Road Trip Vegas Zion Canyon Bryce

Hi

My wife and I intend visiting Vegas in March of 2007 for two weeks, we will be staying in Vegas for about 3 nights we then intend to travell to the Grand Canyon returning to Vegas say for the last 3 nights before travelling home.

I do not wish to do the trip to the Canyon in one day therefore my idea was to stay at Zion National Park for say two nights on to the Canyon for say 3 nights then on the return journey stay at Bryce Canyon for say 3 nights before heading back to Vegas. - Being completely new to all this I have a number of questions which I rather hoped you lovely people might be able to help with.

(1) Would it be best to do this trip in March or say May

(2) What are the travelling times by car between the various stopovers Vegas to Zion - Zion to the Canyon - Canyon to Bryce - Bryce to Vegas

(3) We have looked at various places to stay on our trip and would welcome your opinion - In Zion we intended staying at Cliffrose Lodge and Gardens - at the Canyon El Tovar Hotel - and in Bryce Sunlower Hill at Moab or would you recommend any alternatives.

Any help you can give would be very much appreciated

Thanking you in anticipation

Del

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I would say March would be a better time to travel, because it is cooler and there are fewer tourists. However, the North Rim will not be open yet, so if you want to go to the North Rim, you would have to wait until May.

Otherwise, I'm a little confused about your plans. Zion would be on the way from Vegas to the North Rim. The El Tovar is on the South Rim, which is the more popular side, but Zion isn't on the way.

And then are you planning to go to Moab in addition to everything else, because while it is a pretty neat area, it isn't what I would call close to any of the other things you said you want to see.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America forum.

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Originally Posted by Delbon

Would it be best to do this trip in March or say May

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In March, temperatures can still get quite chilly at night, down to around 39ºF (4ºC) on average, but are quite pleasant during the day - around 69ºF (21ºC). Your chances for rain are a bit more likely in March than in May, but still not great. By May, nighttime low temperatures will be averaging 55ºF (13ºC) while daytime highs will be pushing on up to about 87ºF (31ºC). Since you don't seem to have camping on the agenda, I think you might like March a bit better. The days will be cooler and the crowds smaller at the parks.

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Originally Posted by Delbon

What are the travelling times by car between the various stopovers Vegas to Zion - Zion to the Canyon - Canyon to Bryce - Bryce to Vegas

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Times will vary depending on exactly where in the parks you're going, how you drive, and how often you stop along the way, but some rough estimates are:

Las Vegas to Zion: 3.5 hours
Zion to Grand Canyon: 3.5 hours (North Rim) or 6 hours (South Rim)
Grand Canyon to Bryce: 4.5 hours (North Rim) or 6 hours (South Rim)
Bryce to Las Vegas: 5 hours

El Tovar is on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, so there is a bit more of a drive involved in getting from the Utah parks (Bryce and Zion) which are on the north side of the Colorado River, but it's not too bad.

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Originally Posted by Delbon

We have looked at various places to stay on our trip and would welcome your opinion - In Zion we intended staying at Cliffrose Lodge and Gardens - at the Canyon El Tovar Hotel - and in Bryce Sunflower Hill at Moab or would you recommend any alternatives.

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You have picked some of the classic lodgings for the grand tour of the American southwest. You could certainly do this cheaper, but hardly any better.

In general, I'd say you have a great trip ahead of you. I particularly like the relatively leisurely pace at which you're going to take it. The one thing I would suggest is to at least look at staying on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is a much quieter venue, but in March that really shouldn't matter. Just so you know there is another option.

AZBuck

Many thanks for all your advice - you will have to excuse our ignorance only we will be travelling from England and although we have been to America before we have never been to Vegas and therefore we are completely unaware of the distance and timings involved in our proposed trip hence the reasons for the questions. for instance we had no idea that the distance was so great between the South Rim and the North Rim

We could of course travel on a package deal but that way the choice of accommadation is made for you and the length of stay at each place is not a variable.

The whole idea of the trip was to travel from the Vegas to the Grand Canyon with one stop over and from the Grand Canyon back to Vegas with one stop over to save 6 hour plus drives is there anything you could suggest.

We are very grateful for your help so far, what a fantastic site.

Del

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Originally Posted by Delbon

Many thanks for all your advice - you will have to excuse our ignorance only we will be travelling from England and although we have been to America before we have never been to Vegas and therefore we are completely unaware of the distance and timings involved in our proposed trip hence the reasons for the questions. for instance we had no idea that the distance was so great between the South Rim and the North Rim

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Well, if you were a bird, you could do it much faster, but if you look at a map, you will see there are no direct connect roads between the north and south rim.

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We could of course travel on a package deal but that way the choice of accommadation is made for you and the length of stay at each place is not a variable.

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Yep, which is why there are som many roadtrippers -- we like making the choices ourselves.

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The whole idea of the trip was to travel from the Vegas to the Grand Canyon with one stop over and from the Grand Canyon back to Vegas with one stop over to save 6 hour plus drives is there anything you could suggest.

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I think I am still confused. How many days total do you have for the trip between Las Vegas, the grand canyon and the return trip to Las Vegas? If the trip is only a total of three days, I would spend both nights at the South Rim and really get the chance to see it!

Mark

If you can wait until late May for your trip, then the North Rim will have opened up. BUT - this depends on the opening of the road, AZ-64, which may be delayed by heavy snows. Once the highway is open, your drive into and out of the north rim of the canyon is more like 3 and a half hours rather than 6 hours around to the south rim. The north rim is not as heavily developed as the south, but does have a great hotel, the Grand Canyon Lodge, as well as mule and/or horse train rides into the canyon. Because of its remoteness, I have actually enjoyed my stays at the north rim a bit more than those at the south, but again, the north rim is only open seasonally. On the other hand, a 6 hour drive is not a terribly unreasonable price to pay to see the Grand Canyon if you do go to the south rim. Those really are your only two choices. The canyon is just too wide to make putting a highway bridge across feasible, so you will have a fairly long drive around the canyon from one side to the other.

AZBuck

Are you looking to visit the North Rim, the South Rim, or Both?

Las Vegas to the South Rim can be done in about 5 hours, and its a pretty easy drive. You could take a tour of the Hoover Dam along the way to break up the trip.

From there you can loop around to either the North Rim or the Utah Parks, but you will be looking at 4-6 hour drives either way. However, long distances are just one of the realities of the American West. They aren't bad drives, though, and there are plenty of things to look at along the way.

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Well, if you were a bird, you could do it much faster, but if you look at a map, you will see there are no direct connect roads between the north and south rim.

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I think I should point out we are not quite as ignorant as Editor seems to think what I was indicating was that I did not realise that the North and South Rim were so far apart in road distance

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I think I am still confused. How many days total do you have for the trip between Las Vegas, the grand canyon and the return trip to Las Vegas? If the trip is only a total of three days, I would spend both nights at the South Rim and really get the chance to see it

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As stated in my first post we were thinking of a two or three day stop over going to the Canyon from Vegas,three days at the Canyon and two days stop over on the way back to Vegas this is very flexible.

As we are intending to travel in March I think the North Rim is out of the question as it does not open until mid May therefore our trip will be from Vegas to the South Rim staying say three nights at the EL Tovar or Thunderbirds we would welcome any suggestions on stop overs between Vegas and the Canyon and an alternative stop over for our trip back to Vegas

By the way AZBuck I am fully aware that the Canyon is just a little too wide to put a bridge across.

Thanks for your help

Del

I think you have a great plan with a fun roadtrip ahead of you. However, I'm not into backtracking, i.e. driving the same road both ways, if I can help it.

If I were you, I would leave Vegas heading toward the South Rim first. Like Michael said, you can enjoy a tour of Hoover Dam on the way. And you might just want to enjoy a few other points along the way like Kingman and Seligman which have remnants of Route 66 to explore. This is an interesting drive and would make a good day trip. Then spend a couple of nights at El Tovar on the South Rim and enjoy exploring the beauty that is the Grand Canyon. You would be taking 93 South, 40 East, and 64 North. About 280 miles.

From there, head towards the North Rim and Bryce and Zion via 180 East. Beautiful, awesome drive with many interesting stops before you leave the Grand Canyon. Then head north, then west on 89. You will go near Glen Canyon National Rec Area. In fact, if you have time, you might enjoy a night in Page so you can explore this area more fully. If the North Rim happens to be open, go ahead and enjoy driving in and taking a look around. The views of the GC from the North are very different than the views from the South. If it's not open, continue heading west until you get to the junction with Cottonwood Road. Then head up to the Bryce Canyon area by driving north on Cottonwood. You will be driving through Escalante/Staircase along this road so I bet it's a beautiful drive. Although I have never driven it myself, I went into Bryce from another direction, so I really don't know what the road conditions are. Hopefully somebody here has driven it and can chime in. It is about 225 miles from El Tovar Lodge to Ruby's Inn...the place that I would recommend staying at in the Bryce area.

Then, from Bryce, head toward Zion via 63 West and 89 South, then 9 West. This is a relatively short drive of about 105 miles.

After that, zipping back to Vegas will be an easy day trip.

I'm not getting the Moab detour. Are you going there instead of Bryce? If so, then I guess I'll have to change my recommendations. But, in the time you have, I'd do Bryce instead of Moab and really enjoy myself in these three fantastic parks.

On the way back to Vegas from Zion, enjoy a stop at the Valley of Fire. You might enjoy taking time to play somewhere on Lake Mead during this time as well.

Enjoy!

(And I don't think anyone was being snarky. Just trying to be humorous, I think.)

After Bryce, head toward Zion via

Judy

Thank you for your very detailed recommendations if we wished to stay over night prior to our visit to the South Rim from Vegas is there anywhere you would recommend - we could then stay at El Tovar at the Canyon , Rubys in Bryce and say Cliffrose lodge at Zion before travelling back to Vegas.

On more thing could you recommend a map I can find on the internet covering the area under discussion as that would give me a better picture of the area and your recommendations.

Thanks again for your very much appreciated help and recommendations
I am sorry about Moab but when I requested details on the internet about accommadation at Bryce Canyon, Sunflower Hill at Moab was suggested and being completely new to this part of America I accepted that Moab was at or near Bryce.

Plonk me in most of Europe and I'm fine but this part of America I need help

Once again sincere thanks

Best wishes

Del

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Originally Posted by Delbon

and being completely new to this part of America I accepted that Moab was at or near Bryce

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Del, What I would recommend at this point is that you get a hold of a map, (either by purchase) or a free one online or at the library and look at the area we are describing as you are reading these posts. The distances we describing are akin to driving back and forth accross England several times and you might find our commentary more helpful if you were using a good map as a visual aid.

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Thank you for your very detailed recommendations if we wished to stay over night prior to our visit to the South Rim from Vegas is there anywhere you would recommend

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I would recommend either staying at Kingman or Wiliams, Arizona.

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- we could then stay at El Tovar at the Canyon

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, Excellent and I still think you should spend two nights here, but anyway,

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Rubys in Bryce and say Cliffrose lodge at Zion

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both are more expensive than they ought to be and there are other options in the area. For about half the cost and twice the scenery you could stay at the Bryce Valley Inn in Tropic and have a great breakfast next door. This field report could be a good primer for your planning purposes.

Mark

Thanks for all your help - I will let you know how it goes

Thanks for a great site

Del

How exciting! I just came across your postings. Your trip sounds very familiar to me. You see, I'll be traveling to Las Vegas at the end of April 2007 for a friends wedding. I plan to take 2 extra days or so and drive to the Grand Canyon with a stop at the Hoover Dam. It will be the first time for me as well. I really enjoyed all the advice you've gathered so far and now I have some more ideas of where to stay and what to do. I will try to remember to check back here and let you know if I come across any other interesting information.

I noticed you were considering including Zion or Moab into your trip. I have been to Moab and it is a great place to see. But, because of the distance (and I freely admit that, overall, I am not very familiar with that part of the country) you would probably have to cut short your visit to somewhere else to get there. With all that driving, I would recommend keeping the driving to a minimum and allow yourselves to have the extra time at the places you do choose to visit.

Tonya

I did this route last spring. It was an AMAZING trip. We spent 3 nights in Vegas then went to the Grand Canyon (south rim)--i don't have the routes we took in front of me, but its been posted previously.
Don't miss a stop at the Hoover dam. It was great. The visitors center has a wonderful movie/informational talk/and tour. It is great.
We did the drive from vegas to the GC i(south rim) in one day and got in early evening. El Tovar is amazing--we could not get reservations there, so make sure you have made those(Xanterra is the company that handles all in park reservations. Also do a google search for grand canyon national park search--that website has alot of info re:planning a trip to the park. Once in the park the rangers and hotel staff were very helpful)
We stayed in the park and i would highly recommend it. Once we parked the car we used the transportation in the park to get to where we needed to go...but since you are right on the rim at the El Tovar you are going to have a great view. Make sure you see sunrise over the canyon. If you want to hike there are plenty of rim hikes to take, but even the car lookout points are quite amazing.
After two nights at the GC we went out thru the east entrance--nice way out of the park--it gave a different perspective. I do recall gas/petrol stations being very few and far between...so we filled up prior to entering the park and then leaving out the east entrance it was awhile before we saw another one...don't run too low in this area.)
From the GC we went to Zion. We stayed at the Majestic View Lodge--it was a beautiful place. All the rooms had balconies and the red rock was visible.
If you want to check out other reviews of the hotels check out tripadvisor.com ---that is where I found the Majestic View Lodge and it was wonderful. Great restaurant on premises too.
We did not go to bryce so i cannot give you any info on that. Instead we went to a spa in St. George, Utah (Red Mountain Spa) and then flew home. if anyone is interested in that info..let me know.

A couple thoughts on availability and routing, spurred by the thought that March is awfully close to Winter at some altitudes. There's a lot of good news after research, but its worth spending some time being aware.

After some checking, the good news is that except for GCNP-North Rim, the other parks, Zion (but could be icy), Bryce, and the South Rim, (see tab from the north rim listing) are open year-round, barring any recent snows not fully cleared.

Note of caution however, everything I can see (1, 2) says Cottonwood Canyon Road is a dirt road, and recommended for 4-wheel drives during the winter. Car rental policy is likely to prohibit driving on such a surface.

An alternative is to stay on US-89 after getting into Utah from the GC. About 60+ miles West is Kanab, where you can inquire about road conditions to Zion and Bryce. Although Zion is closer (via Utah-9) at that point, parts of it may be least accessble. I recall in 2003 it was closed until sometime in May because of unusually heavy snow the prior winter. Zion has two sections, not connected within the park itself -- that is you can drive through one section for some amazing visual memories from the road. The other section has a visitors center and a number of trails/tracks. Still you should be able to biew at least some of it.

Bryce is further North via US-89 and Utah-12 towards Bryce. If you have the time, you can go further East on Utah-12 from Bryce and touch the Northern reaches of Grand Staircase-Escelante then doubling back on Old-Escelante Road. If you want a different route back, you could try US-89 N, Utah-20, and I-15 back down to Utah-9 (for Zion) or continue on to L.V.

In all cases its worth checking locally at time of travel to be sure of the road conditions, and of course defer to anyone who's travelled in these parks during that time of year.

A few other notes:

Watch your fuel level. While most parks have a village nearby with filling stations, there are no fuel facilities for cars within the parks .

Daylight Savings Time begins March 11, in 2007, due to recent national legislation. A timezone runs roughly along the Eastern Nevada and California borders. Arizona doesn't participate, so after March 11, when the most Western states "spring forward" Arizona's time will be synched with theirs. Utah, however does particpate, always remaining an hour ahead of them.

It is only about 6 hours maximum drive from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon Village if you go to Flagstaff, then north to the Canyon.
Not sure why you would need a stopover night on the way?
You could stay overnight in Flagstaff.

There are several free online "trip planners" to enter your stops and plan your itinerary. Also, you can type in Grand Canyon Village (for example) on www.mapquest.com or any other free online map, then zoom out to see the whole area.

Microsoft Streets and Trips is a great program to buy and keep if you will travel North America often. It is not expensive.

Zion National Park is probably my personal favourite. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
At Bryce Canyon, perhaps reserve a horseback ride down into the canyon (1/2 day trip). It is a great way to see more if you are not big hikers.

Grand Canyon West on the Hualapai Indian Reservation at Eagle Point is opening a new "glass skywalk". I believe it is to be open by the end of 2006? To stand out over the canyon, 4,000 feet up and look down! This costs extra and is not part of the national park but looks interesting / great / a thrill factor for those afraid of heights!

I agree that Moab is out of your way for this trip. Perhaps another time. Stick to the main three Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon for the time frame you have.

Everyone has already given very helpful answers. Keep asking questions and we are glad to assist in planning your itinerary.

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Originally Posted by Syv

Grand Canyon West on the Hualapai Indian Reservation at Eagle Point is opening a new "glass skywalk". I believe it is to be open by the end of 2006? To stand out over the canyon, 4,000 feet up and look down! This costs extra and is not part of the national park but looks interesting / great / a thrill factor for those afraid of heights!

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I'm looking for more information on this area, "Grand Canyon West" on the Hualapai reservation.
How rough is that road from Dolan Springs? (Pierce Ferry Rd I think is the name)
What about the road from Grand Canyon West to Peach Springs? Anybody here driven these roads? Do-able in a rental car in late March? Mapquest's information is sparse.

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Originally Posted by JasonB1971

How rough is that road from Dolan Springs? (Pierce Ferry Rd I think is the name)

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Pierce Ferry Road is paved from US-93 to the Diamond Bar Road junction. You will need to travel on Diamond Bar Road to the Grand Canyon West. It is a graded, gravel road -- a bit bumpy, but not a problem for any car. However, all rental agreements preclude travel off-pavement!

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What about the road from Grand Canyon West to Peach Springs?

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The Buck and Doe road is a jeep trail -- I wouldn't do it a car and you would need the permission of the Hualapai nation to try it.

Mark

Thanks Mark.
I did a little more research and found this site
...and as chance would have it, we're going to be in Vegas the week the skywalk opens! I'll def be making this journey.

Jason,

Good find -- that is a new site. Useful info there! We plan on going down and covering the opening too.

Mark