My brother is planning a trip to Utah and Colorado which got me daydreaming about Southern Utah again.
Capitol Reef National Park is a great park not nearly as busy as Arches, Zion, Bryce, Natural Bridges and other nearby locations. It’s a vast and impressive park for hikers and desert lovers.
State Route 23 through Fremont River Canyon was actually a road at one time! Sandstone walls are riddled with fossils, petroglyphs, and very old graffiti. If you look closely you will see sharp shooters who managed to spell their names in gunfire.
It seems one could spend months and months exploring the lovely nature Utah has to offer in its parks.
What’s your favorite park?
Bulldog Travels / Photos By Jenny 
Utah is very high up there on my list of must see destinations. I don’t think it will be this year, but hopefully next. I like your photos of the graffiti, it’s such a strange compulsion humans have, to try and own something so vast, to say I was here and part of me will always be. The recent craze for ‘love locks’ seems to be the modern equivalent.
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Good point. At least those can be cleaned up assuming they don’t damage the bridge. Take a look at my other Utah posts for some ideas on which parks to visit. It is exhaustive but it might give you an idea of which parks you want to see. Arches is a must.
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I definitely will, thanks 🙂
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Ii visited Utah in 1995 on a bus tour of the National Parks. My favourite was Zion but it might have been Bryce or Mese Verde or Arches – I can’t quite remember!
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Did you get much time in the parks on foot when taking a bus tour? How Long was the tour? Sounds like a lot of fun. I usually end up hitting a. Few parks at a time. At this rate it will take all my life to see them all.
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Not long enough. The bus tour has a schedule and there isn’t time to wander off and explore but I enjoyed it well enough!
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It was probably a cool trip that told you where you wanted to visit again one day
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In my ski bum days about four decades ago, when the lifts closed in early April, I’d go camping and hiking from the Squaw Flats Campground in the Needles district of Canyonlands. The weather was usually good and hiking the flat rock was great fun. I’d guess it is somewhat busier now. Utah is a wealth of beautiful country. I think I’ve said it before, but the Mormons really scored when they got it. I think it should have been the Presbyterians. 🙂
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I’ll bet April could have been cold depending on where you were camping. When we went to Bryce to camp it was ten degrees!!! I am really looking forward to heading back someday.
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Mid to late April was often decent and spring-like but no guarantees.
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Magnificent landscape captures!
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Thank you. Glad you enjoyed them.
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I love the National parks of the Southwest, and it is time to visit them again. But I have never met a National park I didn’t like, from the Everglades to Denali. 🙂 –Curt
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Great point. They make them parks for a reason don’t they?
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🙂
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Capital Reef has eluded me thus far, but I can’t complain about the parks I have visited in Utah. They are all amazing in their own way. I’m hoping to get in a road trip with my daughter to one of Utah’s NP in May. I’m letting daughter decide which one!
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Can’t wait to see what she chooses. And I can’t wait to visit Arches again and go to some of the parks I haven’t made it to yet.
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Lovely. I can imagine the ghosts of Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne et al, having a shot of Whiskey by a campfire… 🙂
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So many of the westerns were filmed down that way.
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Absolutely. Looking at your photographs, one can almost hear the sound of horse stampedes…
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I think you would adore Southern Utah and Northern Arizona!
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I sure would. Need to plan for that. (So little time…) 🙂
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You and me both. I’ll meet you there.
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That’s a deal. I might be using a cane by that time though. 😉
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No worries.
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🙂
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80,000 year old tree colony https://declutteringmylifeweb.wordpress.com/2017/07/17/80000-year-old-tree-colony-in-utah-a-new-timescale-is-needed/
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Waw, those rocks & views you won’t get over here in tiny Belgium! Waw!
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Its unusual landscape for sure. Wonderful part of our country!
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