Hiking and Biking in Utah: Arches and Capitol Reef National Parks

Utah’s red rock country has been on my bucket list for a long time, ever since my visit to Sedona, AZ a couple of years ago. We visited over Thanksgiving weekend (late November) and the weather was a bit chilly at night, but we had a perfect 40s during the day; if we had timed our trip a bit earlier, it might have been too hot for outdoor activities. Utah’s sister state, Colorado, has icy roads this time of year. Utah encourages RV vacations; just rent an RV and live and cook in the national parks for a true ‘nomadic’ experience. But we poor grad students had to content ourselves with going back to boring hotel rooms every night.

We wanted to explore a couple of national parks in Utah: Capitol Reef and Arches. Both have plenty of scenic views to splurge your retinas. The sun-drenched red rocks made for some spectacular photos, here, at sunrise and sunset. At Capitol Reef, our goal was to walk through the cottonwood wash; we started on foot only to realize we weren’t on the right one. In hindsight, the starting points of the various trails were not very clear when driving from Highway 24. Many of the hiking trails here are along slotted canyons, narrow trails with towering red cliffs on either side, and you are “thermostatic” naturally, just by walking through them.

Mountain biking in Arches National Park is fun for everyone on downhill runs; the rest of the way was a lot of huffing and puffing for some of us. It’s certainly not a sport for the faint hearted! However, the trails take you into the heart of the canyon interior, where it could easily qualify for Martian terrain. The easy loop (Lazy – EZ) has some dirt that allows for grip, but once on the rock (Bar-B) learn to trust your bike. We left the park at sunset and rode our bikes on paved roads back to the city. Shuttle services are available to transport men and bikes, but we opted to take it just to get into the park in the morning. It was a good decision, in hindsight, because the way back was just going down old Hwy 191 back to Moab. Although refreshing, the view of the Poison Spider (our bike rental shop) was a great relief at the end of a strenuous day. And I love their free bottled water! Stock up on sunscreen and plenty of fluids and invest in a pair of padded shorts (yikes!) before entering the park.

Aside from adventure activities, it may also be worth spending half a day on the park road. Many sights, including the windowed section, turret arch, and balanced rock, are just a short distance from the main road.

Torrey is a nice little town to stay in if you want to explore Capitol Reef National Park. We landed on Thanksgiving and everything was closed except for a Rim Rock Restaurant run by a lonely guy who was struggling between waiting tables and cooking. The pizzas were a sure bet on the menu and turned out well. Moab, near Arches and Canyon Lands, is an amazing city to hang out and stay. If I had more time in Moab, I would have loved to rent a Hummer and drive inside the park.

In my opinion, the four landlocked states (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico) offer more genuine American experiences than the coastal cities of New York and Los Angeles. Long stretches of verdant countryside, wrinkled, snow-capped Rocky Mountains, boiling sulfur springs, a rich variety of wildlife, grand canyons and gorges, the fast and meandering Colorado River…the list goes on. However, I have rarely seen them on a standard tourist’s itinerary. Really sad!