people but we did get to see several of the awesome arches -Double arch, Delicate arch, Balanced rock and more. The easy Jeep trail to Gemini Bridges was also a lot of fun. A short hiking trail leads you to massive double natural bridges that are well worth seeing.
All of the places had something different to see and it was well worth going to all four places. And oh -as discussed in earlier posts, HWY 12 between Escalante and boulder IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. Especially in a big ol motorhome. Coming from an experienced mountain driver and a MH owner of about 13 years now, I can honestly say I will probably never take that particular route again. There is one point where you are driving at the tip top of a very steep mountain on a very narrow two lane road for about a mile or so. I swear my lane was about as wide as our MH with no guard rails and a shear drop off right past the solid white line to my right. Of course i drove down the middle of the road when I could but ended up meeting two cars during it. There was absolute silence and white knuckles grasping the steering wheel during that stretch. HWY 12 was absolutely beautiful though. So much different scenery along the way but you do have to watch out for the many cows that will be in the road. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post.:)
1. Zion - The Narrows was one of the coolest things we did on our trip. We rented boots, neoprene socks and walking sticks from Zion Guru in Springdale where we stayed. We hiked for about 2 1/2 hours up the narrows and then back out. The scenery was awesome and it only seemed to get better the farther in you go. The Emerald pools hike was fun as was the short hike to weeping rock.
2. Bryce canyon - The Queen's garden hike was probably the highlight of the Bryce canyon stay. Its one of the best ways to hike through the Hoodoos without having to take a super long hike. I think it was about 2 miles long if you hike the trail down into the canyon and then take one of the Navaho loop hikes back up the canyon. Both Navaho loop trails have steep zig zagy parts as they go back up the canyon. beautiful hike! Rubys inn campground gave us one of there best spots overlooking a field and small lake. Pronghorn would come down to the field and graze every day that we were there.
3. Grand Staircase / Escalante - The cotton wood narrows was a cool hike that we only saw one other family on during the hike. Kodachrome state park was really cool though we only drove through it to see the sites. it looked like there were some good hikes there. The petrified forest hike near Escalante was really cool. Its not a whole forest of petrified trees, just the remanence of some petrified trees but we really enjoyed the hike.The highlight of our Escalante stay was the Dry fork slot canyons. Not an easy trek but well worth it. You do have to hike a ways don into a wash to get to the slot canyons. We first hiked the dry fork narrows trail as far in as we could go and then back out. We then hiked peek-a-boo. Entering this slot canyon is NOT EASY. Once in you are pretty much committed as you don't want to go back down out of the entrance. The slot canyon is beautiful but not easy to navigate. You eventually have to hike up a rock face out of it and a trail leads you back to the main wash. Im not going to lie. this slot canyon had us a little nervous as it was pretty late in the day when we started it. On the way out to these slot canyons, along Hole in the rock road was Devils Garden. Really cool rock formations here.
4. Arches N.P. / Moab - We towed our Jeep to the Jeep mecca of the U.S. - Moab, UT. I didn't wand to take it on one of the many hardcore trails and have something bad happen too us while 850 miles from home so I found a cool 3.2 mile moderate Jeep trail (as they are called in Moab) to Tower Arch within Arches N.P.. The trail was a lot of fun. Arches was very busy with people but we did get to see several of the awesome arches -Double arch, Delicate arch, Balanced rock and more. The easy Jeep trail to Gemini Bridges was also a lot of fun. A short hiking trail leads you to massive double natural bridges that are well worth seeing.
All of the places had something different to see and it was well worth going to all four places. And oh -as discussed in earlier posts, HWY 12 between Escalante and boulder IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. Especially in a big ol motorhome. Coming from an experienced mountain driver and a MH owner of about 13 years now, I can honestly say I will probably never take that particular route again. There is one point where you are driving at the tip top of a very steep mountain on a very narrow two lane road for about a mile or so. I swear my lane was about as wide as our MH with no guard rails and a shear drop off right past the solid white line to my right. Of course i drove down the middle of the road when I could but ended up meeting two cars during it. There was absolute silence and white knuckles grasping the steering wheel during that stretch. HWY 12 was absolutely beautiful though. So much different scenery along the way but you do have to watch out for the many cows that will be in the road. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post.:)
