Southern Utah - October '24

In this phase we visited 13 spectacular parks. Vast lands of color, space and silence that defy description and inspire imagination. A palette of pink, salmon, red, yellow, brown, bronze, orange, white, tan, cream, gray, blue, purple, vermilion and chocolate, are but a few of the colors that adorn the canyons, sheer cliffs, massive amphitheaters, pinnacles, buttresses, sand pipes (cylindrical chimneys), columns, narrow ridges, smooth slickrock, petroglyphs, sand dunes and more! The show is ever changing as light and shadows cast perpetual variation. 170 million year old rainbow hued petrified trees reveal themselves in the forest. Bright yellow Cottonwood and Aspen leaves have turned and litter the desert floor. Sunrises on the rock offer blood red and Sunkist orange vistas that take our breath away.

Whimsical sandstone rock formations called Hoodoos, goblins and gnomes, as well as towering natural arches, bridges, and deep canyons are continually sculpted by forces of nature such as uplift and erosion by wind and water.

• Dixie National Forest

• Big Ears National Monument

• Dead Horse State Park

• Natural Bridges National Monument

• Goblin Valley State Park

• Capital Reef National Park

• Calf Creek Recreation Area

• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

• Escalate Petrified Forest State Park

• Kodachrome Basin State Park

• Bryce Canyon National Park

• Red Canyon Recreation Area

• Zion National Park

The weather is changing! A few days ago the afternoons were hot in the 80’s, but all of the sudden we got hit with sub freezing temps and woke up to snow in Bryce Canyon. The bright white snow on the red hoodoos was awesome, but the ensuing sloppy clay mud on the trails not so much! A few days in Zion and it is back to 70, the temperature we are chasing. :-). Time to head to Arizona and return to this state another time for sure.