Utah’s Greatest Parks Part 3

Recall from the last two months of Travel Tales that in the spring of 2024 my wife and I drove through 500 miles of terrific parks in southern Utah. We took our trusty Subaru Outback all the way from our snowbird base in Fairhope, Alabama to Utah and back east to Maryland, logging 6,000 miles and seeing great sights along the way. But the highlight was definitely southern Utah.  Our third and last leg of the Utah trip focused on the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, Zion Canyon National Park (NP), and Kolob Canyon.

The Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is the largest such facility in the world, and its philosophy is that no pet should be euthanized.  The Sanctuary now has branches and associated facilities in every US state, and is the nation’s leader in the “no kill” movement.

You may be familiar with the Sanctuary under the name of “DogTown,” since from 2008 to 2010 the National Geographic TV channel ran 28 DogTown episodes in a series documenting the dogs and their Sanctuary staff.

In reality Dogtown is just one section of the massive 3,700-acre complex, which provides rehabilitation and housing for over 1500 dogs, cats, birds, pigs, horses, bunnies and virtually every kind of household pet.

The most famous NatGeo TV episode focused on the effort to save and place 22 of Michael Vick’s 47 fighting dogs. Vick was a famous Atlanta Falcons NFL quarterback who in 2008 was convicted of Federal and state charges of abusing dogs, gambling and running a dogfighting operation. The abuse included hanging, shooting, drowning and electrocuting dogs.  Despite these crimes, he served no jail time and received small fines.  Many of his dogs that were rescued and sent to Best Friends were rehabilitated and successfully placed with families from Rhode Island to California.  But a few could not be fully rehabbed, and were permanently housed at the facility, located in a gorgeous red-rock canyon just a few miles north of Kanab, Utah.

We toured the Sanctuary canyon and were impressed with the dedication of the staff and numerous volunteers.  A highlight of our tour was a demonstration of “horse whispering” from a woman staffer who explained how “breaking” horses can permanently damage them, and how building trust and a close relationship is a much better approach.  She said that even many horses used in the Olympics, in high level dressage, and at the world-famous Spanish Riding School in Austria can benefit from retraining using Sanctuary methods.

Oddly, the Sanctuary sprang from an unlikely source: a religious cult called the Process Church of the Final Judgement, founded by ex-Scientologists who moved from London to the Yucatan to New Orleans and eventually settled in Utah.  Now, however, the Sanctuary has shed all its religious and cult-like aspects, and functions as a well-regarded non-profit organization.

Our next stop was the excellent Zion Canyon NP, which we reached via scenic Utah Route 9 and a tunnel, which gave us the only traffic jam of the entire trip.

Once through the tunnel, private cars and their drivers must turn south into the small town of Springdale to find accommodation, and can only use the paved and gated road into the park if they are registered campers in the park, or are guests at the Park Lodge.  All other visitors must take a shuttle bus into the park from the parking lot at the south end of the road, next to the visitor center.  This lot fills up very quickly each morning, especially in the busy season.  A second shuttle run by the town of Springdale, just south of the park, ferries people from their hotels to the visitor center.

This whole system is workable, but because it is a bit annoying, this park is perhaps our fourth favorite of the trip, after Arches, Bryce and Goblin, in that order.

Once you finally get into the park, it is very impressive. Zion NP, with 232 square miles of territory, is remarkable for its deep gorge, slot canyons, spectacular hiking trails, and beautiful river.  A wealth of available activities includes river rafting, climbing, horseback trail riding, birding, stargazing and canyoneering. This latter adventure activity combines technical climbing, route finding, rappelling, swimming and hiking.  Real Special Forces stuff!

Our last stop was Kolob Canyons, a separate section of Zion NP that is 40 miles northwest of Springdale and only accessible from Interstate 15.  Kolob has a five-mile one-way paved road that penetrates a gorgeous slot canyon and ends up at a parking lot and lookout point.  Twenty miles of hiking trails lead to many other lookouts and terrific views of 2000-foot cliffs, Navajo sandstone, and pristine scenery.

From Kolob Canyons you can wind up your trip at Salt Lake City, 269 miles to the north, or Las Vegas, Nevada, 152 miles to the southwest.

For accommodation on our journey, we usually stayed at Holiday Inn Expresses, which we find acceptable and not too expensive, now usually in the $130 to $170 per night range (up from $90 to $140 just a few years ago).  We accumulate points and free nights by concentrating our stays at one chain, and by using an IHG credit card for all our purchases, especially at hotels.  At some locations such as Torrey and Bryce Canyon no HIX was available, so we settled for a Days Inn or Best Western.

Put southern Utah parks on your bucket list, and make some memories for a lifetime!

Photos courtesy Lew Toulmin