Bryce Canyon/Zion areas
 

Hi there.

I'm putting together an itinerary to visit the Bryce Canyon and Zion areas. We don't have MUCH time; we'll be driving from Grand Junction, CO leaving around 1pm on Sunday, September 1st, so that puts us at Bryce around 6:30pm. We'll stay there for the night at a KOA site, then head on to stay in Vegas the next day (we don't really care what time we get into Vegas, though).

We're on a budget, so I'm looking at how we can maximize seeing the beauty of these areas without paying a $25 entry fee to every place we stop. Do you guys have any recommendations? It looks like the Grand Staircase Escalante is free, but Bryce and Zion themselves are $25 each. Or, there's the National Parks and Federal Recreation Annual Pass, which is $80, which essentially would be $30 more for the trip total but give us a year's worth of ability to get into National Parks. Ugh, decisions.

What are your thoughts/suggestions, oh well-traveled community? :)

Thanks!

Pay the $25 and enjoy the parks. The views alone are worth more than $25 per person.

Get up very early, before sunrise, and drive to Bryce sunrise point. I was amazed to see busloads of tourists there, all with their cameras pointed due east to capture the sunrise. Nary a one actually looked at the rock formations in the canyon (hoodoos) to see the shadows cast by the sunrise. THAT IS the view, not the sun itself!!

You can leave your car at Sunrise Point then hikee for about 1.5-2 hrs down around the Queens Garden/Navajo loop.


The drive to Zion is about 1.5-2hrs. Grab a picnic lunch fixins somewhere along the way at your first opportunity - there are some wide open stretches of road with few services.

That would get you into Zion around noon. Inside the East entrance, right before you get to the long tunnel stop and take the short canyon overlook trail, then proceed to the visitors center where you can pick up the shuttle bus to ride up the canyon where you can stop at the various points and take a short hike. Some hikes are more worthwhile, and with only one afternoon you really only have time for a few short hikes.

The two I'd say do are
1) From Zion Lodge (great picnic spot on the lawn in front of the lodge), up to Emerald pools, then loop around to the next shuttle stop - I forget the name off the top of my head.

2) Definitely take the bus all the way to the head of the canyon, to walk up the ~1mi path along the river towards the narrows.

If you have time you can stop at one of the other bus stops for a gander.

Just outside the park in the town of Springdale there are plenty of places to eat before your ~2.5hr drive to Vegas.

Well, I would go to Bryce Point. There's an actual protruding viewing area.

And the buses I saw all arrived after the sun was up.

I can't quite figure out how much time you have. However, you're driving within 30 miles of Arched National Park.

Thanks! I just saw that Arches NP was close, too. Depending on time, we may try to see Arches on the way TO Grand Junction. Our actual itinerary is:

Thursday: leave Los Angeles to start 12 hour drive to get to Grand Junction that night. Maybe stop at Arches NP on the way.
Friday-Sunday morning: friend's wedding events :)
Sunday: leave Grand Junction at ~1pm for Cannonville/Bryce Valley KOA (~5.5 hour drive). See something that evening/night... maybe Arches if we didn't see it on the way to GJ, or maybe Grand Staircase.
Monday: see Bryce stuff, head to Zion, get to Vegas sometime at night.
Tuesday: head back to LA.

I should also mention that I have a bad knee so 1.5-2 hour hikes are sadly not a possibility. Easy trails or short (<1/2 mile) are probably doable.

Oops, didn't mean to press submit yet :)

We did decide to just get the Annual pass for National Parks; there are too many places to see and we don't want to limit ourselves. :)

Is there a good reason that you have so little time?

You've got possibilities for 3 parks with very little time.

Bryce Canyon is the easiest to make a plan for. You want to see a spectacular sunrise (I think Bryce Point is best and a previous poster believes it's Sunrise Point - makes little difference). Then have a bite for breakfast and let a couple of hours go by. You then want to get a feel for the Bryce Canyon hoodoos. Depending upon the condition of your knee you can either hike down Navajo Loop and up Queens Garden or go down either for a couple of hundred yards so that the hoodoos are above you and then turn and go back up.

These two trails are very smooth and gentle on the knees. The problem is that your in 8,000 feet of elevation so lack of oxygen becomes and issue.

Allow about 4 hours (including the break between sunrise and the short hike) for Bryce.

After that you can move on to Zion. About 90 miles and 4,000 feet lower. It will be noticeably warmer in Zion.

In Zion I would take the shuttle to the end but still not like walking around. Probably the best viewing for the least amount of time and effort is Riverside Walk. This is the part before the Narrows. This walk is very level (in fact it's paves with light dirt on top for effect) and less than a mile long. You have the river flowing with verticals on both side. Spectacular scenery.

You could also do the Lower or Middle Emerald Pools.

The time of day in Zion isn't as important as sunrise in Bryce so when you leave Bryce after your short hike, go straight to Zion.

Allow about 3-4 hours to do both Riverside Walk and Emerald Pools in Zion.

For Arches you'll be quite limited so the choices are few.

You can stop at Balanced Rock and actually walk right up to it. Amazing how large it is.

Then drive over to the Windows section. The parking area is right in the middle of North and South Windows, Turret Arch and Double Arch. You'll probably get the most out of walking to and inside Double Arch.

Since you won't be going to Delicate Arch time of day is also not really an issue.

Allow a maximum of 3 hours to do both of the above in Arches.

Now you can figure out the driving times and how to best put together these three parks and what you are able to do in each.

It willk be a push, but sounds like you will see some wonderful places that you will want to return to many times. Get the $80 pass for the national parks at the first one you get to, it is good for a year and one more trip and you will have it paid for.

The $25 is per vehicle, not per person.

The shuttle busses at Bryce do not run as often as Zion. Unless you are planning on a long rim walk, drive to the points you want to see, rather than use the shuttle.

If you want to visit a little of Bryce without paying, the hike to Mossy Cave can be accessed off hwy 12 between Topic and the main entrance. At least when I was here in 2001, there was no check point to collect a fee. Nice, short hike. Very scenic.

Why would you drive all the way to Bryce, but only visit Mossy cave and not pay the $25 entrance to actually go to the main Canyon? The logic doesn't compute...

Yes, the cost of the entrance is $25 per car. The value is >>$25 per person.

The mind boggles at this. You're talking about covering vast distances in order to spend an hour or two in a place.

You know, fast food was invented in the USA for a reason. Because people have no time to spend doing anything. This 'an hour here and an hour there' schedule just shows how entrenched the mentality has become.

Zion needs several days. Bryce needs several days. Arches needs several days.

When you write, " We don't have MUCH time", you then immmediately go to how to cover all the places in that amount of time. Try asking the question to yourself in the opposite way. How much can we see in that amount of time. The answer is, not even one of the places you are talking about.

Here is what I would suggest. You are going to a wedding, that's fine. After the wedding drive back and south to Moab Sunday afternoon. Spend Monday in Moab and Arches. Tuesday drive back to LA. That's what you have time for.

I asked way back. Why do you have so little time? Is it self-imposed?

However, if you really don't have much time, I'd go for a little of all three parks. That way you'll catch the bug and be back for more of all the parks.

You can see a lot in Arches in just a few hours, same with Bryce. Both are fairly easy small parks with some good viewpoints and short easy hikes. Zion on the other hand, takes more time to really get into. And most of the good hikes are too long for you.

I don't think you have the time to stop anywhere on your way to Grand Junction. A 12 hour drive from LA to GJ just doesn't allow for much stopping. Instead, you could head to Arches on your way back (take Hwy 128 instead of 191) and spend a few hours there. Here's a list of the easy trails: http://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/easytrails.htm

Then drive to Bryce KOA, you'll miss sunset but I don't think the sunset is really that impressive. Sunrise is much better. Take in all the viewpoints afterwards, maybe walk along the rim and then head to Zion. I'm not sure how peaceful the Riverside Walk will be on Labor Day, but it's easy and worth the trip. At the very least you'll be able to see the main canyon from top to bottom on the shuttle ride.

I don't want to start an argument WhereAreWe but I totally disagree with your statement, "You can see a lot in Arches in just a few hours, same with Bryce."

What you can see is ONLY as much as you can see in a FEW HOURS. It isn't a LOT, it is a LITTLE.

Fast food was invented in N. America for a reason. Our society constantly pushes us to go faster, do it quicker, check it off the list, forget how to write a sentence or spell and instead use 'text speak', it's faster.

I realize everyone who visits Arches (or any other park, Arches is simply an example relevant to this thread), cannot go backpacking into the backcountry for a week. But it is just not right to think you can 'see' it in a few hours either.

Read Edward Abbey's book Desert Solitaire which describes his time spent as a ranger in Arches. It will take more than a few hours to read of course but that will give you more of a feel for Arches and desert environments in general than a fw hours into and out of a park to stop for 12 minutes and take a few snapshots will.

Why 12 minutes you ask? Because that is the average time spent by a visitor to the Grand Canyon actually standing at the rim, looking into the canyon and taking the obligatory snapshots.

Gotta go, gotta go, got to get to the next place on the list. Hurry, hurry, we haven't got much time, no time, move on, quick.

That was a nice rant.

OP has stated she has a bad knee and can only do easy trails or hikes under 0.5 miles. There are a number of good spots in Arches for someone like her. Obviously someone who can't hike very far isn't going to spend hours and hours wandering around looking...so my advice that you (meaning the OP) can see a lot in Arches (or Bryce) in a few hours is very much on point for this situation.

Your initial post "The mind boggles at this. You're talking about covering vast distances in order to spend an hour or two in a place. " doesn't even seem to understand what the OP is doing. She is driving to a wedding and trying to see what she can on the way there and back. The national parks are not the focus of her trip, therefore she is not 'covering vast distances in order to spend an hour or two in a place.'. Not everyone has the luxury of good health and ample time to spend days and days exploring. Sometimes (actually always) you need to tailor your advice to the specific person asking the questions instead of just a cookie cutter response of "you need more time, this is outrageous to consider spending less than a day there", no matter the situation.

As Myer said, if the OP doesn't have a lot of time she can get a feel for each place and then go back another time to see more of it. Perhaps by then she will have more time and a better knee to allow her to explore the parks.

I'm tired of people just giving an answer based on what they would do, without considering the poster's specific situation. And when you tell someone with a bad knee that each of those parks requires several days I don't think you have taken her situation into consideration at all.

That's my rant.

Improvisor,

Someone once said...I forget who "Don't sweat the small stuff; it's all small stuff."

Great advice. to keep in mind.

No rant from me.

On Aug 18 at 8:38 I described a plan for Arches, Bryce & Zion.

Will the OP see everything? No.

Will the OP get a good feel for each park and decide if this is what they want to expand upon. Yes.

I considered time and a bad knee.

Thank you, everyone, for your input (even Improviser in their own way). We have a short amount of time due to some work obligations and doctor's appointments that we have to get back to, so as much as I'd love to spend more time exploring to the extent my knee would allow, this won't be the visit to do it. Thanks, WhereWeAre, for pointing out that we're passing through to/from a wedding, and for a number of you guys taking my bum knee into consideration :) With all your suggestions and the natural beauty of the parts of the country we're going through, I'm sure we'll have a great experience, and hopefully we will have more time to go back soon.

Thanks again, everyone!! Fodor's is the best!

It's your time and your decision snurffel. My comments were of course comments on people in general and not specifically aimed at you.

I would note to WhereAreWe, I did in fact acknowledge the wedding and did in fact give a plan for the time available. Basically, spend the day in Moab and Arches.

Again, I see the thinking as backwards. 'I've ONLY got X time so I will HAVE TO divide it into several little pieces.'

The implication being that is how to get the MOST out of the available time.

I see it in reverse. 'I've only got X time so how many places can I see in that time?' Answer (in this case), ONE.

That is how to get the MOST out of the time available.

The word 'most' is not synonymous with the word 'many'.

Since it seems that this is going to be a driving tour, I'd suggest that, on your way back to LA, you get off 1-70 at Rt. 24 (several miles west of Green River). Rt. 24 is uneventful until just before Capitol Reef.

Once you hit Cap. Reef the drive is considered one of the most scenic in the US. Take Scenic Byway 12 south out of Torrey (just west of Cap. Reef). This will lead you over Boulder Mountain, over the Hell's Backbone past Calf Creek to Escalante and eventually to Bryce. There is plenty to see from the car and there are lots of scenic overlooks to enjoy.

Here's a link to our 2007 trip report...We started in Vegas and spent the whole time exploring Byway 12 only as far as Torrey.

Even if you do a drive through of Arches, you should still be able to make it to Bryce for the night. You should enjoy sunrise at Bryce if possible. It isn't far from Bryce to Zion.

Dawdle along the way through east Zion into the park. The short hike to Canyon Overlook near the entrance to the tunnel provides one of the best views of the canyon. You'll have time for a shuttle ride into Zion Canyon but you need to hike there to dig deeper and you won't be able to do that.

You could spend a lifetime exploring the wonders of Utah. I'm sure this quick overview will tempt you back for a longer visit.

http://www.pbase.com/peterb/utah_tr

my 2 cents, what ever you do, just watch the weather .. that will guide you in what and where you are going .. have fun !!