Southwest planning, a little overwhelmed

Since you don’t seem to have lots of experience, I would stick to the popular trails, especially if going solo. The desert is unforgiving of mistakes. Many find the Grand Canyon more strenuous than they expected, too. As for water, that depends a lot on what sources are known to be good wherever you are going. You will definitely drink and carry more than you normally would elsewhere.

A week for 2 parks may be a bit of a stretch, depending on your route and what your goals are. My son and I hit the highlights of many of the SW parks a few years back. If you check out the URL in my profile, you can see my videos of all those parks. In Zion we did top-down Narrows hike. In Grand Canyon, North Rim to river and back. If you keep it to shorter routes like that or dayhikes, you could do both in a week. We had to bail on our Telescope Peak hike in Death Valley since the SW was in the middle of a record heat wave (DV set a new June record later on the day we were there). It would have been in the 90s on the peak itself, and I really didn’t want to sleep in that. :P

Thank you. Well lemme ask this…..which parks in the SW are a must to back-pack in 1-3 days?

Well, again, you could find routes in any of them that would accomplish that. We also did some dayhikes to some highlights like Angel’s Landing. I’d say it would be best to stick to GC, Zion and Bryce since they are so close to one another. There are also some slot canyons in that area if you’d like that. I believe there are some in Zion, too, but think those require technical skill. There’s no need to overnight at Bryce unless that is how your schedule works out. You could hike the main ampitheater trails in less than a day unless you’re in bad shape and their backcountry isn’t anything out of the ordinary. You COULD do just dayhikes at Zion to some of the major spots, but I’d do at least a night out (whether you get a Narrows permit or go on one of the longer trails). Permits are the other thing to consider, especially for the GC and Narrows. Know the exact dates you want to go and the rules for when you can apply. It may be random now, but I got up in the middle of the night to fax our’s into the GC office so we’d be near the first in line so to speak. That wouldn’t be needed if you weren’t going at peak time (unless it is for The Wave, which is also nearby).

first off, what do you mean by Southwest? you are only mentioning GC and Utah. of course there is a ton to see in just GC and Utah. But California and other Southwest areas offer much also.

Grand Canyon – if time and money are an issue then a full Rim to Rim is not advised. It’s time consuming and expensive to get back to your starting point (whichever rim you start at). 2 options are North Rim to river and back (mentioned above) and South Rim to River and back (down South Kaibab Trail and up Bright Angel trail). if you do this second one and can get a camp site at the river then stay for 2 nights, with a day hike from Phantom Ranch part way to north rim (Roaring Springs out and back). all hikes listed above are in the main corridor and thus have sufficient water spots.

Zion and Bryce – these are must see parks and not far from north rim of GC. In my view both are best seen by a first timer by doing several day hikes and camping in the main area as base camp. There are many amazing day, half day, and quarter day hikes in both parks. I’ve done the Zion Traverse (47 miles) and yes its great but the best parts are easily accessible via day hikes.

For a 1-3 day trip, I would look at something like Coyote Gulch or nearby gulches in Escalante.  It has beautiful scenery and plenty of water for most of the hike.  And you can day hike a couple of slot canyons on your way out.

NM. Responded to wrong post.

Thanks guys. I think an easy way for me to plan this combo of drive+day hike+ a few days bakcpack/camp overall loop is to:

Know which parks require a camping permit and which dont?

Im thinking GC, Zion, Bryce, Moab, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, Monument Valley….

MAYBE also one of these if its not too much Mojave, maybe Kaibab, Mesa Verde.

found this: http://moon.com/2016/07/14-day-best-of-the-southwest-road-trip/

Sebastian,

Alan wrote a very good article about backpacking in southern utah for those who are unfamiliar with the region. You can find it by googling alan non-technical utah

I tried to post a link to the article, but either I have clumsy fingers or it didn’t get through whatever filters are in place.

Have a great trip. You are in for a real treat.  Amy