This post features art by Subpar Parks, which combines lousy reviews with original images of national park icons. Follow her on Instagram, and her website.

There’s not much I enjoy more than exploring an area new to me, and in May/June 2022 I traveled for the first time to southern Utah to visit all five of its national parks, dubbed “The Mighty Five” by the state’s tourism department. People, that’s some truth in advertising right there.

Hunker Downs the travel trailer was in storage, and the dogs and I  were in Vinny Van Go-Go. Vinny is perfect for on-the-go (go) sightseeing, unlike the experiment of sitting still in Palm Springs for 30 days. While I might not be a full-time van dweller, I can certainly tolerate Van Life for a month or six weeks at a time, as long as I’m in fairly constant motion.

ST. GEORGE

Situated in the southwest corner of Utah, St. George is a 121-mile drive from Las Vegas, but a world away. Settled by Mormons and the site of the winter home of Brigham Young,

it is a red rock town full of Mormon history.

The only thing I knew about St. George before this trip was that it was the location of the Middle Auts trial of polygamist and pedophile Warren Jeffs of the Fundamentalist LDS.

St. George is in Utah’s “Dixie” region, so-named because the Mormon settlers attempted to grow cotton there. It was peculiar to observe that, while other parts of the country are removing “Dixie” from the names of businesses and country music bands, it is still widely used – celebrated, even – in Utah.  I stayed at the “Dixie Lodge” of the St. George Elks, up against red rocks and adjacent to a golf course, making for picturesque surroundings.

The address of the lodge is 630 W 1250 N. A popular Japanese steakhouse in town is at 81 N 1100 E St East. Confusing much? Many Utah pioneer towns are on the Cartesian grid/quadrant system that employs numbered instead of named streets. It took some getting used to. (Most, St. George included, are beginning to employ names instead of numbers.)

Friend and fellow traveler Margaret from Vancouver, Washington met me in St. George, and we spent a week in town.

Two highlights were a visit to Grafton, Utah – a Mormon ghost town where the bicycle scene in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was filmed,

prompting us to watch the movie that evening,

and a scenic drive through Kolob Canyons, in the northwest corner of Zion National Park with a separate entrance (and cooler temps, and no crowds!).

I wasn’t surprised to learn that many of Utah’s state parks are as magnificent as the national ones, and Margaret, who has previously visited this area, gave me a tour of Snow Canyon State Park,

which included a short hike to a slot canyon – the first of many on this trip.

(After walking in red sand in slip-on shoes I decided some hiking shoes were in order, so I stopped at Dillards.)

Outdoor recreation is right outside the door in St. George, even in the middle of town.

Atop “Dixie Rock” sits Pioneer Park,

a playground for all ages including caves,

slot canyons, and trails.

Despite the fact that the online list of St. George‘s top 10 restaurants was only eight locations long, we managed to find some good food. Most memorable was a food cart outside a dinosaur tracks museum,

which is worth a visit, especially in Utah’s scorching summers, as they built a building over the archaeological find, they are still excavating which is fun to watch, and it is climate-controlled.

Savory Jian Bing Chinese crepe – yum!

SPRINGDALE/ZION NATIONAL PARK

When Margaret and I parted company, I was off to Zion National Park, only 53 miles from St. George.

The tourist town of Springdale, Utah is a couple of miles long and flanks both sides of Highway 9 just outside Zion. There are lots of places to eat and buy souvenirs,

a couple of stops for groceries, outdoor recreation equipment rentals, and a laundromat.

Springdale operates a free shuttle to Zion, where visitors transfer to park shuttles from there. During peak season in summertime, only park shuttles are allowed on the scenic drive – Zion Canyon Road. Highway 9 veers right/east inside the park and continues to the exit through a cool old tunnel, complete with windows!

One morning I drove to the exit side of the tunnel and hiked the Canyon Overlook Trail.

I camped on the Virgin River at Zion Canyon RV Park – a private campground less than a half-mile from the park, and while it was not the most economical choice, it was ideal.

The parking lot adjacent to Zion’s visitor center is often full by 9 AM. I biked into the park instead and took park shuttles from there.

One day the dogs and I walked the half mile from camp into the park and hiked the fully paved Pa’rus trail – the only dog-friendly trail in Zion.

If you are short on time or have little kiddos or pets in tow, I highly recommend it. Highlights included a beautiful view of the Watchman,

the Virgin River,

and deer happily munching shrubs right next to the trail.

In my travels I have been in awe of the Great American Lodges in national parks, like the Grand Canyon (El Tovar) and Yosemite (the Ahwahnee), but I was underwhelmed by the Zion Lodge, which was long on rustic but short on charm. I had a lackluster lunch on the outside patio. I didn’t return.

The “Ride with a Ranger” Program at Zion was informative, and free. (Sign up in person at the visitor center.) On my particular tour, a ranger-guided shuttle made five stops to explore Zion‘s influence on art, and vice-versa.

One stop afforded me my first view of some of Zion’s biggest names – the Great White Throne, the Organ, and Angel’s Landing.

The Ranger mentioned a Clint Eastwood movie from the early 70s called “The Eiger Sanction,” which was filmed in part in Zion, and I watched it that evening on Vinny’s deck. Other than the local scenery and the fact that 44-year-old Eastwood did his own climbing with no prior experience, it was pretty lackluster and outdated.

Testing My Mettle, Part I

If I have the option of hiking to a point of interest or landing there by helicopter, I’ll let you guess which one I would choose. I’m not the sort of person who tests myself physically on purpose. But while I may not enjoy or engage in much strenuous physical activity, there’s no question I want to see All The Things, which sometimes requires me to step outside my comfort zone and accept the challenge. Hiking The Narrows at Zion was one such challenge.

In The Narrows, a 20-plus mile portion of the Virgin River flows through Zion’s narrow canyons, and wading in it has been likened to walking on wet bowling balls. At certain times of the year the river moves so strong and fast that hiking is not allowed.  At flows of 150 CFS (cubic feet per second) and lower, the river is accessible to “Bottom-Up” hikers.

My first stop was an outfitter in Zion Village for an extremely efficient and streamlined $35 rental of neoprene socks,

water boots,

and a sturdy walking stick with a wide bottom.

(Waterproof pants are part of the rental package when the water is colder. My hike was in late May, when the water temperature was around 55 degrees. I wore quick-drying swimsuit bottoms that looked like bicycle shorts.)

The socks and shoes are not waterproof; they do not keep your feet dry, but they will keep them warm, and the boot treds give you more solid footing on the slick rocks. In the river I found it easier to feel along with my feet for the next semi-solid step instead of looking down through the moving water, which discombobulated me and made me feel like I was going to topple over.

I can comfortably hike about four miles per day, and just getting to the Narrows is a mile-long walk.

Once in the water I never wanted to turn around, because it was so beautiful, with the promise of even more discoveries waiting around the next bend.

However, as a marginally active and fit person, it is important to know your limitations, lest you be presented with a hefty bill for rescue mobilization from the local authorities and become the next moronic tourist story on the local news. If you’re lucky enough to survive, that is.

I got to The Narrows fairly early in the morning, and by the time I had walked my two miles round-trip in the river, it was full of people. It’s a lot more challenging to find solid footing when you’re dodging people too.

I am proud that I hiked The Narrows. When I was researching the trip, my initial reaction was to skip it, but as I watched more videos and read more blogs I thought I could do it, at least as far as I did. And boy, was it challenging! I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion on the shuttle ride back to Zion Village.  Ironically, while I never fell in the river or snapped an ankle, at a stop sign on the way back to camp I stopped the bike and promptly fell over! Luckily the only damage was to my pride.

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK

It’s a 96-mile drive between Zion and home of the hoodoos, Bryce Canyon, named for a cattle rancher who famously said that the canyon was “a helluva place to lose a cow.” The route takes you through the Dixie National Forest (there’s that word again) and the town of Panguitch, where you are greeted by red rock arches over the highway.

Other than a still-family-run tourist monopoly outside the park known as Bryce Canyon City, which caters to the driving-ATVs-in-town and three-course cowboy dinner set, there’s not much civilization to be had at Bryce Canyon City. I set aside an entire day to explore the town and wrapped it up in two hours, which included a few loads at the laundromat.

Yet another national park lodge left me wanting at Bryce. Ostensibly because of Covid, the only meals available were buffet style, which seems counterintuitive to me. Anyway, lunch was lackluster. I did not return.

I was looking forward to my campsite inside a national park, but it was less than ideal. The only showers were at the General Store a mile away, and they were filthy and packed with the Memorial Day weekend hordes. I don’t use the composting feature of the toilet in Vinny, the restroom in my loop also required quite a hike, uphill, and when you’re a Chrohnnie, well, you get the picture.

I probably could have tolerated these inconveniences had it not been for two major factors that made my stay at Bryce untenable: altitude, and freezing temperatures.

Because I Got High

I have never experienced physical symptoms associated with high altitudes until this trip; just last year, for example, I was perfectly fine at Yosemite while a friend was short of breath. At Zion I had been in a canyon, looking up. At Bryce, I was up. That difference of 3,000 to 4,000 feet affected me greatly. Even leisurely walks with the dogs left me winded. Friends suggested canned oxygen, or a three-week acclimation period, but I didn’t have that kind of time!

I spent one day driving the Bryce scenic drive and stopping at overlooks (Pro Tip: Drive all the way to Rainbow Point and stop at the overlooks on the way back),

and another behind the wheel exploring Kodachrome Basin State Park, 22 miles from Bryce. Yet another fabulous Utah park! Next time I’m in the area I would prefer to camp there.

I finally completed a short hike at Bryce on Day Four, to Mossy Cave, only one mile round-trip with the eponymous cave at one end and a man-made waterfall at the other.

After that hike there was no stopping me. The dogs and I took the paved trail from Sunrise to Sunset Points along the Rim Trail,

and I took another hike I was particularly proud of completing: The Navajo Loop. More on that in a minute.

Brrrrr

Even though it was Memorial Day weekend, nighttime temperatures dipped to between 25 and 27 degrees. With a dry campsite, my only source of nighttime power was an AGM marine battery, which recharges via solar during the day. The onboard propane heater requires power for the thermostat, flame ignition and blower, all of which eat up electricity, so I use a Camping Buddy indoor-safe portable propane heater in those circumstances.

When it’s working, that is. It kept shutting off almost immediately after firing up. I think high altitudes were the culprit. It works fine now.

After two nights of that bullshit, I cried “Uncle!” and moved us into a motel in Tropic, nine miles away. It was the best decision I ever made. Breakfast included, two mighty fine restaurants in the parking lot, and miles away from the Memorial Day weekend tourists. Ahhhh.

Testing My Mettle, Parts 2 & 3

After so many days of looking at expansive views from the rim of the canyon while I acclimated to the altitude, it was time to get down and among the hoodoos via the Navajo Loop.

it’s not that long – only 1.5 miles – but the 500- foot elevation change down and back up in a short distance was challenging for me in such thin air.

Those views, though.

The Navajo Loop Trail tested my mettle for a second time on this Utah trip, but it didn’t hold a candle to the THREE-HOUR horseback ride I took at Bryce.

Given my body’s aversion to the altitude, I thought riding a horse would make things easier. Oh my gawd, was I wrong! The entire experience was so ridiculous and terrifying that I’m going to pen a separate entry about it. I’ll let you know when it’s finished; it will be good for a laugh!

To Capitol Reef On Scenic Byway 12

There are many scenic drives in our country, and Utah’s Highway 12 is a standout among them. Some jaw-dropping scenery can be found on those 122 miles between Panguitch and Torrey, connecting Bryce Canyon National Park to Capitol Reef National Park.

If you ever find yourself on Highway 12 in Boulder, Utah, stop by Anasazi State Park,

and don’t miss Hell’s Backbone Grill, now in their 23rd year, a James Beard semi-finalist and oasis of social consciousness and responsible stewardship rooted in Buddhist beliefs. There is natural beauty, tranquility, great food, innovative cocktails, and attentive waitstaff.

This place has been on my radar for awhile now, and I’m so glad I finally got the chance visit. After a week of the feed-the-masses fare in the Bryce Valley, I thought I might weep when I saw the menu.

CAPITOL REEF NATIONAL PARK

Of Southern Utah’s five national parks, Capitol Reef is the least visited. (Canyonlands used to vie for this dubious distinction until Arches instituted a timed entry reservation program, and now all those uninformed, unprepared and turned away folks take the short drive up Canyonlands.)

When you drive to Capitol Reef, you begin to understand why it gets fewer visitors. It’s way out there. In the middle of nowhere kind of out there. There is plentiful dispersed camping just beyond its borders, which gives you a clue of just how far out it is. There’s no booth or kiosk or vehicle entry gate, and no need to show a National Parks Pass.

Having just come from Zion and Bryce, I thought to myself, “How grand could Capitol Reef be anyway? It would be hard to match or surpass the beauty I’ve already seen on this trip.”

Holy freaking shirtballs, y’all. The place is stunning! The park owes its name to the terrain – huge granite domes that resemble the domes of capitol buildings,

and a rocky barrier that extends in both directions as far as the eye can see, like a reef.

The cause: The Waterpocket Fold, a wrinkle in the earth’s surface that formed on a fault line and extends for nearly 100 miles. The earth folded over on itself, people. It doesn’t get more strange or cool than that.

No wonder some Mormons stopped right where they were and settled down.

Imagine coming upon that place on foot or in a horse-drawn wagon. Capitol Reef must have seemed like a god in that old gospel song:

So high (So high you can’t get over)
So wide (So wide you can’t get around)
So low  (So low you can’t get under)
You might as well [pitch a tent and stay awhile]

(I’m paraphrasing that last part!)

The Mormons built farms and homes and planted fruit trees, and the pioneer settlement of Fruita is still preserved inside park.

It’s worth a stop for a fruit pie or cinnamon roll, or in my case, both for later – dessert, and breakfast. Hey, mine is not and either/or world.

A local who owns the only cidery in Utah told me that the Mormons planted fruit trees because a traveling salesman came through selling seeds. Oh my goodness, I hope that story is true, but I have never let the truth get in the way of a good story anyway. Can you imagine the Grandaddy of all salesmen, the Professor Harold Hill of Horticulture, if you will, landing the biggest sale ever, culminating in this historic place?

We humans are funny animals, conjuring context and finding meaning in the shapes of clouds and rock formations. Along with domes shaped like capital rotundas,

to me some of the formations looked like the big paws of an Egyptian Sphinx.

The park is full of shapes reminiscent of the spires and flying buttresses of great cathedrals.

There are so many in Cathedral Valley, a vast expanse in the northwest corner of the park which is even less visited.

I hired a guided Jeep tour there, and the guide and I saw a total of five other vehicles over six hours. Cathedral Valley’s most prominent and famous formations are the Temple of the Sun and The Temple of the Moon, which I must admit I had never heard of before this trip, and they were so beautiful.

One of the coolest things about Capitol Reef is the high clearance 4WD roads branching off the park’s Scenic Drive. By driving very slowly I was able to navigate them in Vinny Van Go-Go, but it is best to be in an all-terrain vehicle.

Here is the Capital Gorge trail:

as then there’s Grand Wash, which leads to the trailhead for Cassidy Arch, where Butch and his buddies hid out from the Po-Po.

I took that photo at the beginning of the hike, and that’s Vinny at the trail head down below.

On this trip every park presented a unique physical challenge. The hike to Cassidy Arch, a mere 1.7 miles each way, was Capitol Reef’s challenge. Much like the horseback ride in Bryce, I’ll tell you more about it in a separate installment. I made it. Just barely. And then I had to drag my ass back.

As daytime temperatures were quite hot and my Fruita Campground reservations were for dry camping, I canceled them and stayed at a forgettable hotel outside Torrey, Utah. Torrey is a small tourist town, but it had an amazing restaurant, Hunt & Gather,

and the only cidery in Utah – Etta Place.

Etta was the Sundance Kid’s paramour, and the cidery brought me full circle after watching the movie in St. George, touring a filming location outside Zion, and hiking to Cassidy Arch, but I am not talking about that dang-blasted hike here!

Goblins And The Red Planet

I bid adieu to Torrey and headed toward Moab 156 miles away, making two stops en route.

First was Hanksville, Utah, at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), where scientists live and work in a habitat created for conditions on Mars.  The Utah desert bears a striking resemblance to the red planet, and while the station is not open to the public, I drove the 3.5 miles down bumpy and unpaved Cow Dung Road to the perimeter of the facility.

It’s too bad I wasn’t in town the prior weekend, when the MDRS hosted high school students for a rover engineering competition.

My second stop was at yet another fabulous Utah State Park – Goblin Valley, a small park full of short, squat hoodoos that look like little goblins and Jetsons-like robots.

You can walk down and among the “goblins” and leashed dogs are allowed on the trail, but I arrived at high noon and it was 98 degrees without a square inch of shade, so we skipped the closer look.

Gateway To Arches And Canyonlands: Moab

Annmarie from Seattle met me in Moab, and it was nice to have company after being on my own for a few weeks.

Of the towns adjacent to Utah’s national parks, Moab is by far the largest. It is a tourist town, but also inhabited by full-time, non-indigenous residents with relatives going back a few generations. There are plenty of tour companies and outdoor gear rental shops, souvenir stores, coffee stands, some very passable restaurants (We had an excellent meal at the venerable Desert Bistro),

a dog park, and a small museum.

The area wasn’t really settled by Mormons or part of the gold rush of the late 19th century, so the town remained small and obscure. During the 1940s and 1950s, Uranium was discovered.

The metal was in demand by the U.S Government as the key ingredient for nuclear weapons, and the town boomed, at least for a while. (A short drive across the border to Colorado, the area’s Uranium history is still evident.)

Moab’s mining past exists to this day in the form of potash mining. The miners no longer risk their lives by going underground for the potassium, which is commonly used in fertilizers. The mines are filled with water, which is then pumped to ponds to evaporate in the sun: only the potash, like salt, remains. The ponds are dyed a brilliant blue to speed up the evaporation process, making the water visible for miles and a rather peculiar site in a vista of red rocks.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that Moab became the adventure destination that it is today, spurred by mountain bikers. The rest, as they say, is history.

When The Moon Is On The Colorado …

The Colorado River is ubiquitous in this area of Utah, even though it’s at its lowest levels in a long time.

We opted for two boat tours – a daytime jet boat on a sweltering day that moved the stagnant air, almost (almost) making the 107 degree day bearable,

and a night boat tour that has not changed since the 1960s, so a bit heavy-handed with the God and Country stuff, but enjoyable nonetheless.

They would probably never be able to start offering the night tour in the present day. A guy literally drives along the frontage road and throws a huge search light onto the rocks as the canned narration is broadcast on board the boat. He is required to pull over and extinguish the light when motorists pass! Probably not a big deal in the 1960s, but a lot more frequent today. Go see it while you can. Reviews on Trip Advisor are uneven at best, but if you go for the low-tech kitsch factor you won’t be disappointed.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself on these two boat tours, which occurred on the same day with a beef and beans cowboy dinner in between. Cheesy, yes, but my favorite king of cheese. The best part was listening to the Sons of the Pioneers sing “Moonlight on the River Colorado” as we gazed up at towering cliffs under a bright, full moon.

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

Annmarie and I drove the scenic drive through Arches on our first day, which was full of discoveries and wonder, and I returned another day on my own. It was so hot, and we took short walks from the air-conditioned car. Blistering heat was the test of physical endurance in Moab.

Some of the iconic formations in Arches include Park Avenue,

The Three Gossips,

Sheep Rock,

and Balanced Rock.

There are over 2000 arches in Arches National Park, and here are a few we were able to see without hiking.

I’d like to return to Arches, preferably in May instead of mid-June, when it was 100 degrees. There are quite a few hikes I’d like to do when the weather is more cooperative, because I’m no good to anybody in those temperatures.

CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK

Sixty-two miles from Moab, Annmarie and I first toured Canyonlands through its back door – The Shafer Trail, an old cattle trail that is now a high clearance 4WD playground.

Our guide drove us via Land Rover to a land bridge,

a gooseneck in the Colorado River,

and a personal favorite – the site where Thelma and Louise left this earth, literally and figuratively.

Speaking of Thelma and Louise, this part of Utah has been the backdrop in many films, and we enjoyed the free Moab Museum of Film and Western Heritage in the Red Cliffs Lodge in Moab.

I returned to Canyonlands on my own on a separate day.

This area of the park is known as Island in the Sky, and driving through the main entrance and along the scenic road instead of the Shafer Trail, you can really see that you are on top of a huge mesa.

On the way back to Moab I stopped at nearby Dead Horse State Park, where I saw from a higher vantage point the sites we saw on the Shafer Trail at ground level. In my opinion, Dead Horse is a must-do if you are in Moab.

Finis

From Moab I left for Colorado, which will be the subject of another blog post, and so concludes my one-month trip to Southern Utah and the Mighty Five national parks. What a trip it was! Thanks for coming along with me. At the beginning of the journey I was afraid I might get “beauty blind” to all those buttes and bluffs and cliffs and canyons and red rocks, but Utah held my undivided attention the whole way for the whole time. If you haven’t already, I hope you get the opportunity to see these beautiful places for yourself.