This is article is being written in a five part series about our trip to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. This article is Part Two in a five part series.
( Note: National Parks have strict guidelines for bringing dogs/pets to their parks. Always check their website and if you still have questions, give them a call before making the long journey. We did research before going. Pets are only allowed on the paved areas in the park. This means that you are Not allowed take your dog on almost all of the trails in the park. I’ve included a couple of official National Park links to help you plan for your specific trip. The links: Pets at Bryce Canyon National Park , Bryce Canyon Pets-Map) )
Although Bryce Canyon is considered one of the cooler temperature National Parks in Utah, it still gets quite warm. Having a dog overheat is a real danger. We did not want to take any chances and therefore planned this trip for the beginning of October. We decided to make this a week long vacation so that we could see more than one national park on our trip. We looked at the places we wanted to visit and then decided to make our base camp in Saint George, Utah.
Knowing that traveling in a car can sometimes be stressful on a dog, once we arrived in Saint George, we decided to give our dog at least one non-travel day before heading to any of our places of interest. In addition, we planned a non-travel day before heading back home. These non-travel days would also give us the opportunity to explore the many wonderful things that Saint George has to offer.
As you might notice our consistent theme of traveling with our dog is planning.
We chose to visit Bryce Canyon first on our trip since it had the longest travel distance of all the places that we wanted to visit. Carefully planning out our day trip to Bryce Canyon would help to ensure that we were not packing in too much for the day. We chose to “time map” out everything to allow us not to feel stressed, overwhelmed, and/or disappointed. We wanted to remember this day as an enjoyable one.
Here is what we planned. First, we chose the fastest route to Bryce Canyon. Google’s recommended fastest route that day kept us on the Interstate 15 for most of the journey. It showed that is was 142 miles from Saint George to Bryce Canyon National Park Visitor Center. Google also showed that it would take us just under 2.5 hours to arrive at the Bryce Canyon Visitor Center on that particular day. This would mean that we would be spending 5 hours in the car by making it a day trip. (Side note: There is a route that is shorter in miles, but it takes more time to get there. It goes through the mountains and has more curves. If your dog tends to get car sick with curly roads, it is better to take the faster more straightforward route that we took.)
Next, we looked at what we wanted to accomplish once we were there. Our goals included: 1. Walking the paved trail between Sunset and Sunrise point.; 2. Making sure to have our dog become a Bryce Canyon National Park B.A.R.K. Ranger.; and 3. Seeing any other viewpoints that we possibly could. Lastly, we set an end goal of being back in Saint George around 5:00 PM. This meant that if we left Saint George at 8:00 in the morning, we would arrive to Bryce Canyon by 10:30 AM. This would be fine since the fall time typically has lower attendance. We knew we would need to leave the park by 2:30 PM to allow ourselves the ability to hit our target goal of being back in Saint George by 5:00 PM. Since we were not expecting to see the entire park, and our dog was going with us, we knew that our plan gave us plenty of time to see what we wanted to see, and do what we wanted to do.
The drive up to Bryce Canyon was beautiful and relaxing. When we got to the Dixie National Forest sign past the town of Panguitch, there was a turnout with a parking lot. It was the perfect place to get out and stretch our legs. There was a public bathroom located down a short trail from the parking lot. The scenery was already beautiful, and we got our first glimpse of some hoodoos which Bryce Canyon is famous for. What we didn’t know was that we were a just stone’s throw from Red Canyon which is where the Bryce Canyon National Park’s website suggests you go if you want to walk with your dog on unpaved trails through hoodoos and other spectacular scenery. Here is a link for Red Canyon. Side note: We will definitely be going to Red Canyon on our next trip to this area. Fun side note: If you have ever been to Disneyland, and know of the ride Big Thunder Mountain, you can see where they got their inspiration from. Click on the highlighted link if you want to read more about it. (Don’t forget to read all of the articles in this series to help simplify your trip to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.)
