Quicklinks:
National Parks
- Arches National Park
- Arches National Park can be best described with two words: red arches. The small national park is located close to Moab, famous for its slickrock mountainbike and off-road trails, and is home to a fairly high concentration of arches, some too small to stand under, others you could build a house under. One of the arches was used in the opening sequence of Indiana Jones 3.
- Bryce Canyon National Park
- This is probably one of the most colourful, scenic and accessible parks in the Southwest. The otherworldly rock formations - formed by erosion and called "Hoodoos" - can be seen from viewpoints along the rim, which is in the shape of a natural amphitheater. However, the best way to experience the unique beauty of Bryce is to hike below the Rim - ideally in spring, when there's still a small snow cover in some areas offering additional contrast.
- Canyonlands National Park
- Canyonlands is one of the more remote national parks in the Southwest, with some of the road-accessible places having daily visitation in the single digits. It's most scenic when explored below the Rim in a 4WD, but there's plenty to see from the official viewpoints as well.
- Zion National Park
- The Kolob Canyons area of Zion National Park has its own gallery.
[Top]National Monuments
- Cedar Breaks National Monument
- Peaceful alpine meadows abruptly turn into a colourful amphitheater at Cedar Breaks NM, which has many similarities with nearby Bryce National Park. A scenic road hugs the rim and offers a handful of viewpoints down into the "hoodoo" landscape marked by erosion. There's no access to the areas below the rim, which is both a blessing (no damage by trails) and a curse (only a bird's eye view of the scenery).
- Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
- This is a fairly recent addition to the national park system, and composed of a number of very distinct places... There's Burr Trail, a paved road leading through a long canyon; Cottonwood Canyon Road, a popular dirt-road; Grosvenor Arch, a big sandstone arch; Highway 12, a scenic byway; and Hole-in-the-rock-road, famous for its end-point where a mormon treck blasted their way through a mountain.
