Utah Trip, Part 1, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef NPs

Hello Everyone! I finally got about half of my pictures organized from our mid May trip to the five southern Utah National Parks. It was a fantastic trip and we had almost perfect weather. There were showers both afternoons we were in Bryce Canyon, but that didn’t stop us from exploring. In this post, I’m sharing a few photos from Zion, Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks. It was hard to pick just a few but I think they represent what we did and saw in each park.

Drive from La Verkin to Zion

We had an early flight from Washington Dulles Airport to Salt Lake City, then had a four hour drive to our first destination near Zion NP. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up dinner and some things for breakfast and lunches to get us through the first half of the trip. I made sure each of the places we stayed had a refrigerator and microwave.

**Tip #1: You can save money on accommodations if you don’t stay in the towns where the entrance to Zion and Bryce are. We spent two nights near Zion at La Verkin in Zion’s Camp and Cottages and two nights near Bryce at Tropic in the Bryce Pioneer Village Motel. From both places it was no more than a 25 minute drive to the park.

We did a lot of hiking everyday, usually between 5 to 7 miles with some elevation changes. We packed lunch everyday and found a place to eat in the parks. In Zion, we had lunch at the lodge after our 7 mile hiking morning and ate our lunch for dinner that night. We did start early every day, getting to most of the parks before 7 AM. We planned the night before what we wanted to do the next day.

**Tip #2: get an early start. You beat the heat and the crowds this way. In Zion, you had to park at the visitor center and ride a bus through the canyon part of the park. The buses start at 7 AM and even though we were in the park by 6:40, we were on the third bus and each bus could take around 100 passengers. A lady we sat next to on the first morning recommended that we get to all the parks before 7 AM, even Arches where we needed to have an entrance time between 7 AM and 4 PM. She was right. After 9 AM, it would have been hard to find parking at some of the parks.

Zion NP

On our first morning in Zion, we did two hikes. The first one was on the Riverside Walk Trail at the end of the Canyon and went to the Narrows, the first picture below. We weren’t going to hike any further than we had, but the rest of the trail was closed because of high water.

The Narrows Trail goes through the Canyon, and most of the time just has a little water to walk through.

As you can see, it was beautiful in the early morning with the sun rising on the rocks. We experienced that in all the parks. Another reason to get to the parks early.

Riding the bus down from the last stop 9, to stop 6, we started our second hike which took us to the middle and upper Emerald Pools. It started out up hill and stayed that way until we got to the upper pool. There were also rocks to climb up and over. That was a common occurrence throughout the week. From there, we hiked The Kayenta Trail and part of the Sand Beach Trail to get back to stop 4 on the bus. Access to the trail was closed at Stop 5 , which is why we hiked so long that day. These trails were above the canyon and went along the lower edge of the cliffs. We are fairly certain that we saw three California Condors flying high above us about mid-way through the hike. A ranger told us that there are about 100 condors in the park. We took the bus back to Stop 5 to see the lodge. We thought a good lunch was in order which is why we ate at the lodge that day. Afterwards, we went to the Visitor Center to buy our trinkets, then left the park and explored around the town of Springdale, just outside the park. Needless to say we were tired when we got back to our room.

Our second day at Zion began with a hike on the Watchman Trail which started near the Visitor Center. It was a beautiful hike up through a smaller canyon.

This is a view from the end of the trail, looking towards the main part of the park.

After finishing the Watchman hike, we drove through the eastern part of the park towards the east entrance. You can see the road we were on and at the very end was about a mile long tunnel. Our last hike in Zion on the Canyon Overlook Trial took us to the point above after a fairly steep climb in half a mile and about 160 feet in elevation.

**Tip #3: Before you go, take time to do some walking so you can enjoy some of the incredible views. My husband and I are in good shape, but walking and hiking between 4500 ft and 9000 ft is different anyway. To really enjoy the places in these parks, you can’t just observe from the parking lots. I will just say that a lot of people were hiking, but some were having an easier time of it than others.

Bryce Canyon NP

After our Canyon Overlook hike, we continued to depart from Zion. There was probably another 20 miles of park to see on our way out. It took about 2 1/2 hours to drive to Bryce Canyon from the overlook parking lot. At Bryce, we found the closet picnic area to the park entrance and had a late lunch. Just as we were finishing, the clouds got darker and there was some lightening in the area. After lunch, we went to the Visitor Center to get our trinkets. I collect pins and patches from each park we visit. That was enough for the day, so we went to our motel where we had dinner. Tropic was very small and only had two or three restaurants. There are several more restaurants in Bryce Canyon City just before the entrance to the park.

Again we were up and out early, nothing was open in Tropic yet. We wanted coffee so we stopped in Bryce Canyon City for a buffet breakfast at one of the hotels. We had asked at the visitor center when we should be in the park to get a good parking spot and they told us before 9 AM. We were in the park by eight, and even though the lots were getting filled, we parked where we wanted to.

Even though we had been in the park the afternoon before, we had not seen any of the canyon yet. Above was our first view of the Bryce Amphitheater. It was stunning. We started our hike that morning at the Sunset Point and walked along the Rim Trail to Sunrise Point. The Rim Trail is a paved sidewalk and relatively flat. There are great views of the canyon from this trail.

But we wanted to explore more, so we hiked down into the amphitheater on the Queen’s Garden Trail and back up on the Navajo Loop Trail. We descended into the canyon for about 450 ft. Along the way we had close up views of the rock formations, called Hoodoos in Bryce. At the bottom of the trail, we went through a wooded section before heading back up to the rim.

There were some steep spots on the way down, but nothing like going back up. Before we reached this section of switchbacks, we had already ascended a steep incline. We went through an arch at the end of the switchbacks, and I thought we were going to be at the top. Nope, we probably had another hundred or so feet of very steep incline before reaching the top.

**Tip #4: take your time climbing and stop and rest before you get winded. On a few of our hikes near home, my husband has gotten totally out of breath while hiking a steep trail and it takes him a several minutes to recover. The rim was at 8000 ft and we needed to climb back up that 450 ft. I told him that we would stop about every 30 ft and rest before going on to the next section. That worked! Although we both still got short of breath, it didn’t get out of control. You can see in the picture above, everyone was stopping to rest at some point or another.

After reaching the top, we took a little break before moving onto our next stop. We drove out to Rainbow Point, an 18 mile drive on the park road. We did another short, but flattish hike at 9100 ft on the Bristlecone Loop Trail. On the way back to the main park we stopped at some of the pull offs to see the rest of the canyon. We were going to find a picnic table for lunch, but it started to rain, so we had lunch in the car that day. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get onto the road to see the Bryce Point overlook, but it was worth the wait.

There were three points along this road and this is the view from Bryce Point. It was amazing! We took the morning hike one ridge over. There were trails that wound through this area, but most were considered strenuous.

We were done after about 2 PM. We headed back to the motel for a nap, then had dinner again at the motel restaurant. The food was good and we could walk to it. There was a firepit with a fire every night. We sat by the fire on the first night, but we were tired on the second night so had and early evening. The two hour time difference favored us in the mornings and most nights we were in bed before it was dark.

Scenic Highway 12

We turned onto Highway 12 shortly before reaching Bryce Canyon. We didn’t know until after driving on it from Tropic to shortly before reaching Capitol Reef NP, that it’s considered one of the top 10 scenic drives in the US.

We drove through all types of terrain. The two pictures above show part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

We also crossed Boulder Mountain at 9100 ft. There were some spectacular views from this part of the road. We also drove through several aspen forests. We are just cresting the top in the picture above. You can see that the aspens have not even leafed out yet in mid May. This part of the drive would be beautiful in the fall when the golden aspen leaves are shining in the sun.

As we were heading into Capitol Reef NP, the scenery changed again. Back into more red rocks, only different.

Capitol Reef NP

We are officially in Capitol Reef in the picture above at Panorama Point. You could see for miles in every direction here. Unfortunately, the Scenic Drive through the park is closed for the summer of 2024 while they widen the road.

After getting information at the Visitor’s Center, we drove as far as possible on the Scenic Road and did a short hike on the Grand Wash Trail before lunch. But first we stopped at the Gifford House to buy a pie for lunch because they closed during lunch time.

Through the Grand Wash, there was a trail on the side sometimes, but mostly we walked through a wash to get to the Narrows. The trail continued on, but we were only spending a few hours here. We were told this hike would give us the flavor of the part of the park that was closed.

The center part of the park along the river was once the settlement of Fruita. The Mormon settlers planted orchards which the park service still maintains today. It was totally different with all the green grass and the trees than the surrounding mountains.

We shared a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie for dessert, one my husband’s favorites. The pies are all made with locally grown fruit and were delicious! We should have bought two and had one for dinner as well.

After lunch, we walked along a boardwalk to see the petroglyphs. They are estimated to have been carved between 300 and 1300 CE. It’s amazing they can still be seen after all these years. There was so much more we could have done in this park, even with the road closed, but we just didn’t have the time.

If our drive from Bryce to Capitol Reef was scenic, we went through some very barren sections of the drive on our way to Moab. We went through miles of these gray rocks after leaving Capitol Reef.

After turning north towards I70, we went through 30 miles of desert. There were a few wildflowers blooming on the edge of the road, otherwise, there was nothing, no ranches, no trees, nothing. It was very interesting for a mile or so, then it was boring. Fortunately it didn’t go on forever. We reached Moab in late afternoon, and settled in for the next five nights.

I will be back next week with the second part of our trip, Arches and Canyonlands NPs. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our trip. This post will be a nice recap for us as we look back on our trip in a few years.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Brenda