Utah National Park Road Trip – Utah Travel
We had a blast hitting up the mighty five in Utah and also the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. If you wanna check out our trip and recommendations all you have to do is keep reading!
North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park
The Grand Canyon as we all know, is one of the most popular national parks and with that is one of the most crowded. We have visited both the South and North Rims of Grand Canyon National Park and I will explain the differences between both. The drive into the South Rim is more of a desert landscape and this is where most of the tourists are. On this side it might even be hard to find a parking spot while getting into the park. We visited the South Rim in January when it was a bit colder and there was still a large crowd. On this roadtrip through Arizona and Utah we decided to stop by the North rim. The drive up to the North rim was absolutely breathtaking. It no longer felt like we were in Arizona, but felt like a mountain town, with pine trees surrounding us, and big meadows where on some days you can even see Bison! It reminded us of going through Idaho and Montana! The roads were not crowded and in many areas we were the only car on the road. When we arrived to the parking lot we were surprised at how little people were there. We were amazed by the views we got to see as soon as we got out of the car. There was a thunderstorm going on while the sun was setting which set us up for a spectacular view! I would definitely recommend checking out the North rim when you make it out to the Grand Canyon! Here are a few of the beautiful views from our trip!
Next Stop: Arches and Canyonlands
After leaving the Grand Canyon we started our trip to an airbnb called “The Domes at Canyonlands.” We have stayed in tons of air bnb’s but let me just tell you, this was one of the coolest ones yet. The Domes are in a little town in Utah called Monticello. It literally is a white dome with basically a tiny house inside. The Dome was clean, spacious, they provided coffee, a fridge, a clean bed, and our own unique bathroom that had a shower as well! There were tons of deer in the area which made the drive there pretty slow because we didn’t want to hit one, apparently over 400 deer get hit on the road leading here per year, which is insane! When we got there we went outside to stargaze and this was literally the clearest we had ever seen the stars, we could even see the Milky Way! I definitely recommend staying here, and I’ll link the air bnb below!
Arches National Park is only offering timed entry right now, so be sure to reserve a spot before you get there! They are pretty lenient on still letting you in if you get there after your allotted time slot, so that’s nice. This was definitely one of the busiest national parks we visited, but still an amazing experience! There are over 2,000 natural arches in the park so even if the main one’s have crowds surrounding them, you are bound to find an arch to explore. Be sure to have water in this park because if the sun is out, it’s scorching! Next, we were off to Canyonlands!
To be honest, we didn’t know what to expect with Canyonlands, but it ended up being on the top of our lists of favorite parks we visited during this trip! The main highlight was this off roading trail(you can definitely still do this with a regular car). If you like getting your adrenaline pumping, this is the adventure for you, the trail rides alongside the giant canyon! The trail is named “Shafer trail” if you want to check it out, and it is near the entrance of the park. There were a few short hikes to different lookouts and also to Mesa Arch! Mesa arch was a lot less crowded than the ones in Arches national park, so if you want to check one out without a crowd this is the place to go.
Day 4: Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon National Park
Next up, Capitol Reef! Capitol Reef made its way to the bottom of our list just because it was smaller, we didn’t find as much to do, and it was also dangerous to go out on the trails both on foot or off-roading. We were also on a time crunch so that we could make it to Bryce Canyon with enough daylight, so that could also be why it did not stand out as much as the others. That being said, the area by the visitor center was very pretty, and we did find a viewpoint overlooking the Colorado river which was beautiful!
Bryce Canyon made #1 on the list for this trip! Before we even officially got to the welcome center in the park we saw a pullout for a moss cave, so we had to go see it! The cave was awesome, but the walk to it was even more amazing! We got to walk through a crystal clear stream that was right by the path which led to a waterfall! Bryce Canyon is really special because it is a mixture of the red/orange clay formations called Hoodoos mixed with all the greenery in the forest. We made sure we stopped at every overlook and were in awe of all of the views we saw. We ended the day off with the famous hike “Wall Street.” This hike takes you right through the hoodoo forest and you will see how large these things really are! Normally this hike is extremely crowded, but we did it right before the sun set and were the only people there for a while! I recommend doing it then rather than during the heat of the day with crowds. Next, we are on our way to Zion!!
Last stop: Zion
We have visited Zion National Park previously so we really only had one thing on our to-do list which was hiking “The Narrows.” If you haven’t heard of the Narrows, it is a nine mile hike and most of it is through a water. Zion is definitely the most crowded park we’ve seen so we knew what to expect. We did this hike with hundreds of other people but still managed to find our own spots to have fun and enjoy ourselves. One thing to look out for while doing this hike is thunderstorms. Flash floods happen out of no-where and it is important to keep an eye out for the weather. There was a flash flood warning while we were there so we had to be very cautious doing this hike because it goes through slot canyons. We were not able to complete this hike during this visit because of the storm brewing, but we’d love to go back and do it again. Something that is highly recommended for this hike is walking sticks! The stream has clay under it that almost feels like quick sand and it is extremely easy to slip or fall off of the rocks in the water. As scary as it was to constantly be slipping in the mud, it added a lot more fun to this trip and made it a fun challenge. Who doesn’t love a fun adventurous challenge, am I right? As soon as we left Zion the storm rolled in so we were grateful we got out when we did!
Would we do it again?
We would definitely visit most of these parks again, half a day in each park just isn’t enough to take it all in. There were also a few more fun stops that we made on the way! We went to Horseshoe bend, and kayaked at Lake Powell. Lake Powell was so much fun and we are definitely going to be spending some time there in the future! I hope you enjoyed reading this and learned a little bit more about what to do at these parks! Keep following along for more of our adventures! Next up.. Hawaii!!