Southern Utah 10-Day Planned Route, Booked Activities, and Campground

I still work.  My wife is retired but that’s a way of saying she does what she wants to do: stay busy with grandchildren.  So we plan our travel around: 1) my business travel and plans, 2) grandchildren’s activities, 3) trips to visit relatives, 4) local events, and 5) holidays.  So our trips have a definitive number of days when we plan them.

We put together a 10 day trip for the end of April 2018 to visit Southern Utah.  This is a rough and rugged country but it can be enjoyed both by driving through it or slowing down and hiking through.  Time and abuse have left my knees in a state of rebellion when hiking is involved.  BUT, the state parks and the national parks we visited have graded their hikes from easy to difficult.  Recognizing this, we built an itinerary combining driving, activities, and easy hiking to fit us based on information provided by the park systems and information mined from the internet.

We decided to fly to Las Vegas, rent a recreational vehicle, and head out of Nevada early before we could lose too much money on a one-armed bandit.

Several of our friends on Facebook have asked us about the trip so here’s the outline of our schedule.  I’ve added some extra notes.  Perhaps the first note should be to try to stay in the camp grounds at the parks.  Our problem was, even though our planning was started about 6 months before the trip, all the parks were hanging out NO VACANCY signs.  So we opted for private camp grounds.  None of these were bad but because they were outside the parks it added to the logistics planning.

DAY 0, Fly Houston to Las Vegas.  Spent the night at hotel near the airport that provided shuttle and picked up motor home on Friday morning.  Normal pickup is in the afternoon because their return time for their customers is 10:00 a.m. the last day of the contract.  But with a $50 fee we could change the pickup to the morning.

DAY 1, Las Vegas to Zion National Park (2-3 hours)

1.    Best Time RV Rentals

6590 Boulder Hwy

Las Vegas, NV

701-522-1784

There are lots of choices for RV rentals.  We chose Best Time and all of our interaction with them was good.  Since we’ve never done this before I don’t have any personal experience to compare them to the competition.  One reason we chose them was we wanted to try the Winnebago Winnie Minnie and this was part of their fleet.

2.    (1 night) Zion Canyon Campground.

479 Zion Park Blvd., Springdale, UT, 84767

Phone: 435-772-3237

200 Spaces, RV & Tent, 30-50 amp, big rig sites, laundry, market, showers, cable TV, pool, playground and free Zion Shuttle.

A nice, clean and quiet campground.  We expected to do what we could in Zion the next day.  They expect you to check out by noon.  The lady working the counter said her experience was we would be hard pressed to get into the park and do what we wanted to do make it back by noon.  Her suggestion worked out great.  The park opens at 8:00 a.m. but you can drive into it before that.  She said that if we left her campground by 7:00 a.m. we would probably be able to find a spot at Zion’s dedicated, but limited, RV day parking.  Taking her advice we were about the 12^th RV there.  The parking lot was filling up an hour later.  This turned out to be a good decision.  Most of the trail heads and major sites are accessed by a shuttle service.  Even though these shuttles run every few minutes the line waiting to get on had about a 45 minute wait when we left the park about noon.  

DAY 2 & 3, Zion National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park (2-3 hours)

1.    (2 nights) Ruby's Inn RV Park & Campground.

RV Park in Bryce, Utah

Address: 300 UT-63, Bryce Canyon, UT 84764

Phone: (435) 834-5301

We liked this place and it’s just a mile from the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park.  A park shuttle stops right at the campground and these shuttles will drop you off at the visitors’ center, lodge, trail heads and stables.

Scheduled Activities

6:30 p.m.  ATV Sunset Tour.

This is an activity we scheduled through Ruby’s.  It’ll take you up to but not into Bryce Canyon.  The tour is about 1 ½ hour and will meander around ranch land across streams and meadows adjacent to the park.  I’d rate it as enjoyable.

2:30 p.m. Horseback ride into canyon.

There are more than one company offering horseback rides.  In spring, summer and fall, Canyon Trail Rides wranglers lead 2-hour and 4-hour horse and mule rides into Bryce Amphitheater along a dedicated horse trail and the Peek-a-boo Loop Trail.

For information, visit their web site at www.canyonrides.com. For reservations, write or call Canyon Trail Rides, P.O. Box 128, Tropic, UT 84776, (435) 679-8665.

DAY 4, Bryce Canyon National Park to Capitol Reef National Park (3-4 hours)

1.    (1 night)  Sandcreek RV Park.  Reservation #6603  

Address: 540 UT-24, Torrey, UT 84775

Phone: (435) 425-3577

The upside of this leg of the trip is getting to drive the beautifully breathtaking Utah Byway 12. 

Near Henriville we took a side excursion to Kodachrome State Park.  Here is an excellent camp ground we had overlooked in our planning.  Entrance to the park is only $8.  We spent about 30 minutes here but there are several hiking trails that look promising.  The park ranger told us we would have many “wow” moments driving the rest of the way on 12 to our next campground in Torrey.  He was right.  He also recommended Goblin Valley State Park.  We stopped there the next day to check out it’s in creditably odd formations.

We drove on in to Capitol Reef National Park and made a short visit at an old pioneer settlement named Fruita and the 200 acre Fruita Rural Historical District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Its nestled in a small valley and known for his own variety of apples and abundance of fruit plants.  The trees were just beginning to bloom while we were there.  A bonus of this stop, locally baked fruit pies and homemade ice cream.

DAY 5 & 6, Capitol Reef National Park & Arches National Park (2-3 hours)

1.       (2 nights) Canyonlands RV Resort & Campground.  Reservation #351846  Address: 555 S Main St, Moab, UT 84532

     Phone: (435) 259-6848

Early in the drive from Capitol Reef National Park you’ll follow the Freemont River as it meanders between colorful desert rock formation.  There’s plenty to stop and see along the way including old Indian petrographs (rock writings), ancient Indian granaries, and breath taking panoramic views.

On a very long and lonely stretch of highway between Hanksville and Highway 24 intersection with Interstate Highway 24 is another side trip of about an hour to Goblin Valley State Park.  Here you can let you imagination run wild.  Like a kid translating the images passing in clouds, the formations can be just about anything you can imagine.

Scheduled Activities (Day 6)

8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Jeep and Colorado River boat tour with NAVTEC (lunch provided)

This was the most interesting, dramatic and fun activity of the vacation.  We were met at the campground by Sharon who was taking us backcountry for four hours.  We picked up our other two fellow travelers Jim and Madeline and headed out.  Sharon guided us up, over and around some very fantastic landscapes across private land and into a remote entry into Canyonlands National Park.  She then dropped us off with Ben at a Colorado River boat launch for lunch and a 4 hour round trip.  If you book with this company you might ask if Sheryl’s hat is still around and pick it up for her.

Address: NAVTEC Expeditions, 321 N Main St, Moab UT 84532

Phone: (435) 259-7983

 

DAY 7, Arches National Park to Monument Valley (3-4 hours)

We left our campground in Moab about 7:00 and headed into the park.  At this time of the morning the crowd was very thin even though the entry gates are closed you can enter with either your Senior Pass or use a self-serve pay counter.

We spent about 1 ½ hours driving the loop into the park checking out the many natural arches conveniently marked at roadside pullouts.

           1.       (1 night) Goulding's Campground. 

Campground in Monument Valley, Utah

Address: 2000 Main Street, Oljato-Monument Valley, UT 84536

Phone: (435) 727-3235

This was the most pleasant of the campgrounds and fit right into the nature of things.  We wished we had planned on another night here.

Scheduled Activities

Planned but unscheduled was a stop along the highway that was the end of the character Forrest Gump’s run in the 1994 movie of the same name.  The location is not marked and we were using a photo of the scene to find it.  However, several dozen other people were on the same quest so when we got there we had company to join in on our picture taking.

Thursday, April 26: 4:00-7:00 p.m. Jeep tour of Monument Valley

Monument Valley is one monumental movie set of epic proportions.  Initially brought to the public’s attention in 1939 by John Ford’s movie “Stagecoach” starring John Wayne, there have been dozens of movies and commercials shot here since.

We booked a tour through Goulding’s.  It was a good tour but a bit hard on the bottom side bouncing around on a bench bolted to the bed of a truck.  The tour was for sure off-road, meaning off pavement, and I sure as heck wasn’t taking the RV out there.

DAY 8, Monument Valley to Mesquite, NV (6 hours)

1.     Sun Resorts RV Park: Reservation #SR735

400 Hillside Dr · (702) 346-6666

We picked Mesquite because it was right on I-70 and had all the services we                   needed to get the RV ready to turn in the next day.

DAY 9, Mesquite to Las Vegas (2 hours)        

Turn in RV before 10 a.m.

Fly back home and take a nap.