Utah beginner hikers out of shape
 

Seven of us are going to Utah to hike (short hikes) and sight see. Need your advice on our itinerary..

2 days in Salt Lake and Park City Area

then heading southeast to Goblin Valley and stay in Green River

Next to Moab to stay 3 nights to hike Arches one day, white water raft one day, and hike Canyonlands one day

Then off to Mesa Verde, 4 Corners, and stay maybe in Blanding???

Next day visit Natural Bridges Ntl Mon. and head to Bullfrog to charter a boat for a few hours on Lake Powell

Then want to head over to Bryce for two days and then head back up to Nephi to stay in order to fly out of Salt Lake again

What do you think, are we doing too much in 11 days, are we missig something great, should we cut out something that's not that geat????

Your input is greatly wanted...I hate being the cruise director......

Joyce




1

I've never spent time at Park City so I can't comment on that area.

Not sure what route you were taking to Goblin Valley. I think you would be better off going to Capitol Reef National Park near Torrey, Utah. The Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge Wash are pretty easy hikes in a beautiful location. The next day as you head to Moab, you can stop at Goblin State Park. It doesn't take that long to see this park.

If you really want to see Canyonlands, Arches and do a raft trip, then I'd spend 4 nights and 3 full days in Moab.

Moab to Mesa Verde to 4 corners then to Blanding is 285 miles and plan on it taking 6 1/2 hours. This doesn't give you much time at Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde really deserves one full day to see the different ruins. Three of the best ruins can only be seen on a ranger lead hike and you need to get there early enough to get tickets.

With your short time, I really think that Mesa Verde and 4 corners would be better off on a different trip.

Natural Bridges National Monument is nice, but the National Parks of Utah have so much more to offer. Bull Frog and Halls Crossing are nice but this isn't the best part of Lake Powell. The Page, AZ has the better scenery, IMHO.

Once you take the ferry to Bull Frog you either have to drive on a dirt road and the Burr trail or if you want to stay on paved roads, then you have to drive all the way up to Hanksville, drive by Capitol Reef, take scenic hwy 12 to Bryce. This is only 328 miles but it will take about 10 hours of just driving time.

I would recommend leaving Moab and going down to Monument Valley Tribal Park near Gouldings, Utah. If you really want you could make a side trip to Natural Bridges. The park is pretty small but there are a couple short hikes. You might be interested in doing a guided tour in the park or you can take your own vehicle on the dirt road.

From Monument Valley I'd then travel to Page, AZ to see Lake Powell. You really won't see much with just a few hours in a rent boat, but the all day tour on Lake Powell to Rainbow Bridge National Monument will really let you see this lake.

From Page, AZ travel to Zion National Park. You really don't want to miss the park. It beats Natural Bridges and Goblin State park hands down!

From Zion it's just a short drive to Bryce.

Utahtea

Effectively as Utahtea says, 4 days in Moab could be a good choice:
2 days to hike in Arches(one day for Devil's garden and Fiery Furnace, another day for the other hikes-double, window, broken, park avenue,...)
1 day for a hike in Canyonlands(island on the sky district)
1/2 day for Dead Horse and 1/2 day for
rafting.
Then you can drive-as she says- to Monument valley, via Monticello(one night for a hike in canyonland-needles district : the jontion river overlook is easy-long but easy) and Newspaper rock.
And I agree with her to drive to Monument Valley-via Blanding(dinosaur museum is very nice) : a good option is to lodge in Bluff(Recapture lodge is an excellent adress...) : you are at 1/2 h from monument valley(hiking is allowed only with a guide : Tom Phillips at Kenyah ozoonhi tour is one of the best :
monumentvalley.com is the web site) and
driving to natural bridges is easy...and
the hikes at the bottom of the bridges is easy and not so long...
In Bluff, farout expedition organises some day hikes...to some petroglyphs..
Jay is one of their guide and is excellent... : they have a website :
faroutexpeditions.com
Near they are also Valley of the gods, Gooseneck state park,...
If you want to see Mesa Verde the best is to sleep in Durango and on the way the ute mountain tribal park has also
some hikes but you have to be accompanied by an indian guide...
site : utemountainute.com
Erik

Hi Ryer,

I was going to make some of the same suggestions as Utahtea, but as I count your days, it looks more like 12 or 13 to me.

I do agree that your time is better spent in Capital Reef, Zion, and Bryce than Goblin Valley and Natural Bridges. Goblin Valley is cool and fun to snap a few pictures, but that's about it. It will be a bit out of your way unless you are driving between Capital Reef and Moab. Spend the night in Torrey rather than Green River.

Nice hikes at Capital Reef are Hickman Bridge and the boardwalk trail along the river to see petroglyphs. Also Grand Wash if you have time.

Nice hikes at Canyonlands Island in the Sky - Mesa Arch and Upheavel Dome.

Arches - my favorites are Delicate Arch and Firey Furnace. Hike to Double O is great, but a bit longer and requires walking/climbing on the fins.

Combine Island in the Sky with Dead Horse Point - on the same road.

Rafting on the CO River out of Moab is very nice!

Mesa Verde does require a good, full day at minimum. Much to see, very fascinating.

I live in Park City. You don't say when you are coming? Summer? There are plenty of beautiful hikes in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains. Most are very steep and long.

Some beautiful easy ones are: Albion Basin in July/early August to see the wildflowers. This is where all the calendar pictures are taken! Carpets of wildflowers and you will see moose for sure. If you go, go very early in the morning and take a picnic. It's high altitude 9,000 ft., but you can drive nearly all the way up the basin. Parking is very limited and gets full early. Take your camera and a polarizing filter, the light is intense and will fool your light meter. Also fun is to ride the Snowbird Tran up to the top of Hidden Peak. Awesome views.

In the Uintas: drive to Mirror Lake and take a walk around, flat. About 1 hour from Park City and beautiful high mountain scenery, lots of lakes and photo ops.

Great hiking and biking all around the ski areas if you want to stay closer to PC.

Have fun!

I love it that you have Goblin Valley in your plans! It will only take a short amount of time to enjoy and should really be that far out of your way if you take the highway south toward Goblin Valley and further south toward Torrey, Utah to Capitol Reef NP. I agree the Hickman Bridge trail is nice there. Arches NP has a lot of great trails that are great for a fairly quick jaunt. In Canyonlands I did a day exursion where we took a jeep tour in the morning and a jet boat tour in the afternoon. Both sessions had tour guides stopping for mini hikes along the way.

Have you considered doing this trip "backwards"? Maybe going from Salt Lake/Park City south toward Zion then over to Bryce. From there go to Torrey/Capitol Reef then north to Goblin Valley? You could then continue north to the highway and then cut south again to get to Moab. From there it would take about 2.5 hours to get to Cortez, Colorado where you could stay as a base camp for Mesa Verde.

Whatever you do, I hope that if you have kids on this trip you are planning on entertainment for them in the car because you will be logging a lot of miles... it is well worth the miles but it is still a lot of miles!

Dayle,

Like I said, I'd never been to Park City, but after your descriptions of wildflowers and MOOSE....I WANTA GO!

Do you know if there is camping the area? We have a bigger rig now so we can't get to the remote small campgrounds as easy.

Utahtea

Hi Utahtea,

There is a RV campground near my house next to I-80 that is very suitable for big rigs, they have hook ups, etc. Not exactly wilderness camping, but handy for PC.

There are many campground in the Uinta Natl Forest, some where you can make res and some that are suitable for the big motorhomes. You will definitely need res far in advance for any weekends, but if you can show up during the week you have your pick! Some of my favorite campgrounds in the Uintas are: Soapstone, Trial Lake, and Mirror Lake. One new campground at high altitude is Moosehorn.

In Little Cottonwood Canyon, where the Albion Basin is (at Alta ski area) there are 2 campgrounds. Tanner's Flat is lower in the canyon and I don't think suitable for a big motorhome. Albion Basin actually has a campground right there and there are some spaces suitable for a motorhome, but the road in the campground is pretty rough.

Have you used reserve.com? They are the vendors for most of the campground reservations.

If you come up, you must give me a call!

Dayle, we will be in Salt Lake almost the end of June, any flowers blooming then, and are the moose out? What about the copper mine, worth visiting?, or hiking around Antelope Island?

Another question, did I read somewhere that you can't drive through a part of Zion?? or was it Bryce?? in the summer, can only take a tram???Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about, and how does that work???

In Zion you can drive on Hwy 9 through the park. From about April to the end of October if you want to see the Scenic Zion Canyon you have to ride the free shuttle buses. These are great. They run about every 7 minutes and stop at all the major areas inside the park and 6 locations in Springdale. If you are staying in Springdale you can just leave your vehicle at your lodging and ride the shuttle system to the park gate. There you enter the park and then take another shuttle system inside the park.

Parking was getting to be unreal inside the park. To many cars and not enough parking! This way you don't have to worry about parking.

We like to do the Emerald Pool trail starting near the Zion Lodge and then take the trail to the Grotto Picnic area. When the shuttle buses are running you can just pick up the shuttle and not have to walk back to where you parked your vehicle...like we had to do when we were in the park in November and the shuttles weren't running. We really missed the shuttle buses when we were there in November!

Bryce also has a free shuttle system but it's been optional. We stayted outside at Ruby's Inn & Campground the last two summers and there are shuttle stops inside and outside the park too. In Bryce you don't have to change shuttle buses like you do from Springdale to Zion.

Utahtea

Dayle,

Thanks so much for all the info! I'll let you know if we're coming out your way.

Utahtea

Hi Ryer,

End of June is kind of early for wildflowers. Our mountains get hundreds of inches of snow and at the higer elevations, it's not even melted until July. When it's gone, the wildflowers go crazy because they have very little time to "get it done!" Alta and Snowbird have already had over 400" and March is our snowiest month! Moose are around all year long. They do have certain places where they hang out. One of these is Albion Basin, another is around Mountain Dell golf course driving up I 80 to Park City. When you approach the East Canyon exit, look north and scan the mountain sides, especially early morning/evening. They are harder to see in the summer when the scrub oak gives them cover. In the winter the big, dark brown guys really stand out. In the fall, during mating season, you really have to watch out for them on the freeway! Not good for anyone to hit a moose.

If you really like flowers, you might enjoy walking around Temple Square. Even if you're not religious, the story is interesting, the architecture is beautiful and rather awe-inspiring, and the gardens are gorgeous! You could do this on your way to Park City from the airport, spending about a hour.

They stopped doing tours at the Bingham Copper Mine years ago. If you are flying in to SLC, just look down. It's pretty hard to miss. D*** big, even from the air.

Amazingly, I've yet to visit Antelope Island! I guess I'll have to make that a priority this spring. Lots of people ride their bikes out, but it can get really windy out there = big aerobic exercise.

Dayle,

Isn't it funny how we don't get to some of the places so close to us! I've live 45 miles from Alcatraz for 40 years and never been.

Utahtea

Dayle and Utahtea - if you have a get together in Park City count me in!

Joyce - There's not much in Nephi - where are you planning on staying? You'll find better hotels in Provo and it's only 45 min. further. Or just spent the final night in Salt Lake.

Barbara,

You read my mind, I was thinking of you! It seems we have a few UT posters so we should try a GTG maybe this summer?

Dayle - This summer sounds good. Maybe we should do a trip to Antelope Island. I too have never been!

Thanks everyone for taking the time to help us plan this trip. I think we have decided to do Mesa Verde, and not do Zion. I know, I know, it's a great place, but we decided that you all gave us such great insight, we are planning to do a second trip to Zion, Grand Canyon and Page. If you think of any other tidbits to send me, that's great. I'll keep checking the sight.

spend as little time in Salt Lake and Park City....