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Reader Participation Day: California, or Utah, For A National Park Trek?

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Utah, or California, which state beckons you for a national park tour? Top photo of Arches National Park by Kurt Repanshek, bottom photo of Half Dome by QT Luong, www.terragalleria.com/parks, used with permission.

If you had the option of either traveling to Utah for a swing through its national parks, or to California to sample its national parks, which would you choose?

True, California has Yosemite and Sequoia and Lassen Volcanic and Redwood just to name four, and overall more national parks than Utah. But Utah has Arches and Canyonlands and Zion, wonders that frame a red-rock landscape like none other in the world.

To help you decide, here's a breakdown of the national parks (just parks, not seashores, monuments, preserves, etc.) in those states:

California

Yosemite National Park
Sequoia National Park
Kings Canyon National Park
Death Valley National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Channel Islands National Park
Joshua Tree National Park

Utah

Arches National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Capitol Reef National Park
Zion National Park

Comments

I've been to both on many occassions and I keep going back to Utah. The beauty is breath taking and don't forget about Grand Canyon North Rim, Natural Bridges, Zion, Bryce and my personal favorite is Arches which is right across the street from Canyonlands and then you have the salt flats. I have traveled the coast from Washington State to San Diego but that does not compare with the scenery while driving through out the State of Utah.


Why not both?
I'm now heading into week six of a twelve week trek to the Parks of Colorado, Utah, California and Nevada.
I've already spent a few days each at Rocky Mountain, Mesa Verde, Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Grand Canyon. Next, I'll be heading to Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Lassen Volcanic, Redwoods and Great Basin (there's a stop at the "Burning Man" Festival in there as well).
Camping sites have been available everywhere except Arches...but the BLM has nice "primitive" sites available a mile or two from the Park along the Colorado River. Also, note that Loop B at Bryce Canyon has no restroom facilities (under construction).
So far, one thing that I would note is that Capitol Reef is a very underrated Park...the famous "fold", lots of great canyon hiking...and...the Fruita Campground is one of the most pleasant in the whole Park system.


If forced to choose, I would go Utah. I could go to Utah's parks over and over again without ever being bored.


We have been to both CA and UT parks. It depends on the time of year. Traveling in the fall after the kids are back in school and college has started, I would choose CA. The crowds at Yosemite and other parks in California in the summer really detract from the experience. If you can travel in the fall or winter, there is nothing like Yosemite with little to no other visitors. We went into the park early one winter morning in February before anyone else had tracked over a new snowfall and not another person or vehicle in sight. That is easily one of the most moving experiences I've had. Seeing the ice break off the falls as the sun heated it and not hearing the sound of the ice until seconds later. It was so still and quiet - like the snow was a blanket of insulation from the rest of the world.


If you have a couple of weeks, visit both areas. We took a road trip in May from our home near Kansas City to the west coast. We stopped at parks in several states: Fossil Butte, Golden Spike, Great Basin, Pt. Reyes, Muir Woods, Golden Gate, San Francisco Maritime, Pinnacles, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Death Valley, Lake Mead, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef and Arches. This was our first visit to California and it was beautiful. We've visited the parks in Utah before and couldn't pass up the chance to stop again.
Southern Utah is a unique area and the drive from Zion to Bryce to Capitol Reef is truly breathtaking.


Uh - Redwood National Park. ;)

I haven't even been to all the national parks in California, although I've been looking for an excuse to make it to Redwood NP.

Seriously though - I'd say Utah. It would only be because I'm so familiar with California, and we're also talking the 3rd largest state in terms of area so the diversity between the coast, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevada, and the Mojave Desert.

The "National Park" units in Utah are generally known for their geology. I've been to four of the five, and the variety of impressive geological formations is astounding. Making it to Delicate Arch was still the highlight of a trip I made a few years back.

If there's one place I would rather go, it would be Yosemite. However - I would think going through Utah would make a better road trip. Just make sure the A/C is working if it's a summer road trip.


For a true road trip, Utah hands down. Sometimes it seems a chore getting around California. With Utah it's like you are driving through a continuous national park on the way to the National Parks. There's no down time! And you have a feeling that you are in a place that is truely unlike anywhere else on Earth.


I agree with Bob. California is it for the diversity. The Utah parks are spectacular, the sandstone formations of Arches are defying gravity like nothing else I've ever seen. The lush green Zion canyon in the desert and mountain surroundings is a miracle. Capitol Reef lets you see the stratification of the rocks that makes all the features of the Colorado Plateau possible. Walking among the hoodoos of Bryce and seeing the colors and how they change with the moving sun is breathtaking as is the sheer vastness of Canyonlands. But in the end it all is the Colorado Plateau, its sandstone and the desert climate.

In California you can have the desert in Yoshua Tree and Death Valley, with spectacular rock formations and even sand dunes. You have the most spectacular mountain landscape of the High Sierra in Yosemite and Kings Canyon. The Sequioas of the National Park with the same name in a gorgeous mountain landscape and the Coast Redwoods in Redwood National Park off the beaten paths. Lassen Volcanic is amazing, an active volcano in the southern Cascades raising over conifer forests with an amazing number of small lakes in between. Never been to the Islands of Channel Island NP, only to the Visitor Center in Ventura. But I would love to snorkeling or even diving and see the kelp forests and their inhabitant.

I've been to almost all of them, and if I had to choose there would be no doubt.


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