N

a g a z ine

ROADTRIP
THROUGH SOUTHERN

UTAH

Summer
Hiking
guide

Trek across Utahs

Strange & beautiful

National Parks

2 Maps and
Directions
Bryce
4 Canyons
Maze

Summer 2014

Zion & Canyonlands

The 2 most famous national parks

STOP 1 >>

Arches
National
Park

Itinerary

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

2 Canyonlands National Park......4
3 Zion national Park..................5
4 Capitol Reef National Park......6
5 Bryce Canyon National Park.....7

THE

DON'T
TRY TO
BEAT THE

HEAT.

Average High
Temperatures
During the Summer:

The

National Park Map

Arches and Canyonlands:

93 99.1 96.4

15

84

June July Aug.

80

Arches
89
191

15

Photo by: Top Dreamer Magazine

Zion:
93.5 99.4 96.8

By Roadtrippers.com
isit Arches and discover
a landscape of contrasting 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

70

191

15

Bryce Canyon:
73.9 79.7 77

89

Zion

2 Wandermag.com

Capitol
Reef

Every traveler must

scratch visiting Utahs
most recognizable rock
off of their bucket list

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

70

Bryce
Canyon

A
R
C
H

Canyonlands

Capitol Reef:
86.9 92.2 89.4

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 influences elemental features like soil chemistry 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 inhabited 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 surprised if you hear the crack of a whip
and yelling about museums.. Arches
National Park was also a filming location for 1989s Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade!

Wandermag.com 3

>>>>>>>>>

STOP 2&3 >>

Canyonlands
& Zion
National
Park

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

Lets Go
Z
i
o
n

Canyonlands
Be a canyoneer and wander
in the stunning canyons
at Utahs most admired
and notorious
national
parks

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.

Photos by WP Daily Themes

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

4 Wandermag.com

Wandermag.com 5

STOP 4 >>

STOP 5 >>

Captol
Reef
National
Park

Bryce
canyon
National
Park

Written

Get
in stone lost
in the
maze
Voted the most
under-rated
national park in
the U.S. by many

Bryces complex
hoodoo rocks are
one of a kind

Photos by: Pinterest.com

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

By Spiritualtravelers.com

n some ways, Capitol Reef National

Park is the overlooked stepsister of
Utahs five national parks, overshadowed by Zion, Bryce, Arches and
Canyonlands. Thats unfortunate, because 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

6 Wandermag.com

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 presentation 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-

Photo by Pinterest.com
The maze-like geological formations at Bryce canyon give on-lookers a unique sight. this type of form is called hoodoo.

By Valerie Conners

ot even the most creative

architects, nor the most eccentric Hollywood animators
could have imagined such a
wildly unique landscape as Bryce Canyon 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, exploring Bryce Canyon is like gazing at clouds
and naming their shapes, only with
many more peculiar opportunities.

In a fantastic attempt to preserve the landscape from the harm
caused by streams of tourists cars, Bryce
Canyon has created a convenient shuttle
system. The Bryce Canyon Shuttle makes

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.

See BRYCE, 12 >>

Mike Willis has been a park ranger at the park for 27 years.

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 trailheads.

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 covered this region more than 100 million
years ago, sediments were deposited,
forming the bases for the rock formations we see today.

Wandermag.com 7

BEHOLD THE HOODOOS

at Bryce Canyon
National Park

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