southern bc-yellowstone-utah

From the NPS site:

Directions

Hovenweep National Monument is located along the border between southeast Utah and southwest Colorado, just north and west of Cortez, Colorado.

By Car

Paved roads lead to the visitor center and Square Tower Group from Cortez, Colorado (County Road G / McElmo Canyon Road), from Highway 191 south of Blanding, Utah, and from Pleasant View, Colorado. All roads into the outlying units are dirt and are not maintained regularly, making them impassable during inclement weather. High-clearance vehicles are recommended for visiting these sites.

Using GPS to find your way to Hovenweep is not recommended. Since Hovenweep has 6 different units with numerous paved and dirt roads intesecting each other, GPS will send visitors to unknown locations other than to the park. Using a map is recommended.

MAPS

There is nothing wrong with the route you have chosen and the road is paved and in reasonable shape. [Not including detour to Hovenweep of which I am unsure.] Continuing on 163 to 261 with a quick detour to Goosenecks SP is more of a pleasing drive in my opinion, especially when you add the 'excitement' of driving up the Moki Dugway on 261 and stop to take in the view from the top.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bctraveler

Aug 29-30Butte-Cody via Yellowstone(sightsee-Gardiner-Norris-Tower Junction-Cooke City)
tent camp at Ponderosa campground in town of Cody(Booked 2 nites)
Aug 30-Tour Cody
Aug 31-Cody-Yellowstone(East Entrance-Fishing Bridge-West Thumb-Old Faithful)-Grand Tentons-Jackson-Rock Springs- stay in motel

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I know you say that Yellowstone isn't your priority for this trip, and you say you know you're just going to drive through here, and this part of your trip has been discussed extensively already, but I still think you have just no appreciation at all for how miserable a plan like this is likely to be in the real world.

Both your Butte to Cody, and Cody to Rock Springs are both days where you'll need to cover 400 miles, going through large areas where you'll be lucky to average 25 mph. Even if you never get out of your car, it's very possible, in fact likely, that you would be on the road for more than 12 hours for each of those days. How do you think you'll get to Cody in time to set up camp at that pace?

I'll admit, based on my preferences, I don't really understand dedicating a full day to Cody, and all of about 4 minutes to both Yellowstone and the Tetons, but that's your call to make. But based on the plan you laid out for Yellowstone/Tetons, I would suggest you do yourself a favor and just completely skip it until you can actually enjoy it for a moment or two. I think, your current plan is likely to end up with you being very tired, frustrated, and frankly is going to leave you with a very bad impression of one of the most amazing places on the planet, and I think that's a pretty rotten way to start out a roadtrip.

I know you think I am crazy.... I am grateful for your opinion of my Yellowstone/grand tenton part of trip... but truly I think it will be awesome. We live in the Rocky Mountains and will love to see different Mountains, and animals... but really we do see them often. I will give you my feed back when I return on this part of trip. I would have liked more advice on the Utah part of trip instead of criticism of what I want me trip to be.
Sad to say we need to shorten our trip so this is our new itenirary:
spend nite in missoula/butte/bozeman) butte has motel 6, etc (motel 1 nite) or try for bozeman
day 1-butte/bozeman-yellowstone (tour part of yellowstone) from livingstone-cody- arrive late (sleep here)
day 2- tour cody (sleep here)
day 3-cody-yellowstone loop to old faithful/grand tenton-jackson -rock springs(sleep here)
day 4- >rock springs-114 kms>dutch john (flaming gorge)-280kms>fruita co (sleep here)
day 5- fruita-moab (via scenic 128 via cisco)>145kms
stay in dead horse sp 3 nites (sleep here)
day 6-tour canyonlands in the sky np (near to dead horse sp) (sleep here)
day 7-pothash rd (native pictographs)-jet boat tour of colorado river? (sleep here)
day 8-drive to torrey-stay at thousand island park outside of Capital Reef for 2 nights
stop at Goblin NP and maybe check out slot canyon near there.
day 9- tour capital reef national park
day 10-torrey-butte mt-motel stay
day 11-butte-BC
We are having to remove everything below Capitol Reef as holiday time has changed.
But I'm sure that Zion/Bryce/Kodachrome/Mesa Verde will make for a beautiful trip by itself.Thanks for all help and advice that this site gives... it really has helped a lot!

Well we are home from an amazing trip!
We stayed in Butte and then did Mammoth Springs-Norris Geyser-Northeast entrance. The roads were not busy at all... lots of parking at scenic sites. Did most of the short hikes, saw buffalo and lots of geyers. Loved Yellowstone Canyon!
Then over the Chief Joseph Scenic Hwy to Cody- great switchback road up to top of Dead Indian Pass. Cody was fun! Ponderosa Campground tent area was perfect didn't even know you were in town. Buffalo Bill Museum was great but the Old Frontier town was a real surprise. A must see if in Cody! Buffalo Bill dam and some great Chinese food were more highlights.
Back into Yellowstone via East entrance- Yellowstone Lake, Mud Volcano, Old Faithful( did most of the loop hike around old faithful to see pools and geysers but missed one part... guess next time) more buffalo! and out via Grand Tentons. Lewis Falls was a cool pic opportunity! Drove straight thru to Rock Springs.. Didn't feel too rushed at all.
On to Fruita Co. via Flaming Valley Gorge & Vernal... Scenic area. Loved Colorado NM ... windy drive up we started at Grand Junction ended in Fruita, so I (passenger) was on the cliff side for taking pics. I live in the mountains and this road had me clutching the door handle. Lots of little hikes and more pics taken. Did this after we got there and set up tent, etc. perfect time as got some sunset pics.
Took the Scenic 128 Cisco to Moab after Fruita. Very Scenic drive. Did short photo hike at Fisher Tower. Drove along the Colorado river before Moab... lots of campgrounds along the river there and river rafting.
Arrived at Dead horse sp... had site 4... massive site, actually has 2 tent pads and huge picnic table and bigger shade roof. Beautiful. Did Canyonlands and all the short hikes and scenic drive. Upheaval Dome and mesa arch, easy beautiful hikes.
Next day to Needles District, long drive 1.5 hrs to get from Dead Horse to the park there. Newspaper rock was neat to see. We did drive to end and then thought we would do short hikes on way back... end was a bit disappointing after we had drove all this way... hike to see where the green and Colorado rivers join was too long for us, so we thought drove all this way and didn't see much. Well, the best was yet to come! We stopped at Cave Spring, easy hike ... historic cowboy camp, native writings, ledges like caves, 2 ladders... felt like a little kid here! This was one of the highlights of my trip! I loved it! You need to see this for yourself though, it is amazing! the pot trail( "pots" are dry and when filled with rain the lavae hatch-tadpoles, beetles and shrimp were found in some of the bigger "pots") Kids would love this! and roadside ruin(granary) were interesting. Squaw flat campground had some amazing sites, some were under huge ledges... would be cool and dry.... maybe next time? Quick drive down pothash rd outside moab to see native writings, rock climbers on wall street and dinosaur tracks along with some great photos of the Colorado river. Back to Dead horse campsite in time to go do sunset photos at dead horse point. Got up early to do sunrise photos at dead horse point- there were storm clouds in the distance with a short rainbow, so I got some amazing photos!

Drove towards Goblin Sp- we didn't go in but turned off at wildhorse canyon road. We did the little wildhorse canyon trail- we didn't do the entire loop but went for an hr this took us through the first slot canyon- I loved this also! My first slot canyon- would love to come back again! When the canyon opened up we turned around(1 hr) and went back( another hr) There is Bell Canyon and Wild horse Canyon also here if you want to do it all. Drove onto Torrey via Capital Reef. We got to thousand lake campground, there were storm clouds brewing ... we saw they had tent cabins( turned out they had one available for 2 nites- $35... are tent site was $20) we were glad we got this cabin as there was a big storm during nite. Very nice campground little pool that we went for a swim in. next day did the capital reef scenic drive and hikes- saw the pioneer writings and lots of great scenery! drove to boulder to see anaggasi sp .... very disappointed ... $10 per person, drove 1 hr to get there and a small museum and replica house. would not do this again, waste of time and money. Capitol Reef was small and after all the amazing things we saw it was a bit of a let down. Great steak dinner at the Saddlery cowboy bar in Torrey. Left Utah via Great Basin Np. stopped and did the Lehman Caves. Another highlight as we had never been to a cave before. We got there 10 min before 60 min tour was starting and were able to go... there were only 6 in our group... afternoon had 90 min tour. Drove through Ely Nv onto Jackpot. Spent the nite at Cactus Petes , great room, food, and gambling! Left via Twin falls, Dillion, Missoula, Kalispell.... long 10 hour day of driving... only to get to Kalispell and be told there were no motels in any of the outlying areas as there were 3-4 events going on. No choice but to drive on home to BC another 3 hrs, that took 4 as it was very foggy. But arrived safe! Had a great road trip!