“Mighty Five” Utah National Parks Ranked

I spent five weeks and visited everyUtah national park. They call them the “Mighty Five.” What surprised me was that I expected to like the most popular parks most, but I liked them least. Other parks I’d never heard of turned out to be the best.

This is my impression of the parks as someone who likes to hike and enjoy the solitude of the wilderness. If you want those things too, you’ll probably like the same parks I did. If you prefer to drive through, snap photos and be on your way, you’ll probably like the ones I liked least more.

There is no best or worst park; they’re all excellent and incredibly magical. I’m grateful and glad to have visited each of them. I just like some better than others.

Let’s start with my Least Favorite Utah National Park

5 Arches National Park

The first time I showed up at this Utah national park, I joined a massive line of vehicles turning around to find something else to do because the park was closed due to overcrowding. It’s often closed for a few hours daily because of this. Once the visitor’s parking lot is full, they stop letting people in until there is room again.

When I returned in the evening, I entered after waiting in line for about 20 minutes with many other hopefuls; I was eventually granted entry. But to what? I wondered nervously about the crowds.

Crowds Galore

I try to avoid malls, festivals and other places people gather in large crowds. Waiting in line and jostling for a position does not appeal to me, especially not when I’m trying to admire the great outdoors.

Arches National Park receives more than 1.5 million visitors each year. By comparison, Yellowstone had 3.8 million visitors in 2020. Zion had 3.6 million, a low year due to COVID. All the rangers I’ve spoken with at Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, and Zion, say they were seeing record numbers of visitors in 2021.

Excitement to Despair

I was so excited to see Arches. It was a large part of driving four hours out of my way, but seeing the crowds dimmed my enthusiasm.

The drive was slow as I joined the long line of cars on the road heading up and into the park. The road curves back and forth up a red rock mountainside and takes you into an expanse you can’t see from the road or entrance.

This is a beautiful park. It’s rare to a bizarre extent and won’t last forever. This place must be seen despite my complaining about the crowds and the atmosphere.

With more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches, the park contains the world’s highest density. You can get up close and personal with many formations since they each have a nearby parking lot for gawking. You can also get out of your vehicle and make a short walk to get a closer look at most of them.

While there, I had to drive around the parking lot multiple times, waiting for a spot to open. It reminded me of my mom at the mall during Christmastime in the years before online ordering.

They say the park is great for auto touring, hiking, bicycling, camping, canyoneering, and rock climbing. But I only saw the auto touring part. True, the crowds put me off, so I was less enthusiastic than I could have been but finding a place to park so I could explore made it hard. Once parked, there were crowds to contend with.

Everyone seems to be competing for a picture, a better position on the trail, a parking spot, and the line at the bathroom. As a solo person, the groups very nearly trampled me. There was little trail etiquette, camaraderie and shared happiness in the park’s glory that you typically find among hikers. It was the Hunger Games.

Sandstone Arch Formations

Still, I drove by petrified dunes and balanced rock, the size of three school buses balanced on top of a thin pedestal. It looks like it’s near toppling.

After driving in circles and waiting for other vehicles to vacate parking spots, I walked to Delicate Arch, Double Arch and the Windows. It is fascinating to see these massive red sandstone structures that seem to defy gravity and nature itself. They call these pathways “hikes,” but they are more like mad dashes across the concrete to get in and out and away as quickly as possible. Few people lingered.

If You Visit Arches

I suggest planning a route if you plan to visit Arches this year or anytime soon. I’d start with Delicate Arch since that will be the busiest. Go very early in the morning – like 5 a.m. – or very late in the evening – after 7 p.m. This way, you’ll avoid the worst of the crowds and enjoy this beautiful place as intended.

If crowds and battling for parking aren’t your thing, you can see sandstone arches at almost any other park, just not so many of them in one place.

Cost: $30 per vehicle, or free with an $85 park pass that gets you into every national park free thereafter.

Arches National Park is usually open year-round, 24 hours a day. Find it north of Moab, Utah. From Interstate 70 (Crescent Junction), drive south on US 191 for 22 miles.

4. Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park is beautiful, and the hoodoos are spectacular, but it only ranks fourth on my list of best Utah National Parks. Granted, you won’t find another park like it, but visiting is like attending a music festival, but everyone brought their kids.

There are entire blogs devoted to making fun of people who are under-impressed by national parks, so this dull opinion may be insufferable, but I’m not alone. Park crowding is soul crushing.

Hoodoo You Love

The geologic features of Bryce Canyon are known as “hoodoos.” A hoodoo is a tall, thin spire of rock formed by a unique combination of geologic happenings. Bryce has the most extensive collection of hoodoos in the world. Other parks typically have some too, but not at this scale. At Bryce, they’re clustered in patterns and arrangements that leave you breathless and amazed.

You can argue that the beautiful and spectacular hoodoos at Bryce are enough, and they are. I’m glad I saw them. Just like I’m happy I saw the Grand Canyon and Arches National Park.

I know many people who say Bryce and Arches are their favorite parks, but those people and I are very different. I’ll take a small bit of solitude in nature over popularity and pretty pictures any day.

Consumer Culture

For me, there’s something about Bryce, like Arches, that is too adapted to consumer culture. The wildness has gone out of them. They’re consumer objects more than places to explore nature.

At Bryce, unlike the Grand Canyon, the closest you can get to more deeply enjoy the park is by staying at a campsite (with a few hundred other campers). At least with the Grand Canyon, you can get away from the crowds by taking a few days-long hikes deep into the gorge. This, however, requires expertise, ability, time and money that eliminates many.

Into the Wild – No

At Bryce, there are so many people you’re quite literally hiking in groups of dozens. People come, gobble up whatever there is to see, stop at a chain restaurant, and head off to the next landmark.

There’s little opportunity to commune with nature when there are toddlers crying and loud tourists talking incessantly (I know your coworker sucks but do we all have to hear about it right now on this trail?). Plus, there are battles for parking spaces, which is a total buzzkill.

But, man, it is pretty. And humbling. Maybe that’s all we need to take away from this Utah national park. They exist against the odds and remind us of the wonders possible in our world. At Bryce, standing next to those hoodoos, you are so small. It reminds you of your size in the universe and what time can do. Maybe that’s enough. It will have to be enough.

If You Visit Bryce

Go before 11 a.m. or after 5 p.m. when the crowds are thinnest. Map out your trails in advance. It’s easy to combine several small trails into one and the least you have to play parking lot tag, the better.

Cost: $30 per vehicle, or free with an $85 park pass that gets you into every national park free thereafter.

Find Bryce Canyon National Park off Highway 63, Bryce, UT 84764.

3. Canyonlands National Park

I loved this Utah national park right away because it’s less crowded and, dare I say, maybe more beautiful. It may not be on your shortlist, but after visiting for a day, I’d say Canyonlands should top your list.

Why? I liked the solitude of nature and being out moving around in it, hiking, and listening to the sounds of the animals and wind. Because Canyonlands is less crowded, you can enjoy the park versus battle the crowds of bustling people. It has arches and hoodoos, just like those other parks.

Driving to Canyonlands

To get to Canyonlands, I drove 30 miles down a side road off the highway. I was the only car for miles. At the start of the road, it is open desert land without much to see, but after about 10 miles, the landscape begins to change.

Canyonlands is known for its dramatic desert landscape carved by the Colorado River. The rock mesas are so giant and towering that I thought they were like elephants as I drove in. Canyon rock mountains line either side of the road. It’s like driving in the middle of the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Not that you could do that, which makes this park even better. I made frequent stops at the pull-outs on the roadside to take pictures and marvel at the panoramic beauty of the massive red and orange mesas around me.

Rock Formations at Canyonlands

The formations are layers of red and white, providing a mesmerizing landscape that seems hard to figure out and impossible to stop staring at. They are incomparable to many things but reminiscent of the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon National Park.

The Needles are very similar to the hoodoos, just in a smaller concentration. Nearly the entire park at Bryce is hoodoos, but here it’s just one section.

You’ll see arches too. There is Wilson Arch on the highway before you enter – a massive sandstone structure you can climb up to and there is Mesa Arch in the park, but you’ll have to hike a distance to get to it.

I did a few short hikes. Despite what the rangers said about it being busy, it didn’t seem to be. I was mostly alone on the trails, passing only a few people. There were several cars parked at each trailhead, but the people spaced themselves out, so you seemed in perfect solitude.

All in all, if you’re looking for a beautiful Utah national park, this is a great choice. It offers many of the same spectacular features as some of the more popular parks – red rock, towering mesas, hoodoo formations, epic hikes, and even arches. Canyonlands is a great place to visit.

If You Visit

Go before 11 a.m. or after 5 p.m. when the crowds are thinnest. Bring twice as much water as you think you’ll need and make sure you have a full tank of gas – there’s nowhere in the park to get any and it’s a long road.

Entry fee: The cost is $30 per vehicle. A National Park pass is $80 for a year and gets you in free after that.

Canyonlands National Park is usually open year-round, 24 hours a day. Find it off UT 313, about 22 miles southwest of US 191 near Moab, UT 84532.

2. Capitol Reef National Park

I loved Capitol Reef National Park, but I wasn’t going to visit it. I’d never heard of it before I came to Utah. I couldn’t find a lot about it online. It didn’t seem to have any special features. But then it dawned on me: nobody goes to this park. That’s what made me go. I’m so glad I did.

The thing I loved most about this place was the crowds. This park doesn’t have any. My other reason is history. Oh, and the pie. Who am I kidding? It’s because of the pie.

This park doesn’t have one special feature like arches, or hoodoo, or monuments. It’s so geologically diverse it has them all and more. But, it’s also historically fascinating and some of that history is alive.

It’s in the south-central part of Utah, not too far from the much more popular Bryce Canyon National Park. It’s broken into two different sections because it surrounds a long wrinkle or warp in the earth’s crust known as the Waterpocket Fold. This “fold” created tilted layers of golden sandstone, canyons and various rock formations. There are reds, whites, blacks, browns, and gold rocks. Each section of the park’s 242,000+ acres is almost different from each other.

Fun Fact: The park’s name is from the white sandstone domes that look like capitol buildings and “reef” because it forms a 60-mile-long rock barrier.

A Park in Two Sections

The park is in two sections, one you need a pass for and the rest you can drive right through. There are even designated hikes and maintained trails on the section you can go through for free.

There is a 10-mile scenic drive in the actual park, and you must pay to enter or have a parking pass. This park gets so little traffic it’s still managed on the trust system. There isn’t anybody staffing the entrance.

You’ll “enter” the park long before you actually enter it along Utah Highway 24. There are miles and miles of highway along the fold. You’ll see marked turnouts and trailheads as you get within a few miles.

Orchards and Pie

Upon entering the scenic drive, you’ll be in the “Fruita” section. On the right, you’ll see cherry, apricot, peach, and apple orchards. These historic orchards can be found throughout the park. I love that they just call it “fruita.” Say what you mean and keep it simple.

The grove is hundreds of years old and was started by Mormon settlers in the 1800s and the signage conveys excellent history.

In recent years the park has repopulated the orchards, and now they grow a ton of different kinds of fruit. If you arrive when the fruit is ripe, you can even pick your own for a fee. And the best part? They make and sell pies!

Gifford Farm

In the Fruita valley, you’ll find the Gifford farm in the 200-acre Fruita Rural Historic District. The park service has refurnished the Gifford farmhouse to showcase what an early Mormon settlement was like. Now, they even sell pies in honor of the farm’s history. There’s also a barn, smokehouse, and blacksmith buildings, a school and some other cabins. It’s very nearly like one of those historical reenactment places – but in a national park – say what?!

And yes, it’s so legit; the district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Capitol Reef Park Districts

Because of the many different geologic aspects of Capitol Reef, there are a lot of options you can do. Hiking, canyoneering, rock climbing, backpacking, camping and bicycling are some of the activities you can do in the park.

This Utah national park is big and has many different sections to show off the various aspects. There are the Cathedral Valley, Waterpocket District, Burro, Cottonwood and Sheets Gulch, and the Sulphur Creek area.

These sections feature river hikes, three slot canyons, monoliths, climbing areas and more. This is the place you want to go if you’re going to do some incredible hikes and avoid the mass of crowds at the other national parks. There are 15-day hiking trails along Highway 24 and Scenic Drive. I did a few short ones, and they had excellent historical aspects and great beauty.

If You Visit

This is a park you could easily spend a couple of days exploring and if you wanted to camp, this is one I’d put at the top of the list. There is much more to do and see, like the Cassidy Arch, petroglyphs and so much more. This park is a true gem – go see it before the crowds from the other parks figure it out too.

Cost: The entry fee is $30 per vehicle. A National Park pass is $80 for a year and gets you in free after that.

Find Capitol Reef National Park, at HC 70, Box 15 Torrey, UT 84775.

1 Zion National Park

This proves me a hypocrite because, despite the crowds, my favorite of the Utah national parks is Zion, a true “hikers” park. I’m glad it’s also where I spent the most time since I stayed 30 minutes away for a month.

What I loved is that there’s very little to consume at Zion. It’s all about hiking. Sure, you can come for the pretty pictures, drive through Zion and gobble up the landscape, but the best views are found by using your own two feet. You must get out on a trail to see the best of the park.

If you’re not down for hiking, there’s not much for you to do here. Because of the shuttle system, you can’t even drive into the most popular spots in the park.

It’s still pretty to drive through the Zion Scenic Drive. his will take you through a series of switchbacks on Route 9 and the famous Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel and I’d guess some people do that. Still, there aren’t any big pullouts for them to stop, so it eliminates the driving around and jumping out to snap pictures, publically argue with your kids, and hop back in the vehicle (I’m talking about you, Arches and Bryce).

In Zion, the rock is such a bright red-orange that it glows when the sun hits it. It’s the view that makes it so famous and causes people from around the world to travel to it.

I liked Zion so much I wrote individual posts about the different hikes I did, including:

• Narrows
• The Watchman
• Angel’s Landing
• Overlook Trail
• Emerald Pools

There are still crowds here on the trails, but if you like hiking, you’ll be among your brethren. For hikers, it’s a bucket list park, and the atmosphere is about being in nature, hiking, and the solitude of the wilderness.

Kolob Canyon

Plus, Zion has a sister – the Kolob Canyon – right around the corner.

And you know the best part? While Zion is packed with thousands of people each day, the Kolob Canyon is almost empty and, dare I say, just as beautiful. Plus, it offers the hiking you dream of long walks amid rare and exquisite scenery that’s tougher to traverse than a sidewalk but not so hard it kills you.

OK, maybe it’s not so secret. The park does mention on the visitor’s map. But hardly anybody goes there. I spent several hours one day to find out why. What I found is a great park with excellent views and few incredible quiet hikes.

The sister canyon is tucked away in the northwest corner of Zion, but you can’t get to it from the park; you must take a long way around. The park is a narrow box canyon cut into the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. It forms the classic Zion majestic peaks and features 2,000-foot cliff walls.

There are three main trails at Kolob Canyon – one for each skill level – and the trip begins at the Visitor’s Center.

Of all the Utah national parks the one-two punch of Zion and Kolob is a hiking national park lover’s dream come true. That’s why it’s my favorite.

If You Visit

To get on any of the popular trails in less than a few hours you’ll have to go by 5 am or after 4:30 pm to catch the mandatory shuttle. The shuttle starts at 6 am, but the line will already be hundreds of people long by then. The last shuttle taking people to the trails ends at 5 pm. By then, the park is reaching normal levels of occupancy.

Cost: The entry fee for this Utah national park is $25 per vehicle, good for a week. A National Park pass is $80 a year and gets you in free after that.

Find it at 1 Zion Park Blvd., State Route 9, Springdale, UT 84767.

Read more detailed posts about each Utah national park here.

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