Milwaukee to San Francisco in 2 weeks

[cdubya]

Ok, I think I've made it work:

24 leave GC at lunchtime, drive to Zion
25 leave Zion late afternoon, drive thru Las Vegas to Pahrump
26 leave Pahrump early, drive up to Yosemite

It doesn't give us tons of time in Zion but my original plan was just to drive through the park, so this is better. ????

[AZBuck]

It's a minimum of five hours from Grand Canyon Village to Zion National Park, and that's being generous. If you don't leave the Canyon until lunchtime, you most likely won't get to Zion in time to do anything but drive the approach road (UT-9, gorgeous in its own right, but it's not the same as the Park), and arrive so close to sunset that you'd have to take (expensive) lodging and try to do the main attraction of Zion, the hike back up Oak Creek, early the next morning. You'd then have another half day devoted to driving to get to Parhump - and that's assuming no stopping in Las Vegas. So, yes, this will work if you keep your expectations as to what you can accomplish in Zion to an absolute minimum.

AZBuck

[Midwest Michael]

It's a minimum of five hours from Grand Canyon Village to Zion National Park, and that's being generous.

I think Buck missed that you are visiting the North Rim, and not the South Rim/GC Village. From the North Rim, you're looking at 2.5-3 hours for this drive.

You'll be a bit rushed through both Zion and Death Valley, but I'd say this is still better than your plan to try to get from Zion to Tioga Pass via Death Valley in one day, which I don't think really was possible.

[cdubya]

I think Buck missed that you are visiting the North Rim, and not the South Rim/GC Village. From the North Rim, you're looking at 2.5-3 hours for this drive.

Exactly. From the North Rim it isn't too bad of a drive and leaving GC at lunchtime will get us into Zion in the late afternoon. Then we'll have most of the next day to do the park. If we leave Zion in the late afternoon we'll get to Vegas just as the lights are coming on, drive through and see the lights from the car (not at all interested in stopping) then on to the hotel in Pahrump for bed. We'll be getting up early to get through Death Valley before it gets too hot and hope to make it to Yosemite...or, worst case scenario, we spend our first night just east of the park.

[AZBuck]

Mea culpa.

AZBuck

[cdubya]

Mea culpa.

AZBuck

Ha ha. No need. This thread has gotten so long and gone through so many changes it's hard to keep track of what's going on. :D

CW

[CrispyA]

Enjoy your planning. We have visited most of those places on different trips and loved our time in the parks. Moab is a good place to stay for Arches if you want a hotel and made a good base. Arches gets really busy - go either early or late if you don't want to sit in a queue of traffic.

Don't underestimate the size of Yellowstone. We did, and spent far longer in the car than we would have liked. If you have small kids you'll probably be up early anyway, but early starts were the best thing for us.

We loved Zion National Park and did some great walking there. The shuttle buses are very good and it's a stunning park.

San Francisco can be really expensive - it's worth considering Lombard Street as a place to stay as hotels like the Cow Hollow Motor Inn don't charge for parking.

[cdubya]

After a short hiatus in our planning, our summer trip from Boise to SF is back on the front burner. We have finalized our stops, booked the rental car and even booked all hotels and our campsite in Yellowstone.

Date
15 Land in Boise at 1.00
... Luggage/rental car -------- Massacre State Park, Potato Museum (Dinner?)
... Drive to Rexburg, ID - -sleep hotel
16 Leave Hotel early
... Shop in W. Yellowstone for supplies/gas
... Drive into Yellowstone, set up camp -------- Mammoth Hot Springs
17 Yellowstone -------- Mt. Washburn hike
18 Yellowstone -------- Lamar Valley hike
19 Yellowstone -------- Geysers/Prismatic Spring
20 Leave Yellowstone Early
... Drive to Price UT - sleep hotel -------- Drive thru Grand Teton, Hwy 89
21 Leave hotel early
... Get to Arches, set up camp -------- Hike
22 Arches -------- Dead Horse Scenic drive
23 Leave Arches
24 Drive to Page - hotel -------- Drive thru Monument Valley, Navajo Nat Monument
... Leave hotel early
... get to North Rim of GC, set up camp
25 Explore GC -------- Bright Angel Point, Walhalla Overlook
26 Explore GC -------- Kaibab Trail
27 Leave GC early
... Drive to Zion, set up camp -------- Virgin River walk
28 Explore Zion
... Leave Zion late afternoon -------- Drive thru LV in the evening to see the lights of the strip
... Drive to Pahrump hotel
29 Drive to SF hotel -------- Drive thru Death Valley up to SF on Hwy 395 thru Yosemite
30 Explore SF
31 Leave SF

:( We decided to take Yosemite out of the plan to spend more time in Yellowstone and the GC.
A lot has been booked so I can't really change the timeline but I would like your opinions on how it looks. I've included a couple of the activities that we have been looking at to do during our trip in the parks and on our drives.

The 2 longest drives are the ones from Yellowstone to Price on the 20th and from Pahrump to SF on the 29. The WY/UT drive can be shortened to 7 hours if we take the interstate but I would like to take the scenic route which will bump it up to 10. We will play it by ear and if after 4 days of camping in Yellowstone, we're dying to get to a hotel and swim in a pool, take a real shower and do laundry, we'll take the quick route. ;)
The drive from Pahrump to SF is 10 hours including a detour through Death Valley. The scenic route up Hwy 395 and thru Yosemite on the Tioga Pass sounds so wonderful, while a drive north on Interstate 5 would be much less interesting. Both routes are giving me more or less 10 hours but I can imagine the scenic route would take longer because we would want to stop along the way... that is tbd...


Let me know what you all think!! :)
CW

[DonnaR57]

Yeah, the YNP campground up by Mammoth Hot Springs, all the way down to Price, is going to be a doozy of a long day. Just getting from Mammoth down to Jackson Hole can take you 2-3 hours, even early in the morning! At Jackson, you can divert over to I-15, hit that all the way down and then US-6. Bear in mind that US-6 is *also* going to be slower than the 15.

If I had a choice between Death Valley and Tioga Pass in the height of summer, I'd choose Tioga Pass. DVNP is HOT in the middle of the summer.


Donna

[cdubya]

Yeah, the YNP campground up by Mammoth Hot Springs, all the way down to Price, is going to be a doozy of a long day. Just getting from Mammoth down to Jackson Hole can take you 2-3 hours, even early in the morning! At Jackson, you can divert over to I-15, hit that all the way down and then US-6. Bear in mind that US-6 is *also* going to be slower than the 15.

If I had a choice between Death Valley and Tioga Pass in the height of summer, I'd choose Tioga Pass. DVNP is HOT in the middle of the summer.

We have booked our campsite at Canyon Campground, which is a bit more central YNP. Mammoth Hot Springs is something we'd like to see the afternoon we get into Yellowstone after setting up camp in the morning.
It won't make that big of a difference on that drive South tho... It'll be a doozy.


Death Valley will be a drive thru with a pit stop to take pics. Hopefully by sleeping in Pahrump and getting up at dawn we'll get to Zabriski Point for the scenery early enough before it gets too unbearably hot. Hubby wants to skip it but he's already seen DV and the kids are clammering to keep it on the list....(me too).

CW