Echo Canyon in Northern Utah

The five national parks across southern Utah feature some of the most unusual and beautiful landscapes in America, with much of it sculpted from a distinctive red sandstone that covers this part of the country. These parks include Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef. Together they offer thousands of natural arches, breathtaking canyons, towering buttes and sheer rock faces that are some of our nation’s most sacred natural treasures.

We had hoped to visit these parks last summer, but our lack of planning then made finding a campsite reservation impossible. Have no fear though, because today I reserved a campsite at Zion’s Watchman campground. Most of the campgrounds in these parks don’t accept reservations, but are let on a first come first served basis. I’m OK with that and we will likely try to partake of them by doing this on our drive out and back to Zion. Yes, we’re talking about a road trip here, a big one. It will entail a lot of driving, but by driving and camping, this vacation should be rather inexpensive or at least that’s the plan. Once we get there, we will use Zion as our base of operation and then explore out from there.

Not having ever been to southern Utah, I don’t have any good photographs of the area, at least not yet. I chose the above photo as a representative substitute. It is from Utah and it shows a rock formation that is made of red sandstone. This picture was taken in 2010. Echo Canyon was on our way from Salt Lake City to Yellowstone. It is a historic corridor that was once used by Mormon pioneers and the Pony Express. Today, I-80 passes through the canyon. We stopped at the rest stop in the canyon on our way out of Sault Lake City.