Southern Utah - Fall season of 2013

A 5 Day Tour of the Southern Utah National Parks


After returning from this very memorable tour of the Southern Utah region, I thought of capturing the memories and moments in form of this Travelogue which may help an inspired visitor plan out his/her trip even better than what we did.  Starting from Las Vegas by car, we toured by car, the Zion, Bryce, Capitol and Arches National Parks in that order and returned to Las Vegas - total journey of over 1200 miles - in 5 days Nov 6, 2013 - Nov 10, 2013. The next day we  flew back to New York. I can say this, that had we got more time on our hands, we would surely have lingered around more in Bryce and Arches National Park, at least a day more each.

Background:  Frankly we were not aware of the Natural beauty that lay hidden in this Southern Utah region despite our several visits to US. We were planning to go to Yellowstone national Park but thanks to the timely advice from one of the Tripadvisor readers, we learnt that except one all other entrances to Yellowstone had shut down for winter and the park would be buried under lots of snow. The Tripadvisor lady advised us to tour Southern Utah National Parks and thats when my research turned to finding out more about the region and chalking out an itinerary.  We did visit Yellowstone eventually the following year and you can read about that post in my other blog post shortly.

Highlights: The entire Southern Utah region is very enchanting and has  a variety of colorful rock and you can see elements of nature at work here sculpting  away the hills into arches, canyons, towers, amphitheaters, caves and shapes like these. The air is clean, pollution non existent(I read in a visitor center there that the air in this region was rated as the CLEANEST in the entire USA). You can see as far as the eye can see all around - that gives you some idea of the vastness of the place.

First things First:  If you look at the Google Maps, you will see that The Parks are to the North East of Las Vegas, West of Denver, South of Salt Lake City and North of FlagStaff.

Day 0: We arrived in Las Vegas from New York around 4 pm, rented a car which turned out to be a huge Dodge Grand Caravan and checked in to Circus Circus which we had reserved online thru Booking.com. I will say that the Hotel was once a great place but no longer. Also, it is not  walking distance from the happening places on the Strip. But anyways, we just needed an overnight place to stay.

Day1: We started off in morning around 8 am towards Zion national Park by taking the Route 15N towards Salt Lake City. Once you leave the bustling Las Vegas behind, the road is quite deserted. We had a quick breakfast stop. After a sumptuous American breakfast, we headed further on and reached Zion by 11:30 am. The view along way was spectacular. The color of the hills and texture of the rocks change every few miles. Right at the entrance of Zion National Park is a cosy little Visitors Center. Perhaps because it was a weekday and early winter time, there were hardly 2-3 other visitors. However, the staff in the Visitor center was very helpful and with their advise, we made the most of the few hours of our journey thru Zion onwards to Bryce Canyon outskirts. It was just as good that we decided to take our overnight stop near by to Bryce Canyon entrance because in Bryce there was a very different world of rock formation that awaited us the next day. The hotels where we stayed was part of the Best Western chain but this was really a high class Best Western which had a nice and cosy fire place in the Lobby with antique furniture. The staff was very courteous and our rooms were spacious and elegant.

Day 2: We had planned that we will make the most of the day light and so we woke up early and after savoring a great breakfast at the hotel, headed out to view the sights with in Bryce.  If you have not seen or heard of Hoodoos (which is the local name for the unique pinnacle rock formations), let me say that the first viewing will take your breath away. Its awesome, enchanting and magnificent. Hoodoos is a native name that American Indians gave the formation. You dont see them immediately when you enter the park but when you park your car and walk up a few hundred feet upto the viewing point, there they appear below, infront and around you. There are literally thousands of Hoodoos every where as far as eye can see. Each Hoodoo is in a different stage - some are getting 'born', others are mature 'adults' and some others decaying.  Hoodoos are formed by slow erosion in a bed of rock where some layers peel away at faster and others at slower pace. The forces of Wind, Ice & water are always working to chip away and carve out these structures. You can see the famous natural Amphitheater formed due to a particular way in which Hoodoos have grown in the region.

We were able to take a few trails which involved 4-5 miles of walking up and down inclines. One point to note is that in Bryce you are at an average elevation of 7000 feet+. There was snow and Ice on the ground and temperatures were a not so cold 2-3 degrees Celsius. It was tiring but a wonderful experience that no one should miss. We watched the Sunset and headed back to our cosy Best Western for a good nights rest before driving on another few hundred miles onto Capitol Reef National Park enroute to Arches national park.


Day 3: We started early morning as the previous day and after gassing up our Dodge caravan, we again entered Bryce national Park since the road leading to Capitol Reef branches out from with in the Bryce Canyon National Park. It is called Route UT 12 which is the Scenic Highway and what a lovely road it turned out to be. It is a long drive to Capitol Reef and it will take up about 5-6 hours. So be prepared. Along the way, there are 3 very beautiful towns. Hemley was one I recollect. Its quite picturesque. We did not take any lunch break until we arrived at Tory which is a small town at the entrance of Capitol Reef. We had booked the only available hotel there which is Days Inn. After checking in and having a couple of sandwiches from the only Subway in town, we headed inside to see the Capitol Reef National Park. Unlike any other park, this one does not have any entry charge or even a formal entrance and we did'nt quite realize when we had already entered the park. The rock formation along the hills on both sides were indeed Reef like. There were hardly any tourists there. We stopped at the Sunset point and waited for the sun set to snap a few pictures and then headed back outside to our hotel for the night halt. Having warned by the Hotel reception that the only food place in town - a little pizza place, shuts down by 8 pm, we had stocked up on veg. Lasagna as our dinner. However, we were so tired by 9 pm that we ate a little and slept off peacefully.


Day 4: As had become customary, we woke up early and after a simple breakfast, bade good by to Days Inn and drove thru Capitol Reef Park towards Arches National Park. Journey is long and the landscape is fairly rocky & barren. We were heading to Moeb, a large town about 5 miles south of the entrance of Arches National Park. We reached Moeb around 1 pm. Since we had a choice of restaurants, we decided to indulge in Mexican food and thanks to Google Maps, found a great place. It was very good - as good as what you get in some larger west coast cities in California. Then we decided to utilize the 2-3 hours of sunlight that we had for viewing the Arches National Park sights. This place was relatively very busy - there were over 50 cars ahead of us as we entered the park. The length of the park is about 18 miles but there are places along the way to park and venture in land. Unless one does that, you can not view even a single Arch. Arches national park has over 2000 arches - the count is what has been discovered until now. The biggest Arch is Landscape Arch. To view it, you have to take a 1.5 miles trail inland. We positioned ourselves prepared to shoot some pictures of the spectacular Sunset during which the fading light, colors the Arches and rocks in a very beautiful way.  After viewing the sunset, we headed back to our Hotel called the Big Horn Lodge, almost entirely made of Wood. The town also offered a micro brewery - so we decided to pay it a visit. It turned out to be a very lively place - bustling with locals and tourists. It also offered some good vegetarian choice of menu so we decided to have our dinner there. By the time we had eaten, we felt very sleepy - so we headed to our real cosy Hotel room and went off to sleep.

Day 5: We knew we had a long (478 miles) drive ahead of us back to Las vegas. So we had good breakfast and got on I-70W which is a 2 lane Interstate and where speed limit is 80. With the cruise control facility offered by the vehicle, driving was easy and less tiring. We managed to make it to our Las vegas hotel by 3 pm. First thing was we returned our rental vehicle since our flight was early morning. We had the entire evening too ourselves which we decided to use for seeing some good Shows offered by Las Vegas hotels. MGM grand was a place I was familiar with and so with out much beating around the bush, we decided to see the Magic show by David Copperfield at MGM. We also did the traditional trying of our luck at the slot machines. The luck was on casino's side. The show was good. Special effects and technology was simply amazing. We had some nice dinner and retired for the night.

Day 6: We took the early morning American non stop to new york flight and were headed to our temporary US home  in Manhattan.  We had covered 1200 miles in 5 days. What started as an idea a month ago when we were discussing where to go, had materialized and had become memory. A lot of help came from some great advice that I got on Tripadvisor and of course the GoogleMaps was the best buddy thru out the driving.

Great Place Utah!! Hope we can visit more parks in the region soon.

Some Travel Tips:

Make sure you are in a reliable and comfortable vehicle because you will be traversing a lot of empty stretches of road and there is no one visible for miles around. Also,make sure your gas tank is topped up.

If you are visiting in summer, please do carry a portable cooler (Thermocole one that you get at any grocery store for under $20 is good enough) and load it with ice bags and water, juices etc.

Be flexible about food or carry your own as most small villages where you will halt overnight dont exactly offer a menu spread. You can always purchase food from Trading posts which can be microwaved and consumed.

Carry a good Camera !!


Safe Travels!