Advice on trip Vegas - South Utah
 

Planning a trip to Las Vegas and South Utah in Oct. After reading the posts here I've come up with this itinerary, starting in Amsterdam.
2-3 nights LV, maybe do Grand Canyon tour by plane from LV.
Hire car for about 5-7 days and visit Zion, Bryce Canyon, Hwy 12 via Escalante to Capitol Reef / Torrey.
Back to LV for 1-2 nights before flight back.
Any thoughts on this itinerary? Additions?
How to get from Torrey back to LV using different but interesting route?

Smalley. that sounds very similar to our trip in mid Sept, but with the addition of Sedona and flying from Amsterdam ;-), We are going to stay one night in the Canyon.

I'd add a stop at Valley of Fire--a NV State Park. It's about 55 mi. NE of Las Vegas, and has some petroglyphs as well as great rock formations. There's an album with some pix at http://community.webshots.com/user/bookhall .

For a nifty NY Times article on Highway 12, go to the Times home page.
Down the left-hand column, under FEATURES, click on TRAVEL. On the TRAVEL page, there's a small search box at the top. Type in "highway 12", and click the tiny arrow to the right. The search will return some articles. The second is Daisann McLane's excellent article on traveling in Utah, and the third article is devoted to traveling Utah's Highway 12.

Thanks Bookhall. Will take a look at the Valley of Fire. Had already seen your reco for the NY Times Articles. They make good reading. Thanks again.

And thanks for the pix Bookhall, which gave me a good impression of what the Valley of Fire is like. Just as well, because I couldn't find much on it on the internet. Suprised it isn't on the Nation Parks site (www.nps.gov).

There are a few different ways you can get back to Las Vegas from Torrey. The fastest would be to take Hwy 24 to I-70 and then I-15 which is 360 miles and will take about 6 hours.

If it were me I would double back on Hwy 12 and then take Hwy 89 up to Panquich, Utah and then take Hwy 143 past Panquich Lake and Cedar Breaks National Monument, Hyw 14 into Cedar City then you can catch I-15 back to Vegas. Total miles 365 and driving time about 8 hours. (but plenty of scenic places to stop!)

Just off of Interstate 15 just south of Cedar City is the Kolob section of Zion National Park if you have the time.

Utahtea

Thanks Utahtea, this is the kind of advice I was hoping to receive. Looking at a Rand McNally road atlas in the Netherlands it's hard to figure out what the roads are really like! What about this variation on your route: from Torrey North-East and then take the 62 South to Junction Kingston where it joins the 89?

Hwy 62 is a good road. It take you thought a lot of farmland. It's not as scenic as Hwy 12 but it was a good road the last time we took it. You can cut out a few miles with a cut across from Hwy 24 to Hwy 62 but I don't remember the name of the road. There should be a sign. It doesn't cut out that many miles so don't sweat it if you don't find it.

Also if you don't want to go to Cedar Breaks then Hwy 20 at Bear Valley Junction is a good cut across to I-15. It's a little windy in a few places but a pretty drive.


Utahtea

Thanks again for the suggestions Utahtea, and I see my "North-East from Torrey" when I meant NW didn't mislead you...

I was a little baffeled when I read it but I just punched "Junction" into my tripmaker program and located Hwy 62 :)

Utahtea

Smalley: Valley of Fire isn't a national park--just a state one. We knew nothing about it--just came toolin' down I-15 on a pretty morning, returning to Las Vegas from Bryce, and saw the signs. Went in and were absolutely delighted!

The Times, incidentally, lets you access all the Travel articles going back to 1996 for free, unlike most of their archives. I always search there for info before venturing into unknown territory....

OK, State Park, that figures.
Another question now this post's still 'hot': how busy is it going to be second half Oct? Suppose the numbers are tailing off by then and that lodging won't be much of a problem?