Southern Utah

BarryG20 wrote:


Not sure what you are driving but if you have a TV or toad in Capital Reef go down the Notom Rd on the east side of the park take it to the Burr Trail go up the Burr trail and you will come out at Boulder on HWY 12 take 12 down into Torrey and back to your starting place. Take a few hours but the Notom/Burr Trail are fairly lightly traveled and scenery is great. Hopefully you will have already or will be taking hwy 12 towards Bryce/Zion as that is a must drive. In Canyon Lands again if you have TV or decent toad you can take the Schaefer trail from Canyonlands Island in the Sky section down into Moab instead of taking the main road back out, high clearance would be good but no need for 4wd. Don't forget to stop at Dead Horse Point while up there. Also south of Moab near the Needles district of Canyonlands is the Rim Recreation Area good road leading out to the rim in 2 or 3 places road all paved iirc.

I see from your tagline you have a pickup, the above are all great suggestions. At CRNP instead of turning onto the Notam road turn on the other side of the highway on the Hartnet Road, depending on your exact rout will take you on a 60-70 mile loop road thru spectacular scenery, the Temples of the moon and sun for one. The road is good western gravel road with a few possible water crossings.

There are a couple of excellent FHU CG in Torrey besides the park CG that require reservations if you expect to get in.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon is another cooler site that you might want to add to your list. It has a number of great backroad drives, talk to the Rangers. There is a FHU CG at Jacob Lake and a NF/BLM ranger station too. A longish drive into the park but scenic with light traffic. Lots of short, often paved trails with great scenery. Light crowds compared to the cattle herd on the South Rim.

Bryce is also cool and has some good short hikes and the loop drive is excellent. Kodachrome SP is near and worth a trip and there is a road running south from there that goes by Grosvenor Arch, you can boondock at the arch and the road continues south to an old movie set.

A word about these Utah and western gravel roads, if rain is predicted stay off the roads. They can become impassable even to 4WD vehicles after a hard rain and stay that way for a day. Gumbo mud. Always talk to the rangers before heading out on one, there could have been a wash out or something else blocking the road.