Our Southern Utah Outdoor Adventure
In August 2024, my two boys and I took a road trip to Southern Utah! Our desired destination was Zion National Park!
It was an epic trip with so many amazing landscapes and sights to see. Most of the time my jaw was dropped open over the sheer beauty of nature and the power it has to transform.
I’d love to share our itinerary if this is a trip that has been on your bucket list!
Day 1
We left Saskatoon and drove down to Red Lodge, Montana. I’ve been to Red Lodge several times, but only in the winter. It has a great ski hill and is a cute, quant little town! We camped at Water Birch Campground, just north of Red Lodge. This was a cute campground just off the side of the highway with a river flowing behind it. There was self-registration and we found a beautiful spot right next to the river, we heard both the highway noise and the river flowing throughout the night!
Day 2
We traveled to Red Lodge and stopped at the Montana Candy Emporium for some salt water taffy and treats! I’d recommend taking some time to wander through the main street if you have time here, so many cute shops! From there, we travelled along the Beartooth Highway! This highway was both beautiful and terrifying, all in the best way! You drive up a mountain with switch backs to the very top, there are sheer drops on one side of you and the mountain on the other side. There are several pull-outs to enjoy the view! When you emerge to the top of the mountain, you enter into Wyoming. The landscape and scenery in Wyoming is beautiful and you enter into Yellowstone National Park here!
We drove through Yellowstone National Park, stopping to view the bison grazing and at Mammoth Hot Springs to view the massive mineral built up! We continued driving south from Mammoth Hot Springs and stopped at Beryl Spring, this was a small pool of water that was boiling with steam coming out of the ground, it was spectacular to witness! From here we drove to West Yellowstone and then into Idaho and spent the night at a BLM (Bureau of Land Management, land owned by the government) campground called Goodenough Campground near Pocatello, Idaho.
Day 3
The next morning we continued driving into Utah and made a reservation to swim in the Homestead Crater east of Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a hot spring crater, the water was really warm and it was really cool to swim inside a crater!
Next, we drove to Kanarraville, Utah where we had a permit to hike into Kanarraville Falls. This was my most favourite hike of the trip, it was stunning and beautiful, I’ll drop photos here since it’s too jaw-dropping gorgeous to describe! We spent the night near Springdale, close to Zion National Park on free BLM land!
Day 4
We drove to Zion National Park this morning, we had reservations to rent e-bikes with Zion Peddler for the day and bike through the park. The neat thing about this park is that you are not able to drive through it, you can either take a shuttle to the nine stops, or you can bike through the park. Biking through the park was an experience in itself! You start by biking on a paved trail and then end up biking on the paved roadway. You first share the road with the shuttle and other vehicles up until the Lodge, then, you’re only sharing the road with the shuttles, who only passed by us a few times. You’re required to pull over to the side and let the shuttle pass for safety reasons. The scenery was breath-taking through the canyon in Zion National Park! There were wild turkeys in the park and were not scared of humans!
From here, we drove along the Mount Carmel Tunnel Highway, you guessed you, you drive through a tunnel in the mountain. This highway travels through Zion National Park and it’s stunning, there are several pull-outs that you can pull off to the side and explore the area. We drove down south toward Kanab, Utah after leaving Zion National Park and found a camping spot on BLM land for the night. I set up an outdoor shower and we enjoyed the luxury of a nature shower with the most beautiful scenery! This was my favourite camping spot, it was sandy, had this beautiful rock formation and was quiet!
Day 5
We were up early this morning and drove to meet our tour guide with ROAM Outdoor Adventures for our UTV tour to the Peek-a-boo slot canyon. My boys loved this tour, we drove through the sandy desert in the UTV to a sand dune where they were able to sand board! From there, we drove to the Peek-a-boo slot canyon and hiked through to explore how powerful water can be! After, we visited the Moqui Cave Museum, a cave that was bought by a local archaeologist and paleontologist and built a bar inside to fund his excavations. In the cave you can view his finding from his excavations! Next, we stopped at the Sand Caves just north of Kanab, Utah. These were caves that were man-made and require some climbing of the sandstone mountains. It was such a cool experience inside the caves and the boys loved to explore the nooks and crannies!
It gets hot in Utah in the summer, and we were craving a swim after exploring the desert in the morning, so we drove to Kanab, Utah and found a swimming pool to cool off in. While in Kanab, the Western Music Festival and Country Battle was going on in the downtown core, so after our swim we ventured down there and had a bite to eat and listened to some live music. The boys were treated to cotton candy in the shape of Yoda!
That evening we drove to the Pink Coral Sand Dunes State Park to spend the night. Upon entering the park, I was in awe again at the vastness of the sand that covered this area. The sand accumulates here after it is carved away by the wind at nearby sand mountains and funneled through the area. We explored the sand dunes that evening and the boys had fun jumping and rolling off of them!
Day 6
We had a slow morning rolling out of bed and then drove back toward Zion National Park and stopped at Belly of the Dragon. This is a tunnel that was carved underneath the highway and used as a drainage channel during wet conditions. As always, the rule down here is to never enter any slot canyons or tunnels during a rain event. We then continued back to the Mount Carmel Tunnel Highway into Zion National Park and stopped to do a the Lower Pine Creek Waterfall Hike. I had read about this hike here, and it was exactly the adventure we needed that day for our last day exploring southern Utah. When we arrived, we were the only ones there, we stayed for a few hours, relaxing and exploring. The boys had fun jumping off some of the sand cliffs and into deeper water that was carved out by the water and they found so many frogs! This was a hidden gem, we had the place mostly to ourselves the entire time, with a few other families hiking in and enjoying the falls.
After exploring and swimming, we drove to the Lava Point Campground, just north of Zion National Park, to spend the night. This was such a pretty drive through the northern part of Zion National Park, we highly recommend this! We saw so many turnouts for hiking opportunities here. This campground reminded us of back home, with lots of trembling aspen. Apparently this area is home to some inactive volcanoes that had erupted at some point, there’s lava rock along the one side of the mountain when we went to explore!
Day 7 & 8
We woke up and starting driving home this day. We drove all the way to Stoddard Creek near Spencer, Idaho and camped near the Stoddard Creek Campground on some BLM dispersed land. This was a beautiful area with many other campers in the area and the Stoddard Creek behind where we camped. We then drove the 13 hours back to Saskatchewan the next day!
This was an amazing trip, definitely a trip of a lifetime! We highly recommend checking out this area to explore and adventure. I was truly in awe the entire time of the landscape. You can easily spend a couple weeks in this area exploring the vast landscapes, the hidden waterfalls and water holes and the many many hikes!
Here are some pro tips we’d love to share to help make your trip more enjoyable:
If you plan to camp, we highly recommend downloading the iOverlander app, we used this to find campsites each night. Also, utilizing the BLM interactive map will assist you in finding BLM land if you plan to wild camp. BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land is owned by the federal government and there are some established campgrounds on some of the land. Some of the established campgrounds are paid and some are free, these had toilet facilities. There is also BLM dispersed camping land, this is land that allows wilderness camping with no amenities.
We did this trip over 8 days and it felt a bit squishy. I would recommend at least 10 days or more and stretch these days out!
If you plan to hike into Kannarraville Falls, you’ll need a permit ahead of time. I recommend purchasing this before your trip since they can sell out. You can purchase them here!
Bring lots of water! I had packed a couple jugs of water to bring with us, but I just love to overpack anyway! It gets really hot in southern Utah and having water accessible was great!
We brought hiking poles and used them for the Kannarraville Falls hike, I would highly recommend these, we used them for the hole hike!
Check the weather each day if you are planning to hike into any slot canyons. Even if there is a thunderstorm or rain event 50 km away, this can impact the water levels inside the slot canyons. Always be cautious when entering slot canyons!
Support local! I’m always an advocate for this! As a tour guide myself, I love to support the local economy and learn from the experts!
Have Fun! We recommend choosing activities that light you up and you’re passionate about! If you’re a hot springs person, look up the local hot springs in the area. If you love the water, there were several swimming holes that you can check out to cool you off! If you’re passionate about hiking, there are so many hiking opportunities in this area!
Special Thanks to Holly Burgess for sharing with us her suggestions and recommendations for this trip!