The Best of the Southwest

Full Itinerary

Sept. 21 Arrivals in Salt Lake City
Welcome to Salt Lake City! Travelers will arrive on their own schedules throughout the day. We will gather the group together for an early dinner in town to celebrate the week ahead. As the trip draws nearer, we will provide flight recommendations, and lodging information for those who would like to arrive in town early.

Sept. 22 To Capitol Reef!
The rugged Wasatch Mountains frame the backdrop to the first part of our drive as we head south of the city. We will leave town mid-morning today for a scenic drive to Capitol Reef National Park. As we approach Torrey, Utah, we’ll encounter our first brilliant red rock formations— the classic geologic features of the Colorado Plateau. Capitol Reef is often described as the hidden gem of the canyonlands. With thousand-foot-deep canyons and brilliant rock formations, the park resembles Zion N.P. in many ways, but with significantly fewer people!

The geology here is spectacular, from fluted walls to massive domes, the story of Earth’s history is revealed at every turn. We stop at viewpoints, walk a series of trails that highlight different formations, and learn of the region’s natural history. We should see signs of fall color along the Fremont River.

Accommodations: Capitol Reef Resort

Sept. 23 Boulder | Escalante Grand Staircase | Bryce Canyon National Park
Today’s journey provides expansive views as we drive up and over Boulder Mountain, one of the top scenic drives in Utah. From Capitol Reef, we ascend through spectacular vistas, aspen groves, and grand viewpoints of the Colorado Plateau below. The small town of Boulder was the last place in the US to have mail delivered by horseback; a paved road has only allowed us to traverse this route for the last few decades. We’ll stop for coffee and watch for Wild Turkey, Wilson’s Warbler, Pine Siskin, Steller’s Jay, and Mule Deer.

From here the road gets wild, crossing massive sandstone features and climbing in elevation. We’ll enjoy some photo stops while scanning for montane birdlife like Golden Eagle and Northern Goshawk. At Calf Creek we’ll enjoy a picnic and hike for a few hours. Avid walkers may reach the falls at the end, or slower-paced naturalists can enjoy finding songbirds in the willows, recently-fledged Peregrine Falcons on the cliffs, or American Dipper in the creek.

On our way to Bryce we will also pass through Escalante, encountering some of the vistas of the Grand Staircase National Monument.

Our lodging near Bryce is just a few minutes from the park, so we can settle in, grab an early dinner, and watch an unparalleled sunset over a panorama of rock features. Bryce provides ornate rock formations in every color of the rainbow and is completely different in character from both the Grand Canyon or Zion. Bryce Canyon is higher in elevation, and allows us to explore a variety of forests with a mixture of birds and mammals. We look for Utah Prairie Dog in the Bryce Canyon entrance area and Mule Deer and Elk can both be found here, too. The visitor center provides a wonderful orientation to the park with excellent displays and an extensive collection of natural history books about the region.

Accommodations near Bryce Canyon National Park

Sept. 24 Full Day Bryce National Park
Bryce Canyon, established in 1905 by Theodore Roosevelt, is often the favorite of the parks among travelers—it is small and intimate, and presents a real playground of light. Perhaps more than the other parks, Bryce appeals to the imagination with its intricate pinnacles and hoodoo rocks that resemble human forms. The technicolor rocks of the large amphitheaters (eroded plateau edges) that comprise Bryce seem to glow in the early morning light. Thousands of colorful spires rise up and form a panorama like no other.

After breakfast, enjoy a great hike that descends through Bryce’s fanciful features to the river valley below. Experience firsthand the myriad creations in siltstone, sandstone, limestone, and dolomite. Those that do not want to hike can enjoy birding and relaxing at the canyon rim.

We return in time for lunch, then take a scenic drive along the rim for varied views of this wonderland of rock. Townsend’s Solitaire sing from atop Bristlecone Pine. Clark’s Nutcracker often call overhead in their flights between trees. In brushy areas we will search for Bushtit, Mountain Bluebird, Mountain Chickadee, and Juniper Titmouse. If the Pinyon Pines have a good cone crop, we may find flocks of Pinyon Jay. Accommodations near Bryce Canyon National Park

Sept. 25 Red Canyon | Sevier River | Kanab | Vermilion Cliffs
We say goodbye to Bryce late this morning and work our way to Red Canyon to take a walk and see the excellent interpretive exhibits along the trail that describe the local geology and ecology. We continue our drive following the Sevier River to Kanab. En-route we pass through the small and historic mormon communities of Orderville, Long Valley, and Hatch. Riparian vegetation occurs along much of our route, a bonus for finding birds like Bullocks Oriole, Lesser Goldfinch, Green-tailed Towhee, Black-chinned Hummingbird, and a mix of tanagers, swallows, and warblers.

We’ll watch for colorful Mountain Bluebirds to be sitting on western buck and rail fence posts as we travel or for flocks of Pinyon Jays to be on the wing overhead. Willows lining the river corridor make great resting spots for warblers and sparrows moving through the region. Black-billed Magpies are now common among the sagebrush hills.

Kanab is well situated to finding California Condor, which have taken to nesting at Navajo Bridge in recent years. These are birds of the fascinating restoration efforts at the Vermilion Cliffs. This is also good day to look for species we may have missed, including Black-throated Sparrow, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, Prairie Falcon, and Broad-tailed Hummingbird.

We’ll finish the day at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where we’ll be staying the next two nights.

Sept. 26 Fall Color Splendor | North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park
Today we have a full day to explore the North Rim of Grand Canyon. Here, huge pine forests and aspen groves beginning to glow in their yellow fall foliage at the edge of the canyon.

The canyon is grand. The colors of the canyon morph throughout the day as ever-changing light reflects off the canyon walls. The canyon is over 10 miles wide and over a mile deep. Vivid panoramas reveal a fantastic geologic history— over a billion years of time exposed by the Colorado River as it carves through the soft stone of the Kaibab Plateau. Weathering and erosion have created fantastic buttes and mesas within the canyon, while water and wind have sculptured the canyon walls. We take in as many of the vista points as possible before returning to Kanab for the evening.

Accommodations: Grand Canyon North Rim

Sept. 27 Kanab | Checkerboard Mesa | Zion National Park | Springdale
This morning, we pack up and head toward Zion National Park, retracing our steps crossing Checkerboard Mesa where we often have a chance to spot Desert Bighorn Sheep.

Zion National Park is a fantastic realm of steep canyon walls, great domes, and tall towers. Our lodging is about 20 minutes west of Zion in the town of Hurricane. Along the way, we’ll visit the “temples,” natural domes that inspired the early Mormon pioneers of the region.

Driving into Zion, we stop at viewpoints, learn the geologic story and enjoy a walk on which we may find Western Tanager and Lazuli Bunting above sacred datura flowers and cottonwood groves.

After settling into our lodge, we’ll take a picnic dinner to watch the sunset at a favorite destination overlooking Zion Canyon. Along the way, we’ll keep an eye out for pronghorn antelope, mule deer, and birds of the Virgin River corridor such as Gambel’s Quail, Vermilion Flycatcher, Rock Wren, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Lewis’s Woodpecker, and Greater Roadrunner.

Accommodations in Hurricane, Utah

Sept. 28 Full Day Zion National Park
In Zion we use a convenient and environmentally friendly shuttle bus system to access the various vistas and trails around the park. The road system is situated in the base of the canyon, so the park is often described as a rock temple, with breathtakingly tall and colorful cliffs rising all around. Local highlights are the narrows of the Virgin River, the Emerald Pools, and the Weeping Wall. The deep chasm of Zion Canyon displays a palette of reds, oranges, deep salmon, pink, yellow, and cream.

Along the trails you may find Black-throated Gray and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Black-headed Grosbeak, lizards sunning, secretive Ring-tailed Cat, and other local wildlife. Along the Virgin River we may find American Dipper, Black Phoebe, and both Rock and Canyon Wrens. One stop may have soaring California Condor, which frequent the park. We take sack lunches with us to enjoy in the shade of large cottonwoods. With the handy shuttle system, those that wish can return to town to sample the shops or relax, while others can continue to explore and enjoy the vista points.

Tonight, we enjoy a celebratory dinner at another great local restaurant in Springdale and review our final species lists and departure plans for the next day. Accommodations in Springdale, Utah

Sept. 29 Departures from Salt Lake City
Today we pack up after an early breakfast and drive back to Salt Lake City for departures. We drive along the impressive Virgin River Gorge, then north across the edge of the Colorado Plateau and back into the Great Basin. This is a five-hour drive, including a few breaks to enjoy the vistas, flora, and fauna along the way. We arrive in time for mid-afternoon flights out of town.