We will be visiting Arizona and Utah in mid-November on a whirlwind driving trip and I am wondering about driving times and the feasibility of my plan. We'll have our dog with us and we know that this will limit us in terms of hiking some trails. We'll be driving from South Rim to Zion Nat'l Park to Bryce Nat'l Park to Layton UT and then on to John Day Oregon in 3 days.

According to googlemaps:
South Rim to Zion is 6 hours.
Zion to Bryce is approx 2.5 hours.
Bryce to Layton is 5.5 hours
Layton to John Day is 9 hours
Is that pretty accurate and then I just have to build in our sightseeing/viewpoint/eating breaks? Or is that very optimistic and not taking into account the kind of roads we'll be on? Are the drives easy or are the roads fairly twisty?

Plan A
One possibility is to walk the dog around the top of the South Rim and then drive from the South Rim to Zion, walk the dog on the one trail that allows dogs, poke around a bit, enjoy the view and then head to Bryce and stay overnight in Bryce. That would be an 8.5 hour drive plus breaks which makes for a pretty long driving day. Then the following day we'd poke around Bryce, and then drive to Layton and walk the dog there (no trails are open to dogs in Bryce) and stay overnight in Layton before setting off for John Day.

Plan B
The other possibility is to drive from South Rim to Zion and stay overnight in Springdale. The next morning we could walk the dog on the one trail that is open to dogs and then drive to Bryce, poke around and then head out to Layton (8 hours driving not counting breaks). Next day it's the 9 hour drive to John Day.

Is one plan more feasible or advisable than the other? I'm leaning toward plan B because it allows us to walk the dog in Zion both on the afternoon that we get there and then the next morning before we leave.

Thanks for any input.

Sylvie from Vancouver BC

This is a joke, right?

If you decide on Plan A, you could walk the dog at Red Canyon before heading out. Red canyon is right outside Bryce and is also quite scenic. It would be a great place to exercise the dog before that long drive.
http://www.dogfriendly.com/server/tr...769300re.shtml

Thanks for the tip on Red Canyon, peterboy.

TAW, this is no joke. We have limited time for the drive and since we'll have a dog with us we are also limited in what we can do anyway.

Since posting this question we've revised our entire itinerary and it looks like this:

Day 1
Leave Scottsdale
Montezuma’s Castle
Sedona
Overnight in Sedona

Day 2
Sedona — lots of hikes where you can take dogs

Day 3
Leave Sedona
Walnut Canyon National monument
Sunset Crater
Wupatki National Monument
Drive to South Rim, Grand Canyon
Stay overnight in Grand Canyon

Day 4
Walk around South Rim Grand Canyon
Drive to Springdale (6 hrs)
Stay Overnight in Springdale (and do laundry!!)

Day 5
Walk dog on the Pa’rus trail at Zion (dogs allowed!)
Drive from Springdale to Bryce Canyon (2.5 – 3.5 hrs)
Visit Bryce Canyon
Stay overnight in Bryce Canyon

Day 6
Drive from Bryce Canyon to Capital Reef (3.5 hrs)
Drive from Capital Reef to Moab (3.5 hrs)
Stay overnight in Moab

Day 7
Visit Arches, islands in the Sky, and Deadhorse Point State Park
Stay overnight in Moab

Day 8
Drive from Moab to Layton UT (a little past Salt Lake City, approx 6 hour drive)
Stay Overnight in Layton

Day 9
Drive to John Day Oregon (approx 9 hrs)

Crazy, perhaps, but do-able? Comments or suggestions anyone?

Sylvie

Wow, you are wearing me out and we see lots of places on our trips as well. I think you aren't doing justice to a lot of these places. Why bother going there if you aren't really taking time to see them?

People spend DAYS in most of these places and you are only spending a few hours.

We were going to be in Scottsdale Arizona for something else in Mid-november and we thought why not drive back home through Utah and get a taste of the various canyons. Gotta get home with the car no matter what so I thought a whirlwind tour would give us a taste of where we'd want to come back to someday.

I would focus more on areas you can see that are somewhat dog-friendly. For example, I don't think you can see much at Walnut Canyon unless one of you stays with the dog while the other hikes down into the canyon, so I'd skip that. Since Sedona has a lot of dog-friendly hikes, give yourself more time there.

The Pa'rus trail in Zion is nothing to write home about. I would be tempted to skip Zion entirely and use Red Canyon as an exercise area. Bryce has many viewpoints which would make it relatively easy to leave your dog in the car while still seeing a lot - not really the case with Zion.

I would also leave out Moab entirely - it's out of the way and you'll be fairly limited in what you can do with your dog.

I replied before I saw your post at 4:37pm. If you're simply driving through to get an idea of where you might want to visit again, then your itinerary isn't terrible, just busy.

Go for it!!! Get a feel for each park then make plans to visit them when you can spend more time and have a sitter for the dog (someone who loves poochie) so you can do more adventuring.

I misread your original post. I thought you were doing all of what you listed in 3 days. It is still very aggressive and you'll be in the car most of the time. Remember, the roads to these places aren't freeways so the travel time may be slower than what mapquest or some such site indicates. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Well actually that was one of the main reasons for my original post -- how accurate or inaccurate is the googlemaps/mapquest estimate of driving times in those areas? Anybody??

I've found mapquest to be quite good...perhaps a little conservative. That may be because I tend to drive a bit over the posted limit wherever it seems safe to do so.

Naturally the odd, slow moving RV can slow you down.

You said your trip will be mid November? Weather might slow you down...i.e. snow