UTAHTHROUGH SOUTHERNROADTRIP

Summer 2014

Summer Hiking guide

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National Parks

Trek across Utahs

Strange & beautiful

Maps and Directions Bryce Canyons Maze

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4 Zion & CanyonlandsThe 2 most famous national parks

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STOP 1 >>Arches National Park

Visit Arches and discover a landscape of contrast-ing colors, landforms and textures unlike any other in the world. The park has over 2,000 natural stone arches, in addition to hundreds of soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks. This red rock wonderland will amaze you with its formations, refresh you with its trails, and inspire you with its sunsets. The forces of nature have acted in concert to create the landscape of Arches, which contains the greatest

density of natural arches in the world. Throughout the park, rock layers reveal millions of years of deposition, erosion and other geologic events. These layers continue to shape life in Arches today, as their erosion influenc-es elemental features like soil chem-istry and where water flows when it rains. Arches is located in a high desert, with elevations ranging from 4,085 to 5,653 feet above sea level. The climate is one of very hot summers, cold winters and very little rainfall. Even on a daily basis, temperatures

may fluctuate as much as 50 degrees. Native Americans never in-habited Arches on a year-round basis, though they certainly roamed the area searching for wild game, useful plants and rocks for tool-making. Petroglyphs near Wolfe Ranch are thought to have been created by Indians from the Ute/Paiute cultures. While visiting, dont be sur-prised if you hear the crack of a whip and yelling about museums.. Arches National Park was also a filming loca-tion for 1989s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!

THE ARCH

By Roadtrippers.com

During clear summer nights, looking skyward with the famous arch is a breath-taking view with countless stars

Photo by: Top Dreamer Magazine

Every traveler must scratch visiting Utahs most recognizable rock off of their bucket list

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CanyonlandsCapitol Reef

Bryce Canyon

Arches

Zion

The National Park Map

Itinerary12345

Arches National Park..............3

Canyonlands National Park......4

Zion national Park..................5

Capitol Reef National Park......6

Bryce Canyon National Park.....7

DON'T TRY TO

BEAT THE HEAT.

Average High Temperatures

During the Summer:

June July Aug.

93 99.1 96.4

93.5 99.4 96.8

73.9 79.7 77

86.9 92.2 89.4

Arches and Canyonlands:

Zion:

Bryce Canyon:

Capitol Reef:

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STOP 2&3 >>

Canyonlands & Zion National Park Lets Go

Canyonlands

Zion

Top: A look from the under Mesa Arch at Canyonlands. Bottom: Mirrored view of a formation in the Needles District.Photos by WP Daily Themes

>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Be a canyoneer and wander in the stunning canyons

Photos by Google Images. Above: Kanarra Creek Falls flow within the canyon walls. Left: A glimpse from a high point on the Overlook Hiking Trail.

at Utahs most admired and notorious

national parks

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STOP 4 >>Captol Reef National Park

STOP 5 >>Bryce canyon National Park

Written

in stoneGet lost in the mazeBryces complex hoodoo rocks are one of a kind

Photos by: Pinterest.comAbove: The beautiful layered sandstone of Cathedral Valley. This is the most well-known area of Capitol Reef. Left: Petroglyphs created by the freemont indians who inhabitated

The maze-like geological formations at Bryce canyon give on-look-ers a unique sight. this type of form is called hoodoo.

In some ways, Capitol Reef National Park is the overlooked stepsister of Utahs five national parks, overshad-owed by Zion, Bryce, Arches and Canyonlands. Thats unfortunate, be-cause Capitol Reef is a jewel. It takes its name from an immense uplifting of rock (thats where the reef comes in) that occurred 65 million years ago. Over the millennia since then the layers of rock have eroded into multihued canyons, towering cliffs, and oddly shaped spires

and monoliths. On a trip to Capitol Reef, I had the good fortune to attend a park ranger talk about the native tribes that had once lived in this area. The ranger spoke in front of a sun-dappled red cliff on which petroglyphs had been chiseled hundreds of years ago. Midway through his pre-sentation I realized that he was speaking of a sacred siteone whose meaning and origins are unclear, but a sacred site nevertheless. The ranger told us that the prehistoric Fremont Culture existed between approximately AD 600 1300 in what is now Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Nevada. For many years anthro-

pologists grouped this culture together with the Ancestral Puebloans, better known as the Anasazi. That designation has changed as archeological discoveries have proven that this group had its own distinct culture, one named Fremont after the river where their sites were discovered and first defined. Rather than living in cliff dwellings, the Fremont Indians lived in pit houses that were dug into the ground and had a roof made of brush.

By Spiritualtravelers.com

See BRYCE, 12 >>

By Valerie Conners

Photo by Pinterest.com

Mike Willis has been a park rang-er at the park for 27 years.

Not even the most creative architects, nor the most ec-centric Hollywood animators could have imagined such a wildly unique landscape as Bryce Can-yon National Park. This is the magical world of looming hoodoos, a labyrinth of colored stone of all shapes and sizes existing as towers, spires or pinnacles. Call the structures what you will, explor-ing Bryce Canyon is like gazing at clouds and naming their shapes, only with many more peculiar opportunities. In a fantastic attempt to pre-serve the landscape from the harm caused by streams of tourists cars, Bryce Canyon has created a convenient shuttle system. The Bryce Canyon Shuttle makes

visiting the park a pleasure, eliminating crowded parking lots and long lines. Visitors leave their cars at the Shuttle Staging Area, and take the Blue Line to the Visitors Center, where they can hop aboard the Red Line, taking them to

many of the parks viewpoints and trail-heads. Bryce Canyon is a part of the Paunsaugunt Peninsula, an area rich in wildlife. The parks inhabitants often remain hidden, but a keen eye may observe prairie dogs, coyotes, even the wily mountain lion. Bird-watchers might be privy to a peregrine falcon sighting -- the park features 4 official peregrine territories. Observing the parks flora is no less interesting; ancient Bristlecone pines, Ponderosa pines and the Pinyon pine can all be found on park grounds. When the Cretaceous Sea cov-ered this region more than 100 million years ago, sediments were deposited, forming the bases for the rock forma-tions we see today.

Voted the most under-rated national park in the U.S. by many

For more information about the Fremont Indians petroglyps visit utah.com/petroglyphs

BEHOLD THE HOODOOS

utahtrips.com / 801-798-9867

at Bryce Canyon National Park

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