Utah's National Parks-the Mighty 5

One week was really not enough to do justice to Utah's Mighty 5 National Parks in southern Utah.  But we saw lots of amazing things in our time there.  I took lots of pictures but none of them cause you to feel the hugeness of the scenery about us.  Majestic is a good word to describe it all.

We began our journey with Zion National Park on the west side of Utah.  Zion does not allow private vehicles into the park.  They provide a wonderful shuttle service with many stops along the six mile scenic drive.

The next park to visit was Bryce Canyon.  There were great sights to see on the way beginning with the one mile Zion-Mount Carmel tunnel.  At the end of the tunnel we found traffic had stopped for picture taking of a Desert Bighorn eating by the side of the road.

 There were more sights to see at every curve of the road.

There were completely different types of wonders to see at Bryce Canyon National Park.  The canyon filled with huge hoodoos was like being on different planet.

We had a light snow that morning which only added to the beauty.

The next day involved a lot of driving but a visit to Capital Reef National Park fell in the middle of the drive.  This park exceeded our expectations in all that had been created in this massive fold in the earth's crust called a Waterpocket Fold.

We continued our drive through central southern Utah to the town of Moab on the east side of the state.  This area contains Arches National Park and Canyonland National Park.

 
Arches was probably our favorite of the parks we visited.  It was so massive and contained the most unusual rock formations.

 

  

Arches National Park contains over 2,000 natural sand stone arches.  We didn't see them all but we did see a bunch!

 
We discovered that the Colorado River travels through Moab.  A quick trip along its banks led us to discover some rock climbers and even some pyroglyphics.

We did not make it to Canyonland National Park. It is a huge park and needed a whole day for just it. 

We drove through Monument Valley on our way to Arizona.  Monument Valley is not a national park.  It is part of Navajo land.  You will recognize the scene from the movie "Forest Gump".

Utah's Mighty 5 were pretty terrific!