DawnCt

Tentative plan is to fly into Phoenix, spend a couple of nights in Sedona, 2 nights near the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon, and include Zion and Bryce as we head north for 8 days in the Grand Teton Yellowstone area, including travel. How many days should we allot to Zion and Bryce to include the highlights? And as we head north, what other sights would you recommend?

Myer

How interested are you in hiking and at what level of difficulty?

DawnCt

Only moderately interested in moderate hiking. The main goal will be sightseeing, particularly if we are joined by another family who will have very limited interest in hiking.

Myer

Ok. I was in Bryce and Zion this past June.

In Bryce you start above and look down. In Zion you are in the canyon and look up.

For Bryce, if you don't do any hiking and just drive to the viewpoints it will take you under 2 hours and the park gets a rating of 4 out of 10.

If you go to the rim and walk from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point (30 minutes), the park get a rating of 6.

Do a fairly easy hike by combining Navajo Loop and Queens Garden (about 2 hours) and the park gets a rating of 9.

This hike is not strenuous at all though you may have to rest a few times due to elevation. That depends on your physical condition. The trails are fairly wide and don't hang over cliffs.

You are doing yourself a disservice by not going down into the hoodoos.

In Zion you can walk the very easy Riverside Walk. Beautiful walk along the river with straight up mountains on either side. I saw some deer walking along.

For a bit more you can select from the Canyon Overlook near the East Entrance or the Lower, Middle or Upper Emerald Pools.

For the adventurous (not me) there's always Angel's Landing.

You can get a good feel for each park in a day for each.

Myer

Forgot to mention. I also spent 2 days hiking around Sedona.

You can see my photos at:

www.travelwalks.com

Select the 2007 trip to Bryce, Zion & Sedona on the lower right of the page.

DawnCt

Thanks, beautiful pix. BTW.

DawnCt

Another question. After a little searching, it seems that I can save $$$ on airfare and a car rental picking up in Las Vegas and dropping off in SLC. Is this a practical route? I would still like to visit Sedona. Thanks

Myer

In my experience you always get charged a lot more when dropping the car in a different location.

I started in Las vegas and ended in Phoenix and it probably cost me $100. more

xanthippe

Flying into Las Vegas and then looping around to see Sedona and the Grand Canyon isn't too much out of the way. Beware lest you get lured into spending too much time in Vegas, however.

Returning the car to Salt Lake City after spending time in Yellowstone/Teton area is more of a problem. You will be backtracking a whole day's drive (maybe six hours).

In order to drive from Zion to Wyoming, I'd recommend getting on the highway (I-15) and getting up there fast. You could do the whole drive in one long day (maybe 9-10 hours), but you might want to stop in SLC to visit temple square (and possibly hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice), stay nearby for a night, and then head on north. There are many motels near the Interstate from an hour or so both north and south from SLC.

You can go up to West Yellowstone on good highways and enter Yellowstone from the west, later driving out the south entrance into the Tetons and then on down to Jackson. This route will shorten your drive back to SLC, should you choose to return your car there.

Would you then fly home from SLC? Might that not negate your car rental savings? Hmmm--I guess you weren't planning to return to Phoenix to return the car, were you?

It sounds like a wonderful trip!

DawnCt

There is "drop off ability" from LAS to SLC and there doesn't seem to be surcharge; I haven't put in the exact dates that we will be going. I am just working on the logistics. Ideally, I would love to fly home from JAC but that was pricey.

Myer

I did a very quick auto search.
Sept 13-16.

LAS-LAS
$70-80 total.

LAS-SLC
$370-380 total.

Like I said, I did a quick search on travelocity.

Drop-off capability and price are two different things.

DawnCt

I am wondering how I can route the trip given the car rental rates. Ideally doing a lower circle, flying into LAS from BDL, out of LAS to JAC and back to BDL would be okay, but the airfare more than doubles and there are five of us, maybe six. It seems like I pay the rental car company or the airline even more. I wonder if there are other airports that would work as well.

Dayle

Dawn,

How many total days do you have? Do you have 8 days in the Yellowstone area, plus the days planned for Sedona and GC, plus optional days for Zion and Bryce? Also, when are you going?

Dayle

Oops, sorry, I see your trip is 16 days.

2 days Sedona
2 days GC
2 days Zion
1 day Bryce
2 partial days drive to Grand Tetons, maybe stay overnight in SLC or Park City
2 days Grand Tetons
5 days Yellowstone

Above is if you fly out of a city other than Vegas. That's a long way to backtrack!

Personally, I would skip Sedona. It's pretty - for a city. The national parks are far better for scenery!

Myer

I have to disagree. In my opinion Sedona isn't pretty - as a city.

It's the surrounding Red Rock mountains. I really enjoyed two days of hiking around.

The other night I saw that Rachael Rae spent a day in Sedona.

She went on a hike before breakfast, then ate (I didn't see her carrying any water). Then took a Pink Jeep tour on the Broken Arrow trail. Then went to Jerome and ate dinner there.

I guess it's easy when somebody else takes your things and all you do is sit in front of the camera and eat.

Still, they showed some beautiful sights.

DawnCt

We are flying out of SLC so there will be less backtracking. I would love to fly out of JAC but it would cost too much $$$ with five, possibly six of us. We plan to go next August. I am thinking that perhaps we need less time at the Grand Canyon. Perhaps just a day to see the highlights from the "top".
That really is the most affordable option I can find to include both areas.

Myer

I'm not sure if I wrote this.

My plan was to skip the Grand Canyon. Then because of the long drive from Zion to Sedona I decided to make a pit stop to sleep over at the Grand Canyon (Douth Rim). Once there I should have hike down the bright Angle trail for an hour.

That would have made a big difference. From the top you get absolutely no perspective of the place. It looked like a giant bowl and nothing more.

When rating the sights that I saw, the GC was at the bottom. I guess I really didn't give it a chance.

Also, I arrived at 5PM from the East. So all of the views were more or less into the sun.

The sunset and sunrise were very nice but I saw a lot of other more impressive sights.