Tales of the Traveling Tote #21: Fall in Utah's National Parks

Hey there, travelers - armchair or in real life - it's time for yet another instalment of the Traveling Tote, and a giveaway! To see all my past travel instalments and background info of our tribe's beginnings, you can start here.

I hope you've enjoyed your Thanksgiving, but before we jump head first into the Christmas season, let's savor fall one last time. It was the season that seemed to take its good 'ol time coming, and hasty exit out, am I right? Today, I'm sharing my fall adventures, the highlight of which was more than a week spent in Utah. Traversing the "Life Elevated" state's all five national parks (and two state parks) in late September, early October proved to be a perfect time to be there. Pictured below are the brochures of the parks we visited in Utah, in order visited (top to bottom).

Mr. P. & I live in West Virginia, where a couple of perfect fall days also prompted day trips (I'll share later in this post).  Grab a drink, lots of photos are coming. Oh, wait, one more thing! Be sure to read to the end of this post for more about our tote tribe's giveaway. It's easy to enter. Also, catch all my tribe sisters' travels with their post links provided. Ready? Let's go!

Our Utah adventure began by flying into Las Vegas as our jumping off point. We're NOT Vegas goers of any sort, but we did stop long enough to rent our car, have lunch with former neighbors who retired there, and snap a few photos with my tote, Miss Luna C. 😉

Zion National Park
From Vegas, we moved on to Zion National Park, the first of five national parks visited. Of course, Checkerboard Mesa was the key photo op for Miss Luna C.

Below is a highly magnified view of the bottom L photo frame from the collage above.

In each park, we chose different trails to explore the vistas. In Zion, one trail hiked was the Riverwalk, but only to the headwaters of the Narrows. Warmer weather would have enticed us to go further along the trail into the water, but not this trip. In the photo below, you can see a person heading into the water near where we stopped. Mornings were cold (near freezing), some days very windy, but most days warmed to low 70s.

In Zion, you can only drive a car to the visitors' center, at which point you must hop their shuttle buses to come and go to various points of interest. For that very reason, we blew off Zion (for the most part) in our 2016 trip across the country. Actually, the drive on the opposite side of Zion (considered the exit, see map further in this post), heading toward Bryce Canyon, showcases some of the best views in Zion. The Zion / Mt. Carmel tunnel is just one of those views, where windows are carved out of the rock walls of the 1+ mile tunnel (see two of those windows pictured below, and shots of the views from within).

From Zion, we drove Route 89 toward Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon National Park 
We cannot say enough about Bryce Canyon. It is, hands down, our favorite of all the national parks in Utah! We first drove the scenic route, slowly, about 18 miles, and jumped out of the car for photo ops along the way. It was windy and cold early in the day, good fall weather and color. Even amid previous areas scorched with wildfires, there was color on the hillsides that we weren't seeing at home in late September.

The canyons in Bryce are just gorgeous. Just a couple notable ones are Agua Canyon...

 ....and Natural Bridge.

Starting from Sunset Point, we hiked the Navajo Loop/Wall Street Trail. Again, fantastic rock formations, vistas, and vantage points for photos. The bottom left frame in the collage below shows tiny specs of people on the trail as a matter of perspective.

After some good grub and a very rural drive through what felt like someone's private ranchland with an easement running through it (and hardly any cars passing), we arrived at Capitol Reef, our third national park in Utah.

The road from Bryce to Capitol Reef

Capitol Reef National Park
We planned to stay at Capitol Reef for a few days, and it was a good decision. On our first full day there, we arranged for a Jeep tour with a personal guide, so we'd be sure to see all the key points of interest. Our guide, Mason, is a native Utahn, and was 100% familiar with the park and its history. Views captured in the collage below are (clockwise, L to R): Miss Luna C and us at the park entry sign; Egyptian Temple; one of several canyons (with the Jeep, Mr. P., and Mason standing outside as perspective); Mason; the capitol dome, for which the park got its name.

In this park we explored and hiked on our own the second full day, taking in the Grand Wash trail. It felt like we were engulfed by the canyons, and we saw petroglyphs believed to have been carved by the Hopi and Zuni Native American tribes people between 300 and 1300 CE (Common Era, or AD).

Famous for its fruit orchards within the confines of the Capitol Reef canyons, there is a museum house established within the park, and they serve hand pies from fresh picked fruit during season.

Mr. P. and I each chose our own pie and ate them after our nearly 5 mile hike.

Oh, and one more thing about Capitol Reef....Butch Cassidy hid in these canyons, often referred to as Robbers Roost. Word has it that Butch Cassidy named one of the rock formations after a girlfriend. Pictured below is Fern's Nipple within the park. 

Our stay was spent outside the park boundaries, at the Capitol Reef Resort, and the collage below captures our views from our private porch from our suite off the main lodge. The covered wagons, teepees and one room cabins were all options for lodging, although the winds were gusty the nights we were there.

Coffee on the porch was a morning and/or evening ritual, with great views, and there was a firepit for s'more-making at night.

What a great place this was, and with great, great views!

Once we departed Capitol Reef, we were heading toward the town of Moab, from which we planned to explore the last two national parks. Along the way, however, we made a stop to a state park recommended by Mason (our guide on the Jeep tour at Capitol Reef).

Goblin Valley State Park
This place was a bonus stop! Imagine a shallow inland sea floor dating back to the Jurassic Period 140 to 170 million years ago and you get a sense of what this place is like. Hundreds of tidal deposits of sand, clay and silt created these 'goblins' among the flat edge of the tidal basin floor over millions of years. Just about 90 minutes is all one needs to explore this unique area.

From Goblin Valley, we reached the town of Moab, our stay for the next two nights.

Another state park recommended by an antique collector friend from Utah was Dead Horse Point State Park.

Dead Horse Point State Park

Legend has it that cowboys of the late 1800s wrangled herds of feral horses along this narrow piece of land - most notably across the "bottleneck" (no wider than two lanes that leads to the end point) - with steep cliff walls as the only a sort of corral on the mesa. Supposedly the wranglers chose the best horses and left the rest without food or water on the mesa, with no exit or chance of survival. The legend continues that those who found the resulting carnage gave the area the name Dead Horse Point. In the collage above, look closely at the bottom left frame. Can you see a shape of a horse in the rock formation that's circled?

Just about 90 minutes is worth the time of exploring this mesa, with marked trails for viewing both east and west rim cliff walls (opposite sides of the narrow road, or bottleneck. Shortly after, we were off to our next planned stop.

Canyonlands National Park
Our least favorite of the national parks visited, we stayed long enough to drive through the entire park and sought advice from the park ranger for a recommended trail to hike that would be around 4 miles. He suggested Murphy Point Trail, which we found rather boring until reaching its end point for views. We made the best of it, though, and enjoyed another short trail, Mesa Arch, which was a preview of the next (and final) park to come, Arches.

Arches National Park
Our second favorite national park in Utah (Bryce Canyon our #1), Arches, was the final park we explored on our Utah trip. We hiked several trails. We loved this place in 2016, again now in 2019, and we would go back again. Just a quick summary of some of the more notable features......

Clockwise, L to R: Arches gate entry, Landscape Arch, Tunnel Arch, Skyline Arch

Clockwise, L to R: Balanced Rock, Sand Dunes Arches trail, Sand Dunes Arches

Broken Arch, and view looking up to the arch

Double Arch

North, South Window Arches, and plein air artist painting same

Turret Arch

Elephant Butte and Sheep Rock

In summary, we spent 10 days driving out of and back to Vegas, traveling through all the national parks in Utah (and two state parks). We logged over 1,200 miles of driving, and had a blast. It was the perfect place to chase fall when summer was dragging its feet back home.

West Virginia Day Trippin'
A couple of (separate) nice days in West Virginia had us out chasing color. Color was so very late in West Virginia, as it was across most of the country this year, but we still enjoyed our outings.

New River Gorge, Fayetteville WV; Hawks Nest State Park, Ansted WV

One day was spent hiking in the New River Gorge park in Fayetteville, WV (about an hour's drive southeast of us), and another day was spent hiking in an area about an hour northeast of us (Stonewall Resort), then looping south and west again toward home on rural, country roads.

Fog lifting on WV I-79; Stonewall Resort Lake; the "Mystery Hole" in Ansted WV; Babcock State Park, Clifftop WV

The best way to see almost any of our country is to take a country road whenever possible! I hope your fall included some country roads and regional flair, too.

NOW, ONTO THE GIVEAWAY!

The Traveling Totes Tribe is offering another giveaway. Emily at the French Hutch is our giveaway sponsor this time. One lucky reader who leaves a comment on Emily's December 1 post will have their name thrown into the hat for an opportunity to win this set of MacKenzie-Childs dish towels! Hurry over now!

NOTE:  This giveaway may be closed by the time you read this post (sure hope not!), but tune in to our future tales for another chance in our giveaways.

As promised, here are all the links to the rest of tribe members' travels since our September 1 post. There are some very seasoned travelers in this group, and you won't want to miss the tote antics!

Debbie with Miss Aurora @ Mountain Breaths

Emily with Miss Courtney Childs@ The French Hutch

Patti with Miss Kenzie and Miss Taylor @ Pandora's Box

Jenna with Miss Coquille @ The Painted Apron

Linda P with Miss Lola @ Life and Linda

Rita with Miss Luna C @ Panoply (you are here!)

Sarah with Miss Merri Mac @ Hyacinths for the Soul

Jackie with Miss Madi K @ Purple Chocolat Home

Ricki Jill and Countess de Monet @The Sketchy Reader

Cherry Kay with Miss Carrie Ann Hall @ Entertaining Women

We have a very special instalment of the Traveling Tote coming to you on January 15, 2020 with a giveaway you won't want to miss! Be sure to mark your calendar for that date!

Then, we'll recap again on our regular quarterly instalment, coming to you on March 1, 2020.

Thank you so much for dropping by the blog today. I love reading your comments, and don't forget to leave one on Emily's blog for a chance at the giveaway! 

Rita C. at Panoply

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