Many serious hikers, however, shun national parks, believing that such areas are tourist meccas where a wilderness experience is difficult, if not impossible, to have. That may be true for some of our national parks, but not for Utah’s. Even in Zion National Park, where annual visitation averages more than two million people (nearly half the total annual visitation to all Utah national parks), the hiker can enjoy magnificent, wild country and a good deal of solitude only a short distance from most any road.
The majority of park visitors spend only a day in each Utah park, viewing the scenery from the comfort of their vehicles as they try to see as much country as a one- to two-week vacation will allow.
For visitors with limited time, these parks indeed have a great deal to offer. Much of the parks’ scenery can be enjoyed from park roadways, and numerous short trails, many of them nature trails, offer visitors a chance to stretch their legs, smell the desert’s fragrance, feel the wind in their faces, view seemingly endless panoramas and incomparable landscapes, enjoy the delicate blossoms and the perfumes of myriad wildflowers, and observe desert creatures going about their day-to-day lives. Many short trails require no special hiking ability, and some are accessible to handicapped persons in wheelchairs and even to baby strollers.
For an extended stay, each park has one or more excellent campgrounds, and some are available to large recreational vehicles. Each park also boasts a visitor center and interpretive activities that include ranger-led hikes and evening-campfire naturalist programs.
For the backcountry enthusiast, each park also contains broad stretches of pristine wilderness, and in some places, particularly in Capitol Reef and Canyonlands, hikers can roam for days and not see a single soul.
Visitors to the majestic landscape of Utah’s national parks will enjoy a wide range of scenery, including vast plateaus clothed in cool forests of pine, fir, and aspen; magnificent canyons up to 4000 feet deep; soaring cliffs, some of them sheer and smooth from top to bottom, others broken and fluted with great buttresses and columns; cliff-edged mesas, some capped by stone, others topped by velvety grass-lands and “pygmy” forests of pinyon and juniper; broad desert valleys and sun-baked desert flats; domes, crags, arches and pinnacles of solid stone, colored in nearly every shade of the spectrum.
Double-O Arch, Arches National Park
Another part of the scenery in Utah’s national parks is the diversity of plants and animals, all of them living in delicate balance and adapted to the rigors of the high desert, where rainfall is scant and undependable, and where temperatures can be excessively hot. This desert country of the Colorado Plateau may seem harsh and unforgiving, inhospitable to human life if not to plants and animals, but humans have lived and even thrived here for thousands of years. Park visitors will encounter granaries and cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans (formerly referred to as the “Anasazi”), rock-writing panels dating back more than 2000 years, old homesteads, cowboy line camps, and even farm equipment.
Yes, Utah’s national parks have a great deal to offer to everyone, from chapters of natural history and human history to chapters of earth history spanning more than 300 million years. Recreational opportunities are also diverse, ranging from dayhikes to extended backcountry treks, horseback rides (in Zion and Bryce), 4WD trips, and river float trips.
Hiking Utah’s Desert Parks
The unique landscapes of rock and sand, canyons and mesas that make up the high desert of the Colorado Plateau offer some of the finest, most remote and most awe-inspiring wilderness hiking in the nation. But to enjoy this magical country to the fullest, and to minimize your impact on the land—and the land’s potential impact on you—pretrip planning and an awareness of the special hazards involved in a desert trek are imperative.
Utah’s high-desert national parks are arid to semiarid, meaning that an average of 15 inches of moisture or less falls upon the landscape annually. Often an entire month’s share of precipitation may fall in a few hours or in a single day. Humidity is very low, and summer heat is intense. Daily temperature fluctuations of 30 to 50 degrees F. between daytime highs and nighttime lows are not uncommon. Surface water is scarce, and much of it is highly mineralized and not potable. Many trails are rugged, and some require the use of hands to scramble over steep slickrock—bare, smooth sandstone.
The trails in Utah’s national parks sample virtually every aspect of the park landscapes, from wooded mesas and forested plateaus to open desert flats, cliffs, and deep, cavernous defiles. Many trails follow canyon bottoms, where the hiker may encounter deep sand or be forced to wade through waist-deep waters or even swim across deep pools. Some trails are accessible only to the adventurous wilderness enthusiast with basic rock-climbing ability, while others can be trod by visitors who have never before set foot on a trail. Still other “trails” are mere routes over slickrock, marked only bycairns—small piles of rocks.
Hiking over slickrock can be a joy, but it is not without its hazards. Loosened sand grains can make slickrock somewhat slippery, but usually even steep slickrock provides good traction, except when wet. However, smooth sandstone when snow-covered is extremely treacherous and should be avoided.
Dedicated backcountry hikers use a park’s trails merely for access to the vast, untracked backcountry, where one reaps the rewards of self-reliance and perseverance, and enjoys solitude and the discovery of the desert’s hidden secrets—as well as self-discovery.
It is in these unfettered hinterlands that introspection is inescapable. A more humbling experience than a trek into the vast, untracked desert is hard to find in our modern world. As modern technology and urban sprawl creep into every corner of our lives, many of us seek the few remaining wild places where nature reigns and our daily troubles seem vastly unimportant.
A trip into Utah’s deserts is not a life-threatening survival situation, but one must be prepared to meet the challenges and to confront emergency situations if they arise. In most areas of the national parks in Utah, help is usually not far away. But in more remote areas, such as the Cathedral and Waterpocket districts in Capitol Reef, the North Fork Road in Zion, and the Maze District in Canyonlands, emergency assistance is distant. Proper planning and recognition of hazards and of one’s abilities are your best insurance for a safe and enjoyable outing.
Above all, hikers should try to minimize their impact on the fragile desert landscape.
Hiking Seasons
One can hike in the national parks in Utah during all seasons except in Bryce Canyon, where winter snowpack renders that park accessible only to the cross-country skier or the snowshoer. Many visitors take their vacations during summer, but summers in the Utah desert are very hot, so it is not the most desirable time to visit here, except in the high country of Bryce Canyon and parts of Zion, where summers are pleasantly warm. Hot summer conditions usually invade the Utah desert by mid-June, although in some years summer may begin earlier. Daily high temperatures of 90 to 100 degrees F. are common, with occasional spells of 110-degree F. heat. Nighttime lows typically dip to 60s or 70s, but areas with abundant slickrock continue to radiate heat long into the night. Usually by late July the thunderstorm, or monsoon, season begins, bringing the threat of heavy downpours, high winds, lightning, and flash floods. Some summers, however, are quite dry, while others are uncommonly wet, but thunderstorms usually begin to abate by mid-September.
Autumn is perhaps the most delightful season to visit the Utah desert. Daily maximum temperatures range from the 70s and 80s in September to the 40s and 50s in late November and December. Overnight lows are typically in the 20 to 50 degree F. range. Storms are possible, but usually of short duration. Autumn typically boasts some of the clearest, most stable weather of the year, but snow may begin to fall in October, and the possibility of snow increases as temperatures drop and Pacific storms become more vigorous by late November and December.
Although the chances of snowfall increase during winter,