We toured
the Big 5 National Parks in Utah 6 to 17 April, 2021: Arches, Canyonlands,
Capitol Reef, and Zion.
This post
provides links to the blogs, which contain notes, photos, and videos to the Big
5 plus some side trips.
Day 1: We
flew into Salt Lake City, discovered our save-our-budget Thrifty wildcard
rental was an SUV, and used miles to stay the night at the Airport Sheraton.
Day 2: We
headed south to Moab where we stayed at the Moab Valley Inn for 3 nights. It
was nothing fancy but it was fine for us.
Along the
way, we took a break to visit the Prehistoric
Museum in Price Utah. It’s part of Utah State University Eastern.
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| Mammoth at Prehistoric Museum/ Geoff Sutton 2021 |
This is COVID-19
season so, breakfast was a fill-your-own-bag setup. No problem for us because
we wanted an early start. In the evening we had a great Mexican meal at
Day 3 We
were up at 6 to get to the Arches
National Park. See the post for details.
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| Arches National Park/ Geoff Sutton 2021 |
Day 4
Another early morning to visit Canyonlands
National Park.
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| Canyonlands National Park / Geoff Sutton |
In the
afternoon, we stopped by the nearby Dead
Horse State Park to see the Colorado River. In the
evening we had BBQ at the next door. Service was very slow but the meal was
fine.
 |
| Dead Horse State Park/ Geoff Sutton |
Day 5 we
drove to Torry, Utah. We stopped to see part of Capitol Reef National Park then
headed to the Days Inn for two nights. Their breakfast was limited but overall,
it was a good value. We had a good dinner at La Cueva Mexican Restaurant.
Day 6 We
spent the day at Capitol
Reef National Park—see the blog.
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| Capitol Reef National Park / Geoff Sutton |
Day 7 We
headed south along scenic highway 12 through Escalante National Monument and
arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park midday. We spent two nights at Ruby’s
Best Western Inn. The included breakfast buffet was better than the previous
hotels. And they had a bag-to-go-option.
Day 8 We
hiked the trails at Bryce
Canyon National Park and had a pizza at a restaurant on the hotel grounds.
 |
| Bryce Canyon National Park/ Geoff Sutton 2021 |
Day 9 We
drove a short 85 miles to Zion
National Park,
which was crowded. We spent the rest of the day there—see the website. In the
evening, we enjoyed the best hotel of the trip at the Best Western Plus Zion
Canyon Inn in Springdale, Utah. In the evening we got fish n chips at Blondies
then an ice cream cone nearby. |
| Zion view from Spingdale hotel |
Day 10 we
were up early to see the Kolob Canyons section of Zion
National Park, which is up highway I 15 – the drive took nearly one hour.
See the blog for details.
 |
| Zion National Park / Geoff Sutton 2021 |
Later in
the day we drove to Las Vegas and spent two nights at the Courtyard Marriott
using air miles. It was a fine room and facility but Las Vegas is not for us. The
next day, we got brunch at Cracker Barrel south of the airport—the service and
food quality was ok. The Thrifty rental car return went well as did the taxi
into the city. The line for Uber and Lyft was ridiculously long and the set fee
for the taxi cab service made it highly competitive.
Day 11 We
flew home. the Uber to the airport was a fair price. The Uber from our local airport
to our home was overpriced.
What would we do differently?
Fly round
trip from home to Salt Lake City- skip Vegas and we would have saved money on
the rental car fee charge for a different drop-off point.
Take hiking
shoes--I bought a pair of Sketchers when we returned. We both slid on a couple of
tails. And some were too steep without hiking shoes/boots or poles.
Take hiking
poles—some trails were steep.
Spend an
extra night at Springdale, Utah—the town near Zion National Park.
Our favorite?
Bryce
Canyon National Park because it was so different from the others. The
interesting structures within the canyon and the pine woods along the rim made
it an overall favorite.
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I did find the USA National Parks book interesting to read before I went.
We flew American Airlines because we had credit from 2020. We had a nice upgrade to business class from DFW to Salt Lake City!
