Planning trip to utah, Colorado, and the Grand Canyon

Ron:  I know you advised against summer travel, but if you had to go any ideas?

Yes.  Go to those places, dealing with the heat and people.  I was just talking about the optimal time of year.  If you have trouble with heat from a "health" point of view, then obviously you'll need to rethink the trip.

We did an August western trip last year (2011) that took us through Flagstaff, the North Rim, Bryce, Capital Reef, Arches, Moab, the Colorado Natl Monument and Breckenridge. We avoided the crowds by camping outside the Natl Parks in the Natl Forest campgrounds and doing daytrips with our toad.
The best areas were along Scenic Byway 12 in Utah. You could spend a month meandering along that route. We towed an "82 FJ40 Landcruiser up and down 10 degree grades on the two lane highway without a problem.
Natl Forests mean no water, no electric and first come, first serve so plan accordingly. Move early and avoid moving on weekends and you'll find that most camprounds don't fill up until after 5 pm.
Our campsite along the Colorado outside Moab was the only real hot spot of the trip.

Al B,

Did you just share that with everyone here, or did I?  I am with you 100% in agreement.  We did that trip 4 years ago and loved it so much that we hope to do it again in September, this time towing our 4x4 Liberty.  We plan to get deep into Escalante to take a boat ride to Rainbow Bridge.

But our finances are shakey this year so we will see what will come.  Our obligations to our children college education zero'd us out, but it's over for us now.  First priority is a new tear-off roof, 2nd is a 110 foot storm sewer in the side yard.  Yata yata yata.  We are honkering down right now.  Hopefully it will work out.  I hope our massive garage sale planned for June will contribute.

A lot of the Phoenix main website pictures are of us taken on that trip.  We camped across from the trail head to the 3rd largest arch in the country......Morning Glory Arch (natural bridge) with a 243 feet span.  Needless to say the morning sun lights it up in it all it's glory.

Our campsite there.

David:  We live right outside of Boulder, Co. and have been hear over 30 yrs.  There is a lot to do and see in Colorado--From Estes Park--where Rocky Mountain National Park is located, Pikes Peak Region in the Colorado Springs area, Old mining towns turned into Gambling Towns-Cripple Creek and Black Hawk, a Free Tour of Celestial Seasonings Herb Tea Plant by Boulder.  If you let me know your interests--I would be happy to share some ideas with you.  Happy Camping.

Fran     

Al B,

Did you just share that with everyone here, or did I?  I am with you 100% in agreement.  We did that trip 4 years ago and loved it so much that we hope to do it again in September, this time towing our 4x4 Liberty.  We plan to get deep into Escalante to take a boat ride to Rainbow Bridge.

But our finances are shakey this year so we will see what will come.  Our obligations to our children college education zero'd us out, but it's over for us now.  First priority is a new tear-off roof, 2nd is a 110 foot storm sewer in the side yard.  Yata yata yata.  We are honkering down right now.  Hopefully it will work out.  I hope our massive garage sale planned for June will contribute.

A lot of the Phoenix main website pictures are of us taken on that trip.  We camped across from the trail head to the 3rd largest arch in the country......Morning Glory Arch (natural bridge) with a 243 feet span.  Needless to say the morning sun lights it up in it all it's glory.

Our campsite there.

Ron, You are correct in you posted most of the pictures but you have inspired some of us (me) to make some changes and improvements in our MH. I just wanted to thank you for that and all the pictures and effort you have put into this site.

As for the trip out west we did ours last September and I could not have been happier with it other than a minor issue with the Cruiser that turned out to be my fault but was I really giving my PC heck for a while! I am humbled now. It was an easy fix. We took the pass through Colorado and bypassed Estes park as we had been there before. It is awesome going over the pass. Denver, not so much. Took our time and stopped to see many things out through there and continued on to and through Utah. Went through Arches National Park and continued on down to Cortex CO and toured the Mesa Verde Park. From there we continued on to a place I had want to see for years. Monument Valley. We stayed on the reservation and you need to be aware that this is PRIMITIVE camping but the views are incredible. From there we went to Williams AZ and drove up to Grand Canyon for an awesome day. I only wish we had stayed at Mather"s campground in the park. We had another PC park right beside us and they were staying there and told us it was great so we have no first hand experience. I wish I had written down their names to keep in touch. They told us Mathers had plenty of sites available at the time. No hook ups but we prefer it that way. BTW, it does get cold at night there. From there we went to Las Vegas as we had never been there. We now know why it is called Sin City. We spent two and half days there and that was a two days day too long but we needed the rest. Back on the road we headed up to Zion and Bryce canyon and both were eye popping views. We live in Iowa and making this trip in three weeks is exhausting but wonderful. An earlier poster suggested 4 weeks and he is right on. Doing all of that we got to see a lot of things but they were all in a whirlwind and not savored like a great trip should be. Pick a few priority things you really want to do or see and enjoy the adventure. The only reason I would do that trip again is for the same reasons I did it the first time. A lot of things I want to see and a short time to see them.

Hi Folks,

We had a great couple of days in NE Utah, staying in Manila (the KOA is on a hill with a great view) to see Flaming Gorge Dam and surrounding area - we're both engineers and love to see BIG machinery - go to see the turbine-generators.  Flaming Gorge is across the Green River - made famous by John Wesley Powell, I believe. 

Then stayed in KOA in Vernal while visiting Dinosaur Nat'l Monument.  There's a great restaurant for breakfast on the north side of highway 40, just east of 191.  KOA is on 191 a mile or so north of 40.  Lots of oil-rig crews were there early in the day.

In October/November, it was cool all day and quite chilly at night.