ALL ABOARD your RV as we depart Salt Lake City for this Five Parks of Utah adventure!  We’ll hit the road first thing in the morning, taking you right into the heart of Southern Utah.  You’ll have a few hours to get to know your new mates along the way to our first stop, the city of Moab.  If ever there was a place that was surrounded by 360° of rugged, beautiful, natural cliffs and landscapes, offering adventure opportunities everywhere you look, Moab is it.  We’ll park our RV and hop into the back of a monster 4-wheel drive, open-air Hummer and navagate along towering sandstone “fins” so high and narrow that you would think twice before you even considered walking on them — much less driving up them!
Our expert drivers take you deep into the mazes of  Devil’s Revenge in order to show you how the area got its name.  Make sure those seat belts are on tight!  A hearty dinner awaits us back in the RV along with a campfire to relax for the night.

It’s time to take advantage of what this amazing place has to offer, so after our guides hook up a tasty breakfast for the team, we head just down the road to one of the most spectacular collections of natural geological formations you will find in the world: Arches National Park!  Let us take you on miles of hiking trails, under dozens of giant natural rock bridges as well as the lesser-known slot canyons this ancient, carved landscape has to offer.  Our guides will assist you as we climb up and squeeze through the narrow crevasses that most people who visit the park never even hear about, much less see with their own eyes.

If we kept a steady pace throughout the day, we’ll top off the evening with a final hike to the most famous rock formation in all of Utah, the one on the state’s quarter and license plates: Delicate Arch!  A well-deserved, hot dinner back at the “home base” will get us ready for a good night’s sleep.

We hope you rested those tired muscles because this adventure is just getting started!  The good news is…you’ll have an opportunity to sit for much of the day.  The catch, however, is that you and your mates will be sitting in an inflatable raft, bouncing over roaring Class III-IV rapids as they hurtle you down the Colorado River!  We’ll take a short break halfway through the trip by stopping on a sandy shore, and as our river guides prepare lunch for the team, we’ll take a quick hike and explore some nearby secret caves and ancient, mysterious petroglyphs carved into the rocks hundreds of years ago by the Indians that once called this place home.  But don’t get too comfortable, because we still have a long way to go, so make sure that life jacket is fastened securely so we safely arrive at our extraction point downriver.  After getting soaked all day, it’s going to feel good to get back to the RV Park and sit around a fire, laugh and exchange “war stories” of our whitewater trip’s most harrowing moments, while your guides grill up some burgers and steaks to recharge your batteries!

Are you still with us?  We hope so!  We’re barely half-way through this trip, so let’s fuel up with a big breakfast.  You’ll need it as we head towards our next challenge!  Today, we tackle the longest hike of the tour; a ten-mile route that circumnavigates a crater so enormous that it can be seen from space!  No one knows for sure how it formed; was it a meteor?  A volcano?  A collapse?  Whatever it was, we are going to hike around and into it, descending thousands of vertical feet, while at one point scrambling through a boulder pile of giant rocks.  As we circle the crater from the outside, we will stare up at it’s enormous, sheer vertical walls as we travel through multiple biomes along the way.  But save some energy for the “escape;” the final vertical push back out of this spectacular hole in the ground on the final 2,000′ climb out.  You will have every right to brag about this one when you’re done.

OK, you’ve earned another day off your feet, but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to sit around today.  No, in fact, we’re going to grab our saddles and let our horses do the work for us!  You’ve seen quite a bit of desert scenery in the past few days, but where our steeds are taking us, high up atop Boulder Mountain, we’re going to get a refreshing change of scenery.  We’ll ride through fragrant pines and shimmering lakes to a perfect spot for our guides to make us lunch.  Breathe the clean, fresh air and take in the panoramic views from this gorgeous vista.  We get a little taste of how the pioneers made it across our country hundreds of years ago, on the backs of these beautiful animals.

Welcome to Bryce Canyon, the land of the hoodoos!  Yes, they sound almost too funny to say, but their unique beauty will take your breath away.  This is no ordinary place.  This natural amphitheater, located over 8,000′ above sea level, has eroded in such a way as to make us stare and wonder!  Huge vertical columns tower high overhead as we wind around, under and literally through them in places.  We’ll hit many of the classic formations on our carefully-planned, figure “8” trail, including the aptly-named “Thor’s Hammer,” a house-sized boulder defying gravity as it rests atop a skinny “neck” hundreds of feet above the ground, that we would swear should come crashing down any minute.  There may be more “Kodak Moments” at Bryce Canyon than any other park in Utah.

Rise & shine for your last full day on this hike-a-thon of an itinerary.  You know the saying “We saved the best for last,” right?  Well it couldn’t apply more than for right here & right now.  If there ever was one, single National Park experience that allows for more bragging rights for those who have conquered it than any other, it might just be Angels Landing in Zion. We first tackle the near-vertical switchbacks of Walter’s Wiggles in order to push our way to this vertigo-inducing pathway leading to the top of this infamous peak! Not for the faint of heart, as we hang onto chains while walking ledges along these sheer cliffs.  Get your cameras ready when you reach the summit.  But that’s not all, not by a long shot!  We also provide you with waterproof pants and shoes, allowing us to leave the comfort of the shore and hike for miles right in the river that carved out Zion’s famous “Narrows!”

This tremendous slot canyon, with 1,000 foot vertical walls on each side, can only be navigated by carefully probing with our 6′ walking sticks to make sure we don’t step into a deep hole in the river.  There is no other hike like this anywhere in our National Parks System, and closing out this adventure here will be the icing on the cake.

You made it! From craters to rapids, & horses to hoodoos, you’ve completed an intense week of non-stop adventure.  You’ve done more in seven days than some people do in their lifetimes.  So get ready to tell your friends at home about your trip-of-a-lifetime as we return you to Salt Lake City  You will be the envy of all that see your pictures and hear your stories.  Until next time…