Utah trip 2020

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nparker72

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Hey guys I know this is s hectic time, but I am bout to travel to Utah with my girlfriend and my dog. This is just a rough route and will find camping. This is a 14-16 day trip. With 2 days travel there and 2 days travel back. Any additions or things that are overrated let me know!



Will be driving in my 2010 trail 4runner and have a smittybilt rtt. 2 inch lift. No sliders
 

samuraj

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is it open ?
we are packed and waiting for this flu to pass , going from chicago , sleeping in the car and resorts
 

JohnKeller

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All of the Utah State Parks are open. The national parks have yet to open. If you are in Moab try Dead Horse State Park instead of Canyonlands. About the same view. You may try Capitol Reef National Park also. The park has no entrance gates and offers spetacular views from Strike Overlook just off of the Burr Trail above the switchbacks. Worth the hike for sure. If you like slot canyons try Kanab. The drive and hike through Peekaboo is a lot like Antelope canyon but smaller. Just as pretty. IMG_1036.jpeg
Peekaboo

IMG_1961 (2).jpeg
Capitol Reef Strike overlook
 
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slomatt

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My family and I just went on a 9-day road trip to Utah in mid March right as restaurants and other services started closing down. We went to Zion, Arches, Canyonlands (Island in the Sky), and Bryce along with other stops.

The #1 thing to know is that taking a road trip during this pandemic is fairly stressful, and at least as of a month ago stores in Moab were low on many supplies. A lot of hotels/motels are closed, which might not matter if you are going to be camping. Officials in the Moab area were asking travelers to stay away. Again, this might not be a major concern to you if you are camping and self-reliant. We found that once in the national parks things were easy, but finding lunch or bathrooms on the road was sometimes difficult.

A larger problem is that some of the national parks you listed are closed as of today, though a few sound like they are starting to re-open.

That all said, you have some really good stops on your list. Canyonlands is huge, so depending on how much time you have you'll need to do some research to figure out what you want to see. Island in the Sky is approachable and has great views, in particular I recommend the hike to the Grand View Point Overlook. If you have more time you could drive down and explore part of the White Rim Trail. The Needles District is beautiful, especially if you drive the Elephant Hill Trail.

Some of the more spectacular sights in Arches require hiking (Landscape Arch, Delicate Arch, etc), but you can see most things in a day. I highly recommend seeing Delicate Arch up close at sunset. There are also a few dirt roads in the park that are good to explore.

This was my first time visiting Bryce and I am already planning to go back. We were there during a heavy snowstorm so the trails to hike down were unfortunately closed, but in exchange we got to see the red rock with a dusting of snow on top. We drove into Bryce from the north through Koosharem which was more scenic than taking highway 70.

And of course there is tons of good wheeling and camping around Moab. Depending on how built your truck is and your experience level I recommend running Fins N Things or Hell's Revenge to get a sampling of the slickrock.

Here are few more places you might want to consider:
Monument Valley
Goosenecks
Horseshoe Bend
Hole in the Rock Road
Valley of the Gods
North Rim of the Grand Canyon

- Matt
 

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I was just down in UT and northern AZ (Sedona/Flagstaff) last week and national parks were all closed. Their websites (ex. Zion) still state they're closed. What was nice, is I had zero traffic during my 12hr drive there and back.

Don't think he can do North Rim due to the dog.
 

huachuca

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Figuring out what's open should be a challenge - good luck to ya!. Frrom what I'm seeing this AM ,most of the western NPs are still closed. If things around Moab open up Horsethief is a pretty good BLM campground central to Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, Dead Horse Point SP and lots of backroads - Shaffer Trail is fairly tame but you can get some awesome photos to impress friends back home. Lots of dispersed camping option around Lake Powell. The all day boat trip to Rainbow Arch is spendy but worth it. Lone Rock beach is a neat spot to camp. Lee's Ferry is a good campground right on the Colorado River with easy access to some great back country hikes (see The Wave). Also near Vermillion Cliffs NM where they release the Condors. Late afternoon is a good time to see these huge birds perched on the framework of Navajo Bridge NM.

I'd recommend the North Rim of the Grand Canyon over the South. Lots less crowded (but who knows in these times) and you can camp right along the Rim in Kaibab NF. There are also trails within the NF that take you to views of the GC equal to or better than those in the NP. - see Point Sublime.

Matt ^^^ has some great suggetions. Looking forward to a TR and photos.


Al
 

huachuca

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Thanks @huachuca, I took some notes from your post for places to check out in the future.
Hope some of it will be of benefit. You western follks are fortunate to have so much beautiful public land to play on and we appreciate the opportunity to visit with y'all. Here in NC, we have to work a little harder to find those spots but our coastal barrier islands and Smokies hardwood forests ain't bad. Let me know if you ever get east and I'll be glad to offer some suggestions.
 
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ZR2Overlander

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Best of luck on your trip. Me and my son have a trip planned to Utah at the end of this month. All stops would be in wilderness camping but the one night reservation we had in Canyonlands at a camp spot was just cancelled by the park. They are cancelling all reservations up to the 29th of May. If you had one afterwards you are still good to go. Just praying that the National Parks will at least be open by then. If not no worries we have most of the trip planned for offroad routes so we will still see plenty of beautiful country. We got lucky before the pandemic shut the parks down. We were up in Zion for spring break and got to do the narrows, Angel's Landing and other trails. And the day we left they shut the park down.
 

Jeff B

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Just an observation from doing long trips myself. You might want an extra day going out and heading home. Just because of the mileage and time it will take, unless you plan on just driving straight through. It is very easy to get burned out on a long drive, especially driving through areas without much to see. I did a cross country trip and drove close to many areas that you are going to be going to. You can find my trip here: trip If you have any questions just ask away.
 

A-Aron

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I'm the Member Rep for the southern Utah area and have personally explored a lot of it.. it is hard to recommend enough places, but I can provide some direction in specific areas for camping locations, Covid situation, road conditions, sites to see, off pavement routes, etc. Feel free to reach out if I can help.
 

samuraj

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I'm the Member Rep for the southern Utah area and have personally explored a lot of it.. it is hard to recommend enough places, but I can provide some direction in specific areas for camping locations, Covid situation, road conditions, sites to see, off pavement routes, etc. Feel free to reach out if I can help.
its june already , can we book hotel in moab and explore ? shaffer trail and more ?
 

A-Aron

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its june already , can we book hotel in moab and explore ? shaffer trail and more ?
Moab hotels are open, campgrounds are open, dispersed camping is allowed in authorized areas.. it'll be crowded and busy, but thats normal for Moab. I wouldn't ever count on finding a place via walk-up.. if you want a hotel/campground, you better plan ahead.
 

samuraj

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Moab hotels are open, campgrounds are open, dispersed camping is allowed in authorized areas.. it'll be crowded and busy, but thats normal for Moab. I wouldn't ever count on finding a place via walk-up.. if you want a hotel/campground, you better plan ahead.
thanx :blush: planning for august anyway:tonguewink:
 

Airwolf

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My wife and I spent a month last summer driving around Utah. Some fun things to do were around Turquoise Mountain. Around there you'll find the Old Pony Express Trail, digging for your own Turquoise, and digging for Geodes. The Pony Express Trail is mostly gravel road in good condition with some black-top sections. There are other routes that branch off of the trail, so you can enter/exit from multiple locations. I did about 300 miles of gravel road and had 1 flat. There were signs on trail for the geobeds, however finding where to dig is best to do research before hand and the road/trail to the geobed off main road is not good, we did see cars there so it is possible. We had interment cell and were able to look some stuff up while out there. For the Turquoise, there is a public and a payed section. After spending a few hours clueless in the public, we went to the paid. They blast the rock and it's a lot easier to break the smaller rocks to find them, or just laying around. I would bring your own tools and containers for them and gloves. There was another place in the same general area where you can mine for Trilobites/Fossils. It's a paid family run site. They were very nice, had tools and buckets for you, we walked out with about 100' lbs of rocks with Trilobites in just an hour or two. When visiting Moab, Hwy 128 is a great drive around sunset or just to see. Not to mention Arches and Deadhorse are right there. We took the Klondike Trail with our jeep and did fine, at the end if you get out and walk to the end you will be on-top of Arches National Park with an awesome view. For camping/backpacking in Zion, backpacking/camping permits are easier to get for the east rim then the west rim. Capital Reef is a great place for Dark Sky observation, and no park fees. If you are jumping from Park to Park, the annual pass pays for it's self quickly. There was also a fun trail ride on the Stansbury Mountains, opposite side of the valley from Salt Lake. They will bring you to the top of the Copper Mine overlooking Salt Lake. Antelope Island is an interesting place, but black flys can get real bad. They have Bison and good views. Another cool place is Saltair. It's in the Salt Lake region, it used to be on the lake a hundred years ago and now it's a quarter mile inland. In the Salt Lake area as well is Sky Line Drive, we found a sweet little lake to camp by. There is tons more, we googled a lot on the fly. We did all of this in a stock GMC k1500, save for the Klondike trail. Btw, there are also ghost towns to visit, but we didn't get the chance. Yall will have a great time.
 
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Airwolf

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Opps...lol... that’s Topaz mountain and finding topaz. Had the wrong rock on the brain.