Topic Wiki

Arizona has it's own master thread and wiki at https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=1332.0

South Utah
St. George & Hurricane UT
  • Chabad of Southern Utah: 569 E 200 S, St. George, UT 84770  https://www.jewishsouthernutah.com/
  • Red Hills desert Garden 375 E. Red Hills Parkway, St. George, UT 84770  Small & Free. Nice stop to see various desert plants for 20-60 minutes
  • Fiesta Fun Center (Bowling, Lazer Tag, Batting Cages, Go Karts, Arcades, bumper boats). Mostly indoors.
  • Kayak Rentals in Quail Creek State Park; 472 N 5300 West, Hurricane, UT 84737  https://digpaddlesports.com/
  • River Tubing 771 W Sr 9; Virgin, Utah 84779 https://www.tubingzion.com/   

In general alltrails.com is a good resource to find hiking trails that meet your interest (you can filter by length, difficulty, popularity, and review pictures and comments).

Zion National Park
--Fantastic hiking and waterfalls among magnificent red rocks scenery. Temperatures are usually substantially cooler than surrounding cities.
--Unique and popular trails include Angels landing (Hard), The Narrows (hike up a shallow creek in a narrow canyon, be aware of flashflood risks at certain times of year, or following rain), Canyon overlook trail (right after the tunnel along the right artery) among many others stunning hikes.
--There is also stunningly beautiful scenic drives both along the main road (only via shuttle in the summer) and the right artery (via your own vehicle), and there are also bike and e-bike rentals in Springdale UT (near the main entrance to the park).
--There are trails that are only accessible via other entrances (Kolob)
--The average visitor will likely get most of the beauty of the park in 1-2 days
--PDF map of Zion National Park is at https://www.nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/upload/ZionUnigrid.pdf


Bryce National Park
--Bryce is a relatively small national park, but a geological wonder, with uniquely colored rocks and hoo-doos (stone pillars formed by repeated freezing/melting).
--The visitor center has a 25 minute video playing every 30 minutes for some background on the uniqueness of the park.
--There are a variety of stunning scenic viewpoints right off the main road (you can take a shuttle or your car), that give you a lay of the land and provide stunning photography opportunities. 
--There are a variety of trails along the rim, and many hikes that descend into the basin where you can see the unique structures up close.
--The beauty of the park shines even more around sunrise/sunset.
--Bryce is also a "dark sky park" (particularly good place to view stars on a clear night).
--The average visitor will likely get most of the beauty of the park in 1 day
--PDF map of Bryce National Park is at https://www.nps.gov/brca/planyourvisit/upload/Newspaper-for-Web.jpg

Other

East Utah
Moab/Arches/Canyonland

North Utah
Salt Lake City

Author Topic: Utah Master Thread  (Read 60377 times)

Offline aarony

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #60 on: August 18, 2015, 08:43:50 PM »
i am working on it... having trouble getting the pictures to post....

Offline lunatic

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #61 on: August 18, 2015, 09:11:10 PM »
Use tapatalk

Offline aarony

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #62 on: August 18, 2015, 10:01:07 PM »
ok - fixed. let me know...

Offline Yaalili

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #63 on: August 18, 2015, 11:29:24 PM »
ok - fixed. let me know...

Thanks, beautiful hike.

Offline aarony

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #64 on: August 19, 2015, 12:17:17 PM »
thank you.  i hope that someone finds the information useful!

Offline ganizzy

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #65 on: August 19, 2015, 12:48:32 PM »
We are thinking of going from la mon to thu.
Kids range from 8 to 11
Thinking of heading out Monday.  Making some stops and getting to zion at night.  Spending tue in zion then driving to bryce and sleeping there.  Spending wed in bryce then driving to flagstaff.  Thursday doing grand Canyon, then driving home.
Is that way to much?  Skip the grand Canyon?

Offline Ergel

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #66 on: August 19, 2015, 01:01:19 PM »
Sounds crazy to me. I'd do Tuesday in Bryce. Wed-Thursday in Zion. Sleep Thursday night in Vegas and head back to LA
You cut your total driving time from 22 hours to 16 per Google.
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Offline aarony

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #67 on: August 19, 2015, 01:24:19 PM »
+10

Offline tzifanya54

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #68 on: August 19, 2015, 01:38:34 PM »
Yup just did a similar thing with 2 kids. Deffinetly skip Grand Canyon. Maybe do page it's not as much out of the way.

Offline 000

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #69 on: August 27, 2015, 01:30:15 AM »
Can one see Bryce in one day?
Definitely I did in less then a day with doing the queens garden/navajo hike into the hoodoos. The rest is basically driving with viewpoints every so often.   

Offline ganizzy

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #70 on: September 04, 2015, 12:28:28 AM »
Thanks for the input,  here is what we did.
We drove to Vegas Sunday night and slept over.  Monday morning we drove to bryce. I figured that you need less time in bryce then by zion so it makes sense to do the longer drive to bryce initially .
Overall it didn't add extra time to the trip.

Bryce was really nice and although it was only 85 it was really hot except in the shade.
We went the last week in August,  when most of the schools had already  started so it wasn't very full.

We were able to drive to the lookouts and didn't need to park and take the shuttle.

Since we were with kids,  we stuck to the easy hikes. In bryce there wasn't much.  We  did the sunset to sunrise hike but i wouldn't call it a hike, more of a short walk.

After we drove to all the lookouts,  we drove to the mossy cave hike. It's not in the park,  but not too out of the way. It's an easy hike to a waterfall and we all enjoyed it.

That night we stayed in Panguitch and Tuesday morning we drove to Zion.
The drive from mt. Carmel junction into the park was beautiful!
Took a bit of circling but we finally found parking.
We bh got lucky that it was only in the 80's so not that hot
We took the shuttle to the different stops.
Again we stuck to the easier hikes listed.
We hiked to the lower emerald pools (i think it was a bit harder then easy) and then onto the grotto trail. That actually took us a while between stopping for pictures,  resting breaks and meeting a Jewish family from israel.
It seemed to me that the views would be nicer starting from the grotto but might have been a slightly harder hike. 
My kids had enough hiking and decided to go for some wading in the river by the grotto stop .

We then did the river walk and the narrows.  We all enjoyed it. I was a bit worried about not having walking sticks,  but it was ok, we just were more careful with every step.
I think we were one of the attractions with me and my daughters wearing long sleeves and long skirts and my husband and son with long pants and tzitzis.
On the walk back we saw some deer.
On the shuttle back to the visitor center we sat in the front row and the driver had a lot of info about the wildlife and about the park.
He told us that in the evening  (at that point it was about 7:30 - half hour before sunset ) the deer come out. And every few minutes we saw deer on the side of the road.  They are very used to people and cars and don't run away,  but they won't allow you to get too close.

We then drove to kanab for the night.

Wed morning we drove to the grand canyon- north rim.
We got there about 11 am and it was 55 degrees and foggy. We did not plan on that type of weather at all. Within the hour,  the fog cleared and it got a bit warmer.
We walked to the different lookouts, and then drove to the further ones.
Somehow that still took a few hours  (multiple bathroom stops for kids will do that ) but we headed out at 3.
We thought we would drive thru the hoover dam on the way back, but we left too late and wouldn't make it while it was still light (again multiple bathroom stops)
So we drove direct to Las Vegas.
The drive has some  beautiful scenery.  There was a lightning storm and it was so cool to actually see the strike light up in front of us.
We stopped in vegas for a bit and visited friends (one of the shluchim there) and ordered pizza for dinner which sounded like a nice change from the bbqs we had the past 2 nights. However the pizza want as good as it sounded.
We initially thought we would sleep over in Vegas but instead we decided to continue home,  it just made more sense for what we had to get done on Thursday.

All in all, we were gone 3 days and saw 3 beautiful parks.  Nice family road trip to end the summer.

Offline tzifanya54

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #71 on: September 04, 2015, 01:21:28 AM »
Sounds like fun... Which pizza place in Vegas?

Online davidd75

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #72 on: November 12, 2015, 09:37:38 AM »
Is it worth it to see Bryce and Zion with 4 month child?  or wait for some other time

meaning are some  of the hikes doable with baby stroller etc...

or maybe is it worth going even without doing any hiking?

Offline Ergel

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #73 on: November 12, 2015, 09:43:44 AM »
Is it worth it to see Bryce and Zion with 4 month child?  or wait for some other time

meaning are some  of the hikes doable with baby stroller etc...

or maybe is it worth going even without doing any hiking?
Wouldn't use a baby carrier?
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Online davidd75

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #74 on: November 12, 2015, 09:50:13 AM »
Wouldn't use a baby carrier?

we never did I guess if we have to maybe?

but question is it worth going with baby stroller?

Offline mord1

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #75 on: November 12, 2015, 10:26:04 AM »
Is it worth it to see Bryce and Zion with 4 month child?  or wait for some other time

meaning are some  of the hikes doable with baby stroller etc...

or maybe is it worth going even without doing any hiking?
Depends how adventurous you are, if you want to see the really beautiful stuff, baby carrier or wait, if you want to see basic stuff then go for it, if you are not adventurous go for it now

Online davidd75

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #76 on: November 12, 2015, 12:24:58 PM »
Depends how adventurous you are, if you want to see the really beautiful stuff, baby carrier or wait, if you want to see basic stuff then go for it, if you are not adventurous go for it now

would you say basic stuff is also incredible? and how would we do the basic stuff are there any areas you could take baby stroller or do you mean just driving around?

Offline mord1

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #77 on: November 13, 2015, 12:50:55 PM »
would you say basic stuff is also incredible? and how would we do the basic stuff are there any areas you could take baby stroller or do you mean just driving around?
It's all beautiful, how beautiful to you is based upon your life experiences, I thought Utah was awesome until I saw Colorado, which blew me away.  Bryce you can define see the main attraction the hoodoos from the top of the canyon even without going down,  Zion you can see a lot of good views driving, but the really good stuff is hikes without a stroller, from what I remember

Offline yslkwd

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #78 on: November 14, 2015, 10:49:52 PM »
we did Bryce with a 6 month old in baby carrier 
its not worth it to go to Bryce without going down into the canyon and seeing the hoodoos  up close

Offline CS91

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Re: Utah Master Thread
« Reply #79 on: December 20, 2015, 10:58:07 AM »
Anyone here ever stay in Park City on points? From looking on Hotel Hustle, it seems like it's more worth it to just pay cash for a room than to use points. Everything is 20k/night at a minimum.