October 29, 2025 • 21 mins
Note: If you are interested in a video version, please view it on YouTube.
We road-trip the Big Five in eight days, moving from Canyonlands and Arches to Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion with honest notes on crowds, shuttles, permits, and weather. Expect practical routes, favorite hikes, and small tips that unlock big views, plus where to find the best pie.
• Canyonlands Island in the Sky highlights and overlooks
• Camping near Moab and permit basics
• Arches access, Windows area, Double Arch logistics
• Off-season timing and crowd strategies
• Capitol Reef history, Fruita orchards, Cathedral Valley
• Bryce Canyon hoodoos, key trails, elevation realities
• Zion shuttles, closures, parking, and water advisories
• Narrows approach, Emerald Pools, and missed Canyon Overlook
• Lodging mix across towns, cabins, and camps
• Upcoming individual hike videos and Q&A
Give this video a thumbs up, share it with your friends, and consider subscribing so you don’t miss the hike videos. Let me know if you have any questions or comments; I’d love to answer them for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey folks, it's Craig, the Natural Medic.
I apologize that I have not beenputting videos out as often this
month.
I just went on a trip.
Got back a Thursday night.
I was gone eight days exploringUtah's national parks, which you
may see on the screen here.
(00:20):
Utah has what is called the BigFive.
If you want to see an overviewof that, stick with me and we
can talk about those.
Alright, so let's kind of talkabout the very first place that
I went.
I live in Farmington, NewMexico, so I'm only three hours
from Moab.
Moab, of course, has two of theprominent Big Five parks in the
(00:44):
area.
One of those is Arches, ofcourse, the other one is
Canyonlands.
Arches is pretty accessible,it's pretty busy, but an amazing
place.
Highly recommend the book, whichI'm missing the name right now,
but it'll come to me probably bythe end of the video.
Highly recommend you read that,the nature of arches as far as
(01:04):
visitation and accessibility.
Has changed quite a bit sincethe 1950s.
Gentleman was there as aseasonal park ranger.
Let's talk about the very firstplace that I went, which was
Canyonlands National Park.
Let's go take a look at it.
This is the beautiful view thatyou see.
(01:26):
I believe this view is a GreenRiver overlook, which I went to.
I have been there before inDecember, but I went to both
accessible sides.
The Island in the Sky, which isthe one closest to Moab.
Still like 20-something milesfrom the main of the road to get
(01:46):
there.
But that's the most popular partof the Island in the Sky
district.
That's where you have Mesa Arch,the Grand View, Green River
Overlook, a bunch of othertrails and things to do.
And of course the White RimRoad, which I would love to do
someday.
If you don't know about that,recommend you look that up if
you're into off-roading androughing it for a couple of
(02:07):
days.
If you can get a permit.
Canyon Lands is the land ofcanyons.
You have the Green River and theColorado River coming together
in the park and creating thesebeautiful canyons.
Hence the name Canyon Lands.
I tried to stay in all thepark's campgrounds were full.
(02:31):
Canyonlands Island and the SkyDistrict campground only has
like 12 sites, so I guess itstays booked all the time.
I'm gonna try to keep this videosomewhat short.
I did Mesa Arch, I did UpheavalDome, I went to Grand View.
I did three hikes there duringthe day, and I have individual
(02:51):
videos on those that'll becoming out in the future.
So if you want to see those,make sure you like this.
Share this video with yourfriends so they can see other
things.
This is an overview guide to thefive national parks in a week.
Each individual park, probablyyou could see in a week and not
do all the things.
There's a lot to do at each ofthese parks because they're
(03:12):
pretty large and lots of thingsthat you could get involved
with.
This kind of gives you an ideaof the whole park.
You have Island in the Sky uphere in this part.
This is the part that I went tothis time.
You have the maze over here, youhave the rivers themselves, and
you have the needles.
All of those areas are notconnected, amazingly enough.
So it's a pretty rugged,undeveloped part.
(03:32):
I mean, there's roads in thereand places to get to different
things, but you really justcan't drive from Dialing Sky
District to the needles or themaze.
You have to actually go tothose, each area of the park
individually.
Looking forward to that in thefuture.
But I did spend time at CanyonLands first.
I ended up camping out the firsttwo nights in a tent in Moab.
(03:58):
I found a hip camp.
I can show you that.
I stayed in that campground fortwo nights.
I only got down until upper 30s,and I had pretty comfortable
sleeping.
There was a shower house, aplace to wash dishes for
cooking.
I could walk to a lot of thestuff in Moab, which was nice.
I had not been to Canyonlandsbefore.
(04:18):
I wanted to focus on that forthis trip, going to Canyonlands
more and going to the UpheavalDome hike, which I did, the
Grand View hike, which I did,and the Mesa Arch hike
recommended by the Park Rangerat the visitor center.
It was pretty busy, but not asbusy as Arches.
I ended up going to Arches thenext day.
This is the Schaefer Road thatconnects to the White Rim Road.
(04:40):
As you can see, pretty rugged,it goes along the edge of the
canyon.
And you can do that.
There's lots of places to go andhike.
Let's look at that briefly, thenwe'll move on to the next park.
None of the parks were chargingadmission.
I have my annual park pass,America the Beautiful Pass.
It's$80.
I definitely recommend you ifyou're going to go to parks.
(05:02):
We're still on shutdown rightnow as of this recording.
But it says difficultconditions, complicate Cataract
Canyon, which is one of theriver access points.
I had no issues with any of thepark stuff while the services
were closed.
Utah is using state funds rightnow to staff the parks and to
keep things moving.
It says expect long lines.
(05:23):
There was a lot of peopleparking at the visitor center
when I came in.
The visitor center is the firstplace you come into past the
entrance station.
I think at Zion they weremanning the ones on the east
side, but they weren't takingany funds.
Doesn't make much sense to me,but it is what it is.
(05:44):
So it gives you some ideas ofwhat's going on, construction
and programs and so forth.
Super cool place.
It's very undeveloped for themost part.
Paved roads that you can access,most of the stuff.
In the island in the skydistrict, and in the needles.
I've been to both.
I'd like to go to Needles nexttime and explore that some more.
(06:07):
When I was there in December, Ididn't get to really see.
Let's go to Arches.
The Arches are what I went tonext.
On my way out, I went to Arches.
Arches, of course, has adelicate arch, a whole bunch of
other.
There's like 2,000 arches inArches National Park, so I guess
it's named.
There are some alerts here.
(06:28):
Let's look at these alerts realquick.
They are not doing the timedentry pilot, which is supposed
to be designed to throttle thevisitation because it's so close
to Moab.
You can literally drive acrossthe river from Moab going north,
and you're right there atArches.
So it's very accessible fromMoab.
And because of that, it's busy.
(06:49):
I went down to the windows areaof the park.
Back in December, I did the partof the Devil's Garden.
I did Delicate Arch.
Some other side arches on theside.
Went to the overview area of thefiery furnace.
I have not hiked the fieryfurnace yet because you have to
have a permit to go in there orgo on a ranger-guided hike.
So that's upcoming, hopefully.
(07:10):
I was told by one of therangers, one of the volunteers,
and somebody else that hiked thefiery furnace, and they said it
was amazing.
That's why I'm doing this video.
When it's probably one of thebest times to visit the Utah
National Parks.
The busy season for most of themis March to November.
When you get to December,January, and February.
It's gonna be cold.
(07:32):
It's cold.
But it's not so cold that youcan't stand it, except maybe
higher elevation.
The hike that I did, let's go tothe hikes.
I hiked to the window.
I didn't hike to this window.
I was in the windows areathough, and I did the double O.
Let me look.
Double arch.
Sorry, double arch.
(07:52):
So I did this one.
It's not a very long trail hike,but you'll see a video I did of
that one coming up soon.
I had not gone to the windowsarea.
That's one place we didn't makeit to when I was over there
before.
It's a short hike.
Most of the hikes in the windowsarea are flat ground.
I mean, you are up at elevationa little bit, but not too bad.
(08:15):
The problem is I had to drivearound a couple of times in that
parking lot, even though it's areally large parking area, to
find a parking spot, and Ifinally did.
One thing to keep in mind thereare restrictions on dogs.
That's a lot of people bringingdogs on the trail that's not
allowed.
So don't do that.
Even though people are not,don't bring your dog on the
(08:36):
trail that is not allowed.
Follow the rules and regulationsof the park while you're there.
This third park I went to islocated near Utah.
South Central.
Canyon lands are southeast.
Utah.
They're close to each other.
Moving up west, I went toCapitol Reef.
(09:00):
By far, this remains my favoritepark, even though I visited all
five of them.
I had not been to Bryce before,but I had been to Capitol Reef,
arches, canyon lands, and Zion.
Even though Bryce is magnificentand wonderful.
I love Capitol Reef.
I did hike to the HickmanBridge, which is a natural
bridge, it's not an arch.
There is a place called NaturalBridge in Bryce, which we'll
(09:22):
show you in one of the videoscoming up, that is called a
bridge, but it's actually anarch because of the way it's
configured.
The interesting thing about Reefis the reason it was called
Capital Reef in the first place.
Domes there.
And I don't know if I have apicture of those domes on this
website that I can show you.
See if I can find a map for you.
(09:44):
Places to go.
Let's look at the water pocketdistrict.
This is kind of what it lookslike.
It's a pretty rugged terrain.
Capitol Reef is not verydeveloped.
Moab and are not far off of I-70and some other major roads.
I think it's that goes throughthere.
U.S.
Highway.
Pretty good accessibility.
(10:04):
It's a little bit harder to getto Capitol Reef.
No interstates nearby, noairports nearby, so you kind of
have to drive there.
And it's far from a lot ofthings.
Which is why I like it.
It's not as crowded, it's not asbusy, and it's pretty
undeveloped for the most part.
One of the neat things about it,which I'll talk about in a
(10:24):
second, is there's an old Mormoncommunity there in the middle of
the park, which you definitelyneed to visit.
But the reason, and I was tryingto find a map, but I don't see a
map at this particular time.
Let me see if I can find one.
They got a map on here.
Where is the map at?
They got a community calledFruta.
It's an old Mormon community.
(10:45):
It was established in the lateand it was active until the
1940s, which is crazy.
But a small Mormon communitylived there.
They had orchards, all kinds ofthings, which is pretty amazing
how isolated they were.
Let's see.
You can be a bark ranger, butyou can take your dog on the
(11:11):
trail from the visitor center tothe campground, the Fremont
River Trail, any unfenced orunlocked orchards, the within 50
feet of the center line ofroads, paved orchard, and any
parking areas.
They have a thing called theBark Ranger, which means bag
your poop.
Always wear a leash.
(11:32):
Respect the wildlife and knowwhere you can go.
Places you can go with your petis places you cannot.
Just abide by that andeverything will be cool.
It'll be good for everybody.
There are some alerts here atthis park.
They have monsoon flash floods,which happened back in
(11:53):
September.
They had a lot of rain, but Ididn't see an issue with it.
Even though I drove through theFremont River to get to the
Cathedral Valley area, it wasabout 12 inches deep.
I didn't even put it in afour-wheel drive.
My truck was able to drivethrough no problem.
They're also talking about theorchards.
3,000 orchard trees there fromthe Mormon community that was
(12:15):
there prior to the park.
Unfortunately, this year,normally you can pick fruit from
the orchard on the honor system,you just weigh it out and pay a
fee.
They don't have fruit this yearbecause of a freeze.
But they do have the GiffordHouse, which has pies.
I definitely recommend going tothat.
It's really neat.
And if you have a capablevehicle and the conditions are
right, go to Cathedral Valley.
There's a lot of hikes.
(12:36):
Interesting things.
Without focusing too much onthis place, let's go to the next
place.
We're going to talk aboutanother park, which is called
Bryce Canyon.
I had not been to Bryce.
That was the only park I had notbeen to.
Even though I used to go to St.
George fairly often to visitfriends of I'd never been to
(12:57):
Bryce, but look at this.
This is a beautiful hoodoofield.
Come from the Paiute word.
It's one of the native peoplethat used to live in that area.
They actually said oodus, but ofcourse, us European people
misunderstood what they weresaying, and a lot of people were
(13:18):
saying hoodoos, so it kind ofgot mistranslated to hoodoos.
The Paiute belief is that thecoyote spirit, who is a
trickster god, like Loki inmythology, people that were bad,
he imprisoned in these things.
So think about all those spiritsthat were imprisoned in here,
and I guess after they falldown, their spirit is released
back into the universe.
(13:38):
Interesting belief.
Bryce is probably the smallestof the five national parks.
I think it's about 53,000 acres.
It's pretty busy and accessible,built up just like the Moab area
design, which we'll get toshortly.
Bryce is no different.
It's got a lot of the edge ofthe park.
You've got a community there,which is pretty much park
focused with hotels,restaurants, and other things to
(13:59):
do besides park stuff.
The day that I got there was thelast day that they had shut the
shuttle down.
That was the 19th.
The 19th was the last day theshuttles were running.
They are still running shuttlesin Zion, which we'll get to.
You have to ride a shuttle rightnow in order to access the park
or majority of the park.
(14:19):
But in Bryce, I was able todrive pretty much the whole
scenic dry, which is like 18 oneway all the way to the end.
Hiked a few trails.
There's some bristle cone pinesthere.
Bryce is at higher elevationthough, so it snows pretty
heavily, that's what Iunderstand.
There's a lot of cool places tohike.
I hiked the Bristlecone Trail, Ihiked the Mossy Cave Trail, and
(14:40):
I hiked the most famous trailthat they say, like the best one
you have to do if you have to doone trail.
The Navajo Garden, which isactually two trails combined
together.
And saw Queen Queen Elizabeth,the hoodoo, not the actual
person, because she's long beenpassed away.
And I also saw a lot of otherhoodoos because you're able to
(15:03):
walk down amongst the hoodoos,whereas most of the other trails
you're in viewpoints and stuffway above them.
There are other trails that youcan do there.
I didn't have time to do thembecause of my time limitation.
I thought it was pretty cool.
This kind of shows you anoverview right here.
Got the visitor center as youcome into the park.
You have Fairyland Point.
Bryce Canyon City is right here,right outside of the point, the
(15:24):
entrance part.
There is a little bit of theNational Forest.
I believe it's the DixieNational Forest on the edge.
I was really surprised.
I mean, even though you look atthis picture over here, all
these hoodos.
I was really surprised at howmany trees were in Bryce.
But I guess it's because it's athigher elevation.
This is one of the ones that Ihiked here, the Queen's Garden
(15:46):
Trail.
It doesn't have Navajo on therefor some reason.
Yeah, here's Navajo right here.
Navajo and Queen's Garden.
I did those.
And then way down here, youdon't see on this little map
here.
Oh, here's a little guy.
Randy Ringtail and Ruby thehummingbird.
Oh my gosh.
That's funny.
Of course, if you have kiddos,all of these parks offer junior
(16:07):
ranger programs, even with theshutdown.
Bryce's alerts.
Look at those real quick.
Then we'll pop over to Zion realquick.
Amazingly enough, they have noalerts.
So that's crazy.
Government shutdown is still ineffect as of right now when I'm
recording this on the 27th ofOctober.
(16:28):
Some of the services may not beavailable as much.
I didn't see any kind of issueswith any of the services that
were offered.
But that may be coming.
Zion, probably the busiest ofall the parks that I went to,
(16:52):
but one of the most magnificent.
I mean, look at that pictureright there.
These beautiful cliffs and thisbeautiful rainbow shooting up.
Let's see what the deals aregoing on right here.
So right now, because of uhfunding, the Zion History
Museum, Human History Museum,and the Kolob Canyon Center are
not open.
There's an area of interstate tothe north towards Cedar City
(17:14):
from St.
George called the Kolob Canyons.
I haven't been to that area yet.
I'm going to go there probablyin the off-season.
So it's a little bit moreaccessible, not as many crowds.
Those are closed right nowbecause of government funding or
lack thereof.
You shouldn't drink the waterbecause they have cyanobacteria
in there.
No fires.
(17:34):
They have a permitting deal.
Parking is an issue at Zion.
It's probably the oldest of thefive Utah parks.
They didn't really think abouthow popular automobile travel
would be.
So during the majority of theyear, you have to ride a
shuttle.
But shuttles are available freeof charge in Springdale, which
is the nearest town, rightoutside the south part of the
(17:56):
park.
You can park there.
It's not cheap.
I think I parked there for$30and then realized I could park
at the visitor center.
That was a mess up on my part.
Then you ride a shuttle todifferent stops throughout the
park and you can get off atcertain stops to different hikes
and activities.
I can't go through all this inone video, so I apologize for
that.
I hope this is giving you a goodoverview.
It's open 24 hours a day.
(18:18):
They operate the shuttle throughNovember, and after that, you're
allowed to bring your car andthen drive around.
There's not a lot of parking.
Due to the nature of the parkand canyon that the Virgin River
carved out over time.
Could be an issue water if youwere doing overnight because
(18:41):
toxic cyanobacteria in there.
It's a pretty cool park.
Despite.
This gives you an idea of theones that I went to.
I started off with staying inMoab and I went to Arches, then
(19:05):
up to the Reef, then to Bryce,and then to Zion.
I stayed in Airbnb's themajority of the time.
I did two nights in a campgroundin Arches.
I did one night in an RV parkthat I found in Airbnb.
It was a little camper cabin.
(19:25):
I stayed two nights in an oldhotel probably from the 30s
called Bryce Canyon Motel.
And then I stayed at an Airbnbin Hurricane, which is about 23,
24 miles from Zion, for the lastpart of the trip.
Then I drove back to my home inFarmington.
(19:46):
I think it was a cool trip.
This kind of gives you anoverview.
There are no shuttles at arches,reef or cedar brakes, but
there's definitely shuttles thatyou have to take the year in
Zion.
And then Bryce Canyon has ashuttle that runs to help with
some congestion.
Let's go back to Zion for aminute and talk about it.
I did a couple of hikes there.
(20:08):
I did the narrows, which iswhere you can hike in the narrow
part of the canyon.
The farthest end of the drivethat you can go on with the
shuttle.
You can get off at stop nine andwalk down a kind of a rough
sidewalk.
It's paved so that people canaccess it in a wheelchair.
One lady in a wheelchair beingpushed and she's having a good
time.
So people with mobility issuescan access near the river.
(20:31):
And I think after that you canwalk up the river about 12 or so
miles to explore the narrows.
Something on my list, but Ididn't do it this time.
Also did the Emerald Pools,which there's three of those.
I was going to do a hike calledthe Canyon Overlook.
When you go through the tunnelon the east side, which was
created in 1930, you have aparking issue.
(20:53):
The shuttle buses can't getthrough there, but you can drive
your own vehicle.
If you can find parking, you canhike the trail.
I didn't find any parking, so Iwasn't able to go.
Hope I gave you a good overview.
If I did, give this video athumbs up so other people
consider subscribing to thechannel so you don't miss
videos.
I'm gonna have individual videoson all the hikes that I did and
all the different things that Isaw.
(21:14):
Let me know your questions orcomments.
If you're listening on thepodcast, click on the let me
know what you're thinking.
I'd love to answer those foryou.
I hope you enjoyed the video.
Until next time, I'll see you onthe trail.
Bye bye.
Hey folks, it's Craig, the Natural Medic.
I apologize that I have not beenputting videos out as often this
month.
I just went on a trip.
Got back a Thursday night.
I was gone eight days exploringUtah's national parks, which you
may see on the screen here.
(00:20):
Utah has what is called the BigFive.
If you want to see an overviewof that, stick with me and we
can talk about those.
Alright, so let's kind of talkabout the very first place that
I went.
I live in Farmington, NewMexico, so I'm only three hours
from Moab.
Moab, of course, has two of theprominent Big Five parks in the
(00:44):
area.
One of those is Arches, ofcourse, the other one is
Canyonlands.
Arches is pretty accessible,it's pretty busy, but an amazing
place.
Highly recommend the book, whichI'm missing the name right now,
but it'll come to me probably bythe end of the video.
Highly recommend you read that,the nature of arches as far as
(01:04):
visitation and accessibility.
Has changed quite a bit sincethe 1950s.
Gentleman was there as aseasonal park ranger.
Let's talk about the very firstplace that I went, which was
Canyonlands National Park.
Let's go take a look at it.
This is the beautiful view thatyou see.
(01:26):
I believe this view is a GreenRiver overlook, which I went to.
I have been there before inDecember, but I went to both
accessible sides.
The Island in the Sky, which isthe one closest to Moab.
Still like 20-something milesfrom the main of the road to get
(01:46):
there.
But that's the most popular partof the Island in the Sky
district.
That's where you have Mesa Arch,the Grand View, Green River
Overlook, a bunch of othertrails and things to do.
And of course the White RimRoad, which I would love to do
someday.
If you don't know about that,recommend you look that up if
you're into off-roading androughing it for a couple of
(02:07):
days.
If you can get a permit.
Canyon Lands is the land ofcanyons.
You have the Green River and theColorado River coming together
in the park and creating thesebeautiful canyons.
Hence the name Canyon Lands.
I tried to stay in all thepark's campgrounds were full.
(02:31):
Canyonlands Island and the SkyDistrict campground only has
like 12 sites, so I guess itstays booked all the time.
I'm gonna try to keep this videosomewhat short.
I did Mesa Arch, I did UpheavalDome, I went to Grand View.
I did three hikes there duringthe day, and I have individual
(02:51):
videos on those that'll becoming out in the future.
So if you want to see those,make sure you like this.
Share this video with yourfriends so they can see other
things.
This is an overview guide to thefive national parks in a week.
Each individual park, probablyyou could see in a week and not
do all the things.
There's a lot to do at each ofthese parks because they're
(03:12):
pretty large and lots of thingsthat you could get involved
with.
This kind of gives you an ideaof the whole park.
You have Island in the Sky uphere in this part.
This is the part that I went tothis time.
You have the maze over here, youhave the rivers themselves, and
you have the needles.
All of those areas are notconnected, amazingly enough.
So it's a pretty rugged,undeveloped part.
(03:32):
I mean, there's roads in thereand places to get to different
things, but you really justcan't drive from Dialing Sky
District to the needles or themaze.
You have to actually go tothose, each area of the park
individually.
Looking forward to that in thefuture.
But I did spend time at CanyonLands first.
I ended up camping out the firsttwo nights in a tent in Moab.
(03:58):
I found a hip camp.
I can show you that.
I stayed in that campground fortwo nights.
I only got down until upper 30s,and I had pretty comfortable
sleeping.
There was a shower house, aplace to wash dishes for
cooking.
I could walk to a lot of thestuff in Moab, which was nice.
I had not been to Canyonlandsbefore.
(04:18):
I wanted to focus on that forthis trip, going to Canyonlands
more and going to the UpheavalDome hike, which I did, the
Grand View hike, which I did,and the Mesa Arch hike
recommended by the Park Rangerat the visitor center.
It was pretty busy, but not asbusy as Arches.
I ended up going to Arches thenext day.
This is the Schaefer Road thatconnects to the White Rim Road.
(04:40):
As you can see, pretty rugged,it goes along the edge of the
canyon.
And you can do that.
There's lots of places to go andhike.
Let's look at that briefly, thenwe'll move on to the next park.
None of the parks were chargingadmission.
I have my annual park pass,America the Beautiful Pass.
It's$80.
I definitely recommend you ifyou're going to go to parks.
(05:02):
We're still on shutdown rightnow as of this recording.
But it says difficultconditions, complicate Cataract
Canyon, which is one of theriver access points.
I had no issues with any of thepark stuff while the services
were closed.
Utah is using state funds rightnow to staff the parks and to
keep things moving.
It says expect long lines.
(05:23):
There was a lot of peopleparking at the visitor center
when I came in.
The visitor center is the firstplace you come into past the
entrance station.
I think at Zion they weremanning the ones on the east
side, but they weren't takingany funds.
Doesn't make much sense to me,but it is what it is.
(05:44):
So it gives you some ideas ofwhat's going on, construction
and programs and so forth.
Super cool place.
It's very undeveloped for themost part.
Paved roads that you can access,most of the stuff.
In the island in the skydistrict, and in the needles.
I've been to both.
I'd like to go to Needles nexttime and explore that some more.
(06:07):
When I was there in December, Ididn't get to really see.
Let's go to Arches.
The Arches are what I went tonext.
On my way out, I went to Arches.
Arches, of course, has adelicate arch, a whole bunch of
other.
There's like 2,000 arches inArches National Park, so I guess
it's named.
There are some alerts here.
(06:28):
Let's look at these alerts realquick.
They are not doing the timedentry pilot, which is supposed
to be designed to throttle thevisitation because it's so close
to Moab.
You can literally drive acrossthe river from Moab going north,
and you're right there atArches.
So it's very accessible fromMoab.
And because of that, it's busy.
(06:49):
I went down to the windows areaof the park.
Back in December, I did the partof the Devil's Garden.
I did Delicate Arch.
Some other side arches on theside.
Went to the overview area of thefiery furnace.
I have not hiked the fieryfurnace yet because you have to
have a permit to go in there orgo on a ranger-guided hike.
So that's upcoming, hopefully.
(07:10):
I was told by one of therangers, one of the volunteers,
and somebody else that hiked thefiery furnace, and they said it
was amazing.
That's why I'm doing this video.
When it's probably one of thebest times to visit the Utah
National Parks.
The busy season for most of themis March to November.
When you get to December,January, and February.
It's gonna be cold.
(07:32):
It's cold.
But it's not so cold that youcan't stand it, except maybe
higher elevation.
The hike that I did, let's go tothe hikes.
I hiked to the window.
I didn't hike to this window.
I was in the windows areathough, and I did the double O.
Let me look.
Double arch.
Sorry, double arch.
(07:52):
So I did this one.
It's not a very long trail hike,but you'll see a video I did of
that one coming up soon.
I had not gone to the windowsarea.
That's one place we didn't makeit to when I was over there
before.
It's a short hike.
Most of the hikes in the windowsarea are flat ground.
I mean, you are up at elevationa little bit, but not too bad.
(08:15):
The problem is I had to drivearound a couple of times in that
parking lot, even though it's areally large parking area, to
find a parking spot, and Ifinally did.
One thing to keep in mind thereare restrictions on dogs.
That's a lot of people bringingdogs on the trail that's not
allowed.
So don't do that.
Even though people are not,don't bring your dog on the
(08:36):
trail that is not allowed.
Follow the rules and regulationsof the park while you're there.
This third park I went to islocated near Utah.
South Central.
Canyon lands are southeast.
Utah.
They're close to each other.
Moving up west, I went toCapitol Reef.
(09:00):
By far, this remains my favoritepark, even though I visited all
five of them.
I had not been to Bryce before,but I had been to Capitol Reef,
arches, canyon lands, and Zion.
Even though Bryce is magnificentand wonderful.
I love Capitol Reef.
I did hike to the HickmanBridge, which is a natural
bridge, it's not an arch.
There is a place called NaturalBridge in Bryce, which we'll
(09:22):
show you in one of the videoscoming up, that is called a
bridge, but it's actually anarch because of the way it's
configured.
The interesting thing about Reefis the reason it was called
Capital Reef in the first place.
Domes there.
And I don't know if I have apicture of those domes on this
website that I can show you.
See if I can find a map for you.
(09:44):
Places to go.
Let's look at the water pocketdistrict.
This is kind of what it lookslike.
It's a pretty rugged terrain.
Capitol Reef is not verydeveloped.
Moab and are not far off of I-70and some other major roads.
I think it's that goes throughthere.
U.S.
Highway.
Pretty good accessibility.
(10:04):
It's a little bit harder to getto Capitol Reef.
No interstates nearby, noairports nearby, so you kind of
have to drive there.
And it's far from a lot ofthings.
Which is why I like it.
It's not as crowded, it's not asbusy, and it's pretty
undeveloped for the most part.
One of the neat things about it,which I'll talk about in a
(10:24):
second, is there's an old Mormoncommunity there in the middle of
the park, which you definitelyneed to visit.
But the reason, and I was tryingto find a map, but I don't see a
map at this particular time.
Let me see if I can find one.
They got a map on here.
Where is the map at?
They got a community calledFruta.
It's an old Mormon community.
(10:45):
It was established in the lateand it was active until the
1940s, which is crazy.
But a small Mormon communitylived there.
They had orchards, all kinds ofthings, which is pretty amazing
how isolated they were.
Let's see.
You can be a bark ranger, butyou can take your dog on the
(11:11):
trail from the visitor center tothe campground, the Fremont
River Trail, any unfenced orunlocked orchards, the within 50
feet of the center line ofroads, paved orchard, and any
parking areas.
They have a thing called theBark Ranger, which means bag
your poop.
Always wear a leash.
(11:32):
Respect the wildlife and knowwhere you can go.
Places you can go with your petis places you cannot.
Just abide by that andeverything will be cool.
It'll be good for everybody.
There are some alerts here atthis park.
They have monsoon flash floods,which happened back in
(11:53):
September.
They had a lot of rain, but Ididn't see an issue with it.
Even though I drove through theFremont River to get to the
Cathedral Valley area, it wasabout 12 inches deep.
I didn't even put it in afour-wheel drive.
My truck was able to drivethrough no problem.
They're also talking about theorchards.
3,000 orchard trees there fromthe Mormon community that was
(12:15):
there prior to the park.
Unfortunately, this year,normally you can pick fruit from
the orchard on the honor system,you just weigh it out and pay a
fee.
They don't have fruit this yearbecause of a freeze.
But they do have the GiffordHouse, which has pies.
I definitely recommend going tothat.
It's really neat.
And if you have a capablevehicle and the conditions are
right, go to Cathedral Valley.
There's a lot of hikes.
(12:36):
Interesting things.
Without focusing too much onthis place, let's go to the next
place.
We're going to talk aboutanother park, which is called
Bryce Canyon.
I had not been to Bryce.
That was the only park I had notbeen to.
Even though I used to go to St.
George fairly often to visitfriends of I'd never been to
(12:57):
Bryce, but look at this.
This is a beautiful hoodoofield.
Come from the Paiute word.
It's one of the native peoplethat used to live in that area.
They actually said oodus, but ofcourse, us European people
misunderstood what they weresaying, and a lot of people were
(13:18):
saying hoodoos, so it kind ofgot mistranslated to hoodoos.
The Paiute belief is that thecoyote spirit, who is a
trickster god, like Loki inmythology, people that were bad,
he imprisoned in these things.
So think about all those spiritsthat were imprisoned in here,
and I guess after they falldown, their spirit is released
back into the universe.
(13:38):
Interesting belief.
Bryce is probably the smallestof the five national parks.
I think it's about 53,000 acres.
It's pretty busy and accessible,built up just like the Moab area
design, which we'll get toshortly.
Bryce is no different.
It's got a lot of the edge ofthe park.
You've got a community there,which is pretty much park
focused with hotels,restaurants, and other things to
(13:59):
do besides park stuff.
The day that I got there was thelast day that they had shut the
shuttle down.
That was the 19th.
The 19th was the last day theshuttles were running.
They are still running shuttlesin Zion, which we'll get to.
You have to ride a shuttle rightnow in order to access the park
or majority of the park.
(14:19):
But in Bryce, I was able todrive pretty much the whole
scenic dry, which is like 18 oneway all the way to the end.
Hiked a few trails.
There's some bristle cone pinesthere.
Bryce is at higher elevationthough, so it snows pretty
heavily, that's what Iunderstand.
There's a lot of cool places tohike.
I hiked the Bristlecone Trail, Ihiked the Mossy Cave Trail, and
(14:40):
I hiked the most famous trailthat they say, like the best one
you have to do if you have to doone trail.
The Navajo Garden, which isactually two trails combined
together.
And saw Queen Queen Elizabeth,the hoodoo, not the actual
person, because she's long beenpassed away.
And I also saw a lot of otherhoodoos because you're able to
(15:03):
walk down amongst the hoodoos,whereas most of the other trails
you're in viewpoints and stuffway above them.
There are other trails that youcan do there.
I didn't have time to do thembecause of my time limitation.
I thought it was pretty cool.
This kind of shows you anoverview right here.
Got the visitor center as youcome into the park.
You have Fairyland Point.
Bryce Canyon City is right here,right outside of the point, the
(15:24):
entrance part.
There is a little bit of theNational Forest.
I believe it's the DixieNational Forest on the edge.
I was really surprised.
I mean, even though you look atthis picture over here, all
these hoodos.
I was really surprised at howmany trees were in Bryce.
But I guess it's because it's athigher elevation.
This is one of the ones that Ihiked here, the Queen's Garden
(15:46):
Trail.
It doesn't have Navajo on therefor some reason.
Yeah, here's Navajo right here.
Navajo and Queen's Garden.
I did those.
And then way down here, youdon't see on this little map
here.
Oh, here's a little guy.
Randy Ringtail and Ruby thehummingbird.
Oh my gosh.
That's funny.
Of course, if you have kiddos,all of these parks offer junior
(16:07):
ranger programs, even with theshutdown.
Bryce's alerts.
Look at those real quick.
Then we'll pop over to Zion realquick.
Amazingly enough, they have noalerts.
So that's crazy.
Government shutdown is still ineffect as of right now when I'm
recording this on the 27th ofOctober.
(16:28):
Some of the services may not beavailable as much.
I didn't see any kind of issueswith any of the services that
were offered.
But that may be coming.
Zion, probably the busiest ofall the parks that I went to,
(16:52):
but one of the most magnificent.
I mean, look at that pictureright there.
These beautiful cliffs and thisbeautiful rainbow shooting up.
Let's see what the deals aregoing on right here.
So right now, because of uhfunding, the Zion History
Museum, Human History Museum,and the Kolob Canyon Center are
not open.
There's an area of interstate tothe north towards Cedar City
(17:14):
from St.
George called the Kolob Canyons.
I haven't been to that area yet.
I'm going to go there probablyin the off-season.
So it's a little bit moreaccessible, not as many crowds.
Those are closed right nowbecause of government funding or
lack thereof.
You shouldn't drink the waterbecause they have cyanobacteria
in there.
No fires.
(17:34):
They have a permitting deal.
Parking is an issue at Zion.
It's probably the oldest of thefive Utah parks.
They didn't really think abouthow popular automobile travel
would be.
So during the majority of theyear, you have to ride a
shuttle.
But shuttles are available freeof charge in Springdale, which
is the nearest town, rightoutside the south part of the
(17:56):
park.
You can park there.
It's not cheap.
I think I parked there for$30and then realized I could park
at the visitor center.
That was a mess up on my part.
Then you ride a shuttle todifferent stops throughout the
park and you can get off atcertain stops to different hikes
and activities.
I can't go through all this inone video, so I apologize for
that.
I hope this is giving you a goodoverview.
It's open 24 hours a day.
(18:18):
They operate the shuttle throughNovember, and after that, you're
allowed to bring your car andthen drive around.
There's not a lot of parking.
Due to the nature of the parkand canyon that the Virgin River
carved out over time.
Could be an issue water if youwere doing overnight because
(18:41):
toxic cyanobacteria in there.
It's a pretty cool park.
Despite.
This gives you an idea of theones that I went to.
I started off with staying inMoab and I went to Arches, then
(19:05):
up to the Reef, then to Bryce,and then to Zion.
I stayed in Airbnb's themajority of the time.
I did two nights in a campgroundin Arches.
I did one night in an RV parkthat I found in Airbnb.
It was a little camper cabin.
(19:25):
I stayed two nights in an oldhotel probably from the 30s
called Bryce Canyon Motel.
And then I stayed at an Airbnbin Hurricane, which is about 23,
24 miles from Zion, for the lastpart of the trip.
Then I drove back to my home inFarmington.
(19:46):
I think it was a cool trip.
This kind of gives you anoverview.
There are no shuttles at arches,reef or cedar brakes, but
there's definitely shuttles thatyou have to take the year in
Zion.
And then Bryce Canyon has ashuttle that runs to help with
some congestion.
Let's go back to Zion for aminute and talk about it.
I did a couple of hikes there.
(20:08):
I did the narrows, which iswhere you can hike in the narrow
part of the canyon.
The farthest end of the drivethat you can go on with the
shuttle.
You can get off at stop nine andwalk down a kind of a rough
sidewalk.
It's paved so that people canaccess it in a wheelchair.
One lady in a wheelchair beingpushed and she's having a good
time.
So people with mobility issuescan access near the river.
(20:31):
And I think after that you canwalk up the river about 12 or so
miles to explore the narrows.
Something on my list, but Ididn't do it this time.
Also did the Emerald Pools,which there's three of those.
I was going to do a hike calledthe Canyon Overlook.
When you go through the tunnelon the east side, which was
created in 1930, you have aparking issue.
(20:53):
The shuttle buses can't getthrough there, but you can drive
your own vehicle.
If you can find parking, you canhike the trail.
I didn't find any parking, so Iwasn't able to go.
Hope I gave you a good overview.
If I did, give this video athumbs up so other people
consider subscribing to thechannel so you don't miss
videos.
I'm gonna have individual videoson all the hikes that I did and
all the different things that Isaw.
(21:14):
Let me know your questions orcomments.
If you're listening on thepodcast, click on the let me
know what you're thinking.
I'd love to answer those foryou.
I hope you enjoyed the video.
Until next time, I'll see you onthe trail.
Bye bye.
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