ijunketer

I have 9 days in second week of october, I am planning to fly to denver then rent a car drive to durango from Durango, CO to Vegas covering all places, i have been to coloroado twice and covered east part of the colorado.

3 days colorado (mesavade, Durango, telluride, silverton, ouray)
4 days utah (Arches NP, Moab, Capitol reefy NP, zion NP, antelope canyon)
2 days vegas

Am i trying to cover too many places? any suggesstions.

Myer

I think you have too many places. You will also spend a lot on car drop-off.

I haven't been to western Colorado so can't comment on it.

Is there a reason to omitted Bryce Canyon?

You also aren't leaving enough time for the Utah portion of the trip. These places are far apart and require a lot of driving.

You haven't indicated your interests so most people will respond according to their interests. Since my interest is photography, I'll lean more towards seeing scenery and not spending half the day relaxing. Others may feel otherwise. Are you interested in hiking to see the sights or is this a drive thru trip?

Having said all that this is what I would do.

Fly into and out of Salt Lake. Then I would do a loop from Salt Lake to Moab for Arches, Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point and a few sights around Moab.

After that I would stop at Goblin Valley State Park on the way to Capitol Reef.

From there stop at Lower Calf Creek Falls and Devil's Garden Escalente on the way to Bryce Canyon.

After seeing a spectacular sunrise at Bryce go to Zion and then back up to Salt Lake.

I've left out two things. Slot canyons and Page, AZ.

For slot canyon you can stop at Little Wild Horse (others will comment on that as I haven't been) or Willis Creek that's an adventure to get to but a very easy walk once there.

In Page you have Horseshoe bend and Antelope Canyon. However, they're out of the way of this look and would take up most of a day just coming and going.

I omitted Las Vegas and probably shouldn't have. I assume that since you allowed two days it's a place you want to visit. If that's the case you could return to Las Vegas at the end instead of Salt Lake and suffer the rental drop-off.

Moab has a lot in the area and allowing part of one day for Arches and nothing else is no more than checking off a bucket list.

Now, if your interests are different you might build this very differently.

DebitNM

Since Myer has already done Utah, I would kindly suggest that 3 days in SW Colorado isn't enough.

You need a minimum of 2 days to see all of the wonders of Mesa Verde and if you like to hike a bit, 3 days min. Then you would need a day each for Durango, Telluride and a half day each for Ouray and Silverton.

You could then head to SE Utah if you wanted to see a bit there.

Lastly, if you are going to SW CO, fly into Albuquerque (ABQ) - it is only a 3 hour drive to Durango and the car rentals MAY be cheaper.

ijunketer

Thanks a lot Myer and DebitNM for your response and suggesstion, this was my first post in fodors forum.Yes as Myer said there is lot of travel involved and it looked like i am trying to cover too many places.

The main reason behind my trip is to celebrate my 3rd Anniversary some where in (silverton/ouray/telluride) and fall colors, i heard that telluride is the nice place to celebrate. Also I have never seen Arches/Zion kind of parks so i thought of spending 4 days and doing some small hikes/cnoeing in arches/zion. Vegas i have visited many times so I will drop vegas from my trip list.

I am a begginer and have lot of interest in nature photography. I have not booked anything yet for the trip, so Please please do suggest any other places also for 9 days trip which could cover hiking/secnic/ fall colors.

tomfuller

There has been much discussion on the forum about how high the rental car prices are in Denver. I would fly to SLC and drive to Moab to see Arches and Canyonlands. Next Goblin Valley, Capitol Reef, Rt. 12, Bryce and Zion. If the leaf colors are good, you will not have to go to Durango and Mesa Verde to see them.
Return the car to SLC and resist the temptation to go to LV.

DebitNM

Second week in October for fall foliage MIGHT be too late. If you search online for leaf-peeper sites and check historic data, you can see if it is indeed too late.

spirobulldog

Going to Zion would be to far for all of this on this trip.

You could save a lot of time and maybe even money flying into Durango or Cortez. Yes, the plane might be a bit more, but the car might be less expensive and you would save a lot of hours and gas driving.

DebitNM

While I always suggest ABQ because flights are cheaper and have the possibility of being non-stop; they are also more convenient as to schedule. Very limited flights into Cortez and only slightly better to Durango. I am not at all sure about car rentals being cheaper.

ijunketer

Thanks all, I agree that there is too much travel, please give suggesstions about other places for october travel(adventure/scenic/nature) west side, i have been to california, how would be (oregon/seattle/idaho/montana), which one of these better options in october

LindainOhio

We visited Telluride and Ouray last September and absolutely loved the area. We planned on seeing Mesa Verde but ran out of time.

Check Telluride's website to see when the aspens change. The photos taken in the fall that we saw were beautiful. Lodging is very affordable there too.

Here is my trip report from last year. The most popular thing to do there is a jeep trip. We didn't do that either--we need to go back.

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...ride-co.cfm?11

DebitNM

Telluride= affordable lodging isn't something heard all too often.

emalloy

Check Grand junction for prices of flights and car rentals. it is less driving and sometimes the same or less costly.

LindainOhio

I had no problem finding affordable lodging in Telluride in the summer/off season. Lots of condos for $100/nt--ours in Mountain Village had 2brs.

peterboy

I would dump Vegas except for the flight out but that's just me.

I can't think of a better place to spend an anniversary than at the Weisbaden Inn in Ouray. Awesome non-smelly hot springs in the town and at the Weisbaden Inn you have the unique vapor cave and hot spring heated swimming pool...in fact the whole place is heated by hot springs. Great little town too.

Here's a look at our visit:

http://www.pbase.com/peterb/co_and_nm_05&page=3

And the Weisbaden's site...great place...no I don't own it, I just remember it fondly...

http://www.wiesbadenhotsprings.com/

Have fun!

InSandy

ijunketer,,,, don't give up on a trip to the 4 corners area. Just scale back on what you are trying to see. Telluride would be great. So would Durango. I love Silverton/Ouray. You could easily include Arches and Mesa Verde in a trip like that.

Decide a closer place to fly into (either Grand Junction or ABQ) and make it a round trip. Definitely leave off Zion/Capitol Reef and Vegas and you will have a wonderful trip.

Here is one possibility from Grand Junction
from there to Moab spend 3 days
then to Mesa Verde spend 2 days
then to Telluride. Spend 2 days
Then to Ouray. From there you can decide whether to take the time to go to Silverton/Durango for a day trip.
then back to Grand Junction.

Tomsd

There are a lot of gorgeous areas discussed/considered here - and I would say you could fly into Denver, Salt Lake, Grand Junction, wherever you can - and head out from there.

Just for an example - you can be at 4 Corners from the Colorado airports in say 5 hours or less (and it's a beautiful drive) - or from Salt Lake City - you could first head to Moab in about 4 hours - and then 4 plus hours down to 4 corners, or less than than that to Telluride/Ouray.

The reason I use 4 Corners as a reference point - is that you could also get over to Monument Valley in less than two hours and from MV - over to the Grand Canyon in less than 3 hours, and Telluride/Ouray - again - is also three hours or less.

I think seeing Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon on a two/three day sojourn would be worth it - and just west of Monument Valley is the Navajo National Monument (30 miles away http://www.nps.gov/nava/index.htm ) - which gives you a good view of some Cliff Dwellings (you can also hike to them) - so you could cut out Mesa Verde is you needed to find a couple/three days in your schedule.

Check out this page for more info on distances, etc. http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/four_corners.htm
and http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/monumentvalley/ and http://www.telluride.com/summer-activities/day-trips

Tomsd

BTW - from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas is about 5 hours.

Tomsd

Quick update. Per your original flight plan - from Denver airport to Telluride/Ouray is about six? hours - but again - it's a beautiful drive, and you can kick back there for a few days.

From there - I would visit Moab for a day (maybe two - and if you really love it - you can always plan to come back) - and then down to Monument Valley (which personally - I like as well if not better than Moab/Arches) - and then over to the Navajo National Monument - and then on to the Grand Canyon (it's called Grand for a reason ) - and from there - on into Vegas - which is certainly doable in 9 days or even less.

Myer

I see that Las Vegas was just there due to familiarity and now we're concetrating on eastern Utah and Colorado. That's good.

I wouldn't lump together into these "kind of parks". They are all very different. even Bryce and Zion that are only 90 miles apart are 4000 ft different in elevation and completely different experiences.

The Moab area alone is worth at least 3 days if you are non-stop (as I am) and more if you stop to rest.

You have Arches, canyonlands & Dead Horse Point parks. If you take the Fiery Furnace ranger-led hike (highly recommended) and plan on going to Delicate arch for a sunset then Arches could easily take up most of two days alone.

It will probably be too cold by then to do a short half day rafting on the Colorado but you could look into it.

Then there's the Fisher Towers area (of Citibank commercial fame).

You could easily plan a few trips that include different parts of Utah.