Zion, Bryce & Capital Reef National Parks

We left the craziness of Las Vegas behind and started our journey around the States. We headed first of all to Zion National Park. The prices of accommodation anywhere near the parks are really expensive and outside of the cities there are very few hostels, so we stayed in a small town, called Hurricane, about 20 miles down the road from Zion.

We stayed around Zion for 3 days and enjoyed a few hikes around the spectacular canyon, with its multi coloured cliffs. The canyon was carved by the Virgin River, and the cliffs are made up of different sedimentary layers which are all coloured differently and as the river exposed the rocks it revealed a whole host of colours, reds, browns, yellows, orange, white... amazing.

In Zion, they have a free shuttle bus which takes you to all the main stopping points and trailheads, so we used this a lot while we were here. We did a lovely walk which started from the end of the shuttle route at Temple of Sinawava, this took us along the river to the bottom of the narrow canyon. We also walked up to the Weeping rock, where rain water soaks into the cliffs and slowly seeps out of the rock, it was lovely to stand under the dripping water as it was cold and it was really hot in the sun. We didn't do any strenuous walking as by the afternoons it became really hot, probably over 100F, so we enjoyed relaxing in the grounds of the lodge in the middle of the park with a drink, soaking up the fabulous scenery around us.

Leaving the park through a long tunnel built through the middle of the cliffs, we took the 10 mile scenic drive through the east side of the park, which has to be one of the highlights. It was a gorgeous sunny day, so the colours in the cliffs were stunning and the scenery was truly amazing.

Following Zion, we headed to Bryce and after the stunning drive the scenery soon changed to flat farm land, not really what we thought it would be like in Utah. But it wasn't too long before we could see more canyons in the distance. We stopped for the night in Panguitch, a town even smaller than Hurricane... in fact we could only find 1 restaurant open in the evening for dinner and we'd already eaten lunch in there earlier, still it was a lovely restaurant with home-made desserts! The next day we headed into Bryce Canyon. The national park, even though it is only about 40 miles away, as the crow flies, from Zion, is completely different, but no less amazing. Here we found the famous Hoodoo's, thousands of pillar like rock formations created by forces of erosion, and most look like they could topple over at any minute. We drove along the scenic drive stopping at a lot of the lookout points, all with breathtaking views of the Hoodoos, arches and views of the canyon. We did a couple of the hikes, first up to look outs at Inspiration Point and then the Queens and Navajo Loop down through the canyon to get a closer look and then back around the rim. It was a really good hike and it was great to see the bottom of the canyon and look back up at the Hoodoos to get a different perspective. By the time we'd finished we had to walk back up in the heat which was quite tough, as it was easily over 100F again, but it was well worth it.

The next stop on our tour of canyons was Capital Reef, not one we had really heard much about but it had good reviews so we thought we'd check it out. To get there from Bryce we went down perhaps one of the most scenic highways we have ever driven, between Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument and Capital Reef. Dropping down through canyons, up along narrow cliff top ridges with sheer drops either side of the road and along winding roads through lush green forests... it had it all!

Utah suffers from regular thunderstorms during July/August, and Capital Reef had experienced flash flooding the day before, so some parts of it were closed. Also, a lot of the park is only accessible on dirt roads for 4wd vehicles only, and our budget doesn't stretch to one of those unfortunately, so we could only see a small part of the park. However, the part we did get to see was still good, with its gorgeous red and white rock formations. We travelled down an unpaved road through a really narrow part of the canyon, with the canyon walls towering above us. Also, just to the north of the park are petroglyphs with figures of humans and animals drawn in the cliffs made by the Fremont people, native people from the area dating back 1000 years. On the way back to the hotel we spotted a Coyote running in the road, he was too fast to take a photo of, maybe he was chasing the roadrunner which we missed!!! Even though we couldn't see too much of the park it was nice to get away from the crowds for while, as it was a lot quieter than Zion or Bryce.

The start of the trip around the canyons had lived up to all expectations, simply breathtaking! We are only about half way though, and as they have all been very different so far, we can't wait to see what the others have in store.

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