Utah's Mighty 5- Mini trip report May, 2024

It was also critical that we got an early start on all our hikes. Not just to avoid the worst of the crowds on the trails, but the heat too. Especially towards the end of our trip, it was starting to get hot! It was nice to get our hiking done in the am and then relax on our deck or balcony enjoying the beauty that surrounded us. It's good that I'm a morning person and my husband is too. It was an awesome trip and I had so much fun with my family. Utah blew us away with it's stunning beauty. If you comment on this thread, please tell me what National Park has been your favorite. I have now been to 24. I really, really want to get to Yellowstone and Yosemite. Oh and one more thing. So many different languages were heard on our hikes. People come from all over the world to see our National Parks. They really are one of our best ideas!

I have planned three Utah NP trips in the past few years and due to various circumstances, have had to cancel each of them. Maybe next year will be the year I go!

You asked about favorite National Parks. My favorite is Saguaro National Park (East side), simply because it is a ten minute drive from my home. It has a lovely seven mile drive with many pull outs and trail heads, and the wonderful Saguaro cactus. I go quite often and it is one of my "happy places".

Other favorites are the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. I've only been to Yellowstone once, in the fall, but would love to go in the early spring some time.

Thanks for the great trip report, Tammy!

Sherry, I hope you get to Utah soon. My mom lives in Arizona and on my next visit, I'm going to head to Tucson to visit that park!

Great, Tammy! If you need any suggestions about the Tucson area, feel free to PM me. I hope that you visit when it gets cooler outside - during October through March, the weather is usually nice. The high temperature today is forecasted to be 110 F!

Thanks for your report, Tammy. We went to Arches on our drive moving to California in 1977 and to Zion and Bryce about 30 years ago. Zion is the one I’d most like to see again.

I’ve loved almost all 26 that I’ve visited. Some favorites would be Yosemite, Mesa Verde, and Olympic. We plan a return to Yosemite in October. The one I haven’t visited and hope to visit next is Glacier.

Thanks for this, Tammy. We've done your trip several times, though usually in reverse order, driving from Olympia. Capitol Reef is probably my favorite of the Utah parks, mostly because it's less visited but also easy to access from the highway. Too bad the scenic drive was closed. If you return, another way to see the Waterpocket Fold is on the Burr Trail, now paved, which takes off from 12 south of Torrey. It drops to the river, then goes on east, unpaved, over the Fold to a road, also unpaved, that runs back north to the highway between Torrey and Hanksville. I did this in a rented Kia Sportage (4WD) years ago, it does require 4WD -- unless they've paved it by now. But any car should be OK for the Burr Trail down to the river.

The view from 12 south of Torrey includes the Fold and also the Henry Mountains -- the last mountains in the lower 48 to have been surveyed and mapped. That probably doesn't get to you, as an Alaskan, the way it gets to me. And in the town of Boulder, along 12, the Boulder Mountain Lodge is a great place to stay, eat, and look at the view (including night sky).

I hope you enjoyed Dinosaur NP, Park City, and Salt Lake. Thanks for sharing your experiences and helping me reminisce about some good times!

Dick, is that road part of the road called "Loop the fold?" I had read in my research that it is a 100 mile or so unpaved drive, so that made it out for us. Anyways, if I am ever in the area again, I want to drive the scenic drive in Capital Reef, but I do have other parks I need to get to!

Thank you for the written trip report, I heard your verbal one on the Bay Area Travel Group last week but fun to see a few more words on it. This is bucket list trip for me so I'm bookmarking for someday.

As for favorite national park, mine would be Crater Lake, the only NP in Oregon. You've never really seen the color blue until you see the lake there.

CL, I've been to Crater Lake and seen that blue. I loved it so much, I went back another time, but this time I went in June instead of the September time I had been previously. Ha! There was snow around the lake and the color was totally different. I preferred the first visit!

Yes Tammy, I must have been describing the "Loop the Fold" drive. From the description you linked, it's hard to tell what is paved and not paved. But I remember the Notom-Bullfrog Road, Muley Twist, and the Burr Trail. Another great area in the park is Cathedral Valley, north of Hwy 24. We went through that with a guide in a big Land Rover type vehicle, I wouldn't do it any other way. Good luck with all the other parks on your list.

Oooohhhh, cannot wait to read this!!!

Fun trip report, Tammy! My family has been on a National Parks kick too, thanks to my son. We visited Zion and Bryce Canyon in April and did several of the same hikes. Last year we visited Arches, Canyonlands and Mesa Verde (in Colorado). So far I think Arches and Bryce Canyon are my favorites. The rock formations against the blue sky are so striking! This summer we are hoping to use our parks pass more and visit one of the Washington parks.

Well, Arches is certainly a favorite. Grand Tetons is so photogenic...I wish I'd had a digital camera way back then.

And it's a National Forest, not a park, but Maroon Bells (Colorado) looks like it was crafted for landscape painters. I'm not sure how easy it is to get to these days. I think entrance has changed since the days when I went car camping around there.

CL, I've been to Crater Lake and seen that blue. I loved it so much, I
went back another time, but this time I went in June instead of the
September time I had been previously. Ha! There was snow around the
lake and the color was totally different. I preferred the first visit!

There are years the rim road doesn't open until very late June because of snow, we don't really call it summer here until after July 1 :) Sadly due to wildfires often September is no longer a great time to go due to smoke, but glad you saw the blue in all its glory that time of year.

CL, Crater Lake is the prettiest lake I have ever seen. And I’m hoping to go there again as my husband has never seen it (he didn’t get out much before I came into his life)!

Awesome report--brought back so many memories. In April 2018 we went to Arches, Canyonlands, and Bears Ears (National Monument). Did wonderful hikes in all those places. Stayed in Moab (or rather outside of Moab) at Red Cliffs Lodge. Still need to go back and see Capitol Reef, Bryce, and Zion. My favorite NP here in WA is Olympic, and my favorite NP outside of WA so far is Joshua Tree. I have only been to 13 (of the 63 I believe). Can't believe I have lived in the PNW my whole life and never been to Crater Lake!

I love this post, Tammy! My husband and I and dog took off in March this year and we were gone 24 days. We headed south to Houston to visit our son for 2 days and then headed west. We were pulling our travel trailer and camped our way through NM, AZ, CA and back again. We did 5 National Parks: Carlsbad Caverns, Saguaro, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest. We also did a few days in San Diego, very fun place. Plus we stopped at Meteor Crater too. I highly recommend that, always wanted to go there and it was very cool. We’ve done a few big camping travels that were national park intensive since my husband retired in 2013. It’s fun to link them together.

We’ve been to 30 so far, including Denali and Kenai Fjords in Alaska. How many in AK have you been to? Some of them are really hard to get to unfortunately. I can’t say I have a favorite and I still haven’t made it to Pam’s favorite, Yellowstone, but I hope it isn’t too much longer before we can head that way.

Thanks for the trip report, Tammy. Utah’s 5 national parks are on my list for future travel.

@Pete, don't feel bad. My mom has been in Arizona for 12 years and I've done the GC, but not the other two. Petrified and Saguaro.

@Lyndash-that sounds like a great road trip. We did Carlsbad and White Sands last summer, not the best time as it was very hot, but only time we could go. In Alaska, I have been to Katmai, Kenjai Fjords, Wrangell St. Elias and Glacier Bay. I'm not sure I will get to the others, Kobuk, Lake Clark and Gates of the Arctic. Those three are very hard to get to and I am not a fan of flying on small planes. I do highly recommend Katmai though. I got up close and personal with a grizzly bear there. I won't forget that!

Our daughter was a wilderness ranger on Admiralty Island for several years and we flew up one year to visit her. We toured Juneau and some on the inner passage by ferry back in the very late 90s. We also came very close (very unplanned) to a Brown Bear while hiking with her on the island. Our daughter even knew her name. The bear bounded onto our path, turned and did a double take, which was funny later, and took off in the opposite direction thankfully. Whew. Once was definitely enough.

Yeah all the small planes, not a fan. I don’t even like getting into the big ones! We did drive up to the Arctic Circle in 2017 on a long camping trip with our trailer. Alaska is an amazing place.

Best backpacking trip I ever did was Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--totally life changing (with Sierra Club).

I love Capitol Reef. We did what I call the Semi-circle: Capitol Reef, Bryce, Zion, and North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The North Rim was great. It was much less crowded than the South Rim, and the lodge is very handsome. I told my husband we should go back to stay in the cabins.
I’m not sure I could pick a favorite NP. Possibly my favorite NPmemory was when my family hiked Haleakala Crater when I was in elementary school. That was hard, but magical.

This thread brought back so many wonderful memories.

My first visit to Crater Lake was at the end of August. It had rained the night before in Grant's Pass and as I drove up the mountain I began to see snow on the trees. Half of the lake rim was covered in snow, as were the building rooftops. It looked like a Christmas card. My first view of the lake was actually breath-taking. Later I joked with the post office lady that in northern Minnesota they say they have 2 seasons, winter and July 4th. She retorted - we had snow here on July 4.

Tammy, there's so much to see around Flagstaff. . . Wupatki NM and Walnut Canyon NM (Indian ruins). I just read an article that in Flagstaff, you can view the Milky Way on your doorstep. Drive the switchbacks of Oak Creek Canyon in the fall.

All of the Four Corners aka Colorado Plateau aka Grand Circle has great sights and tons of history . . . Indians, Spanish conquistadors and wagon trains of Americans heading for California.

Tammy that sounds so well-planned - arriving Las Vegas and departing SLC. Thank you for this trip report. I have bookmarked it ! Love hearing everyone's favorite National Parks, too. I have to admit I haven't been to many. My favorite is probably Acadia in Maine.

This is sooo on my bucket list and I hope to get to it eventually, but I'd probably go alone so would be more hesitant to hike any further than 2-3 miles out, since if something goes wrong, I'd have no one to help me. I like the idea of going from Vegas to SLC (I've never been there) rather than backtracking, but wonder how that would impact the cost of a rental car. Then again, I'd love to see Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon again, so maybe I'd fly out of Phoenix. So many possibilities.

I was kind of thinking this would be a good trip for late May before school lets out, but when it's probably warm enough, but not too hot. Does that seem about right? Maybe September would be better?

I thought Yellowstone was just beautiful and the GC is breathtaking because of how enormous it is, but something about the badlands just took my breath away.

Tammy, so glad your trip turned out so well! I love Utah and it's parks. My brother lives in SLC, and so I try to get out there every few years. The last time we went, we drove down to Moab and stayed there for a few days at their friend's house and did lots of hiking at Arches. Unfortunately, I can't do the full hike to Delicate Arch—my fear of heights just won't let me, but there's always other hikes available. :-)

Did you see Wolf Ranch while you were at Arches? That place always fascinates me, that they lived out there for so long.

The Bryce/Zion/Moab area is one of my most favorite places in the world. I LOVE to hike there, especially in Moab! Like @Pete, I have stayed at Red Cliffs Lodge -- twice! It's a lovely place with beautiful views about a half hour down an amazingly beautiful road just outside of Moab. We went for the first time in Oct. 2020 when we did a road trip. We went a second time in Oct. 2023 for my birthday. All the national parks are beautiful. Each is different in its own way. Zion for forest, Bryce for unreal hoodoos, Arches for amazing scenery and Canyonlands for Grand Canyon-like hikes. I just adore this entire area of the US. It makes me so happy to be there every time I go!

@Mardee, yes if you mean the tiny cabin at the beginning of the Delicate Arch hike, yes we saw it.

@Travelmom, so glad you love this area. I think I could go back someday as we missed out on so much. Could easily spend a month there and not run out of stuff to do. I'm thinking two weeks in Texas for our next domestic trip.

Tammy! What a GREAT report, and I'm delighted you found Southern Utah to your liking! I remember that we'd shared a long, passionate (from my end) thread back in October, prior to your trip. :O)

So happy that you did the Queen's/Navaho Loop at Bryce and the Hwy 12 drive, and I'm so sorry they'd closed the Scenic Drive at Capitol. At least there was pie; ha! Did you get to Panorama Point for sunset? Goblin is a hoot, isn't it? The Island in the Sky unit of Canyonlands is sort of an acquired taste - it really does look like a Grand Canyon in the making - but as it's closest to Moab and Arches, it's sort of a natural fit. We like the Needles unit better but it's 70 miles out of Moab so....For anyone else using this thread to plan, you might give Dead Horse Point state park, along the road to IITS, a look? Also near Moab is my favorite local hike, Fisher Towers. The trailhead is along VERY scenic Hwy 128 - worth the drive all by itself. We just did it for the 3rd - and last, according to my nearly-70 year-old bod - time this past April.

If you return, another way to see the Waterpocket Fold is on the Burr
Trail, now paved, which takes off from 12 south of Torrey

Yes indeed. We did "Loop the Fold" on a day that unpaved Notom-Bullfrog was dry enough for the rental SUV to handle. I was hanging out the window coaching the DH between the rocks along Upper Muley Twist trail - which is in a wash - to the 4WD trailhead for Strike Valley Overlook. The view of the Waterpocket from there is a wow X 10. LOL, the rental companies do NOT want to know where we've taken some of their vehicles but so far, so good!

I was looking at photos of a friend's kid's mountain bike trip to Utah last year and need to put it on the list. As for my favourite US National Park I'm going to go with Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii for it's uniqueness.