Travel Tips Letter of the Month - Escape Campervans

Hello Rob and everyone,

We had promised Alfy that we would send along a few pictures of the van as well as some 'tips' about the rand Canyon/ Utah area for any of your future clients heading that way. Please see below:

Driving from Vegas to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon- pretty straight forward drive, can be busy around the Hoover Dam, and you will need to go through a security check - they wanted to see if we had anything in our roof top carrier.

Grand Canyon South Rim - you can choose to stock up with groceries in Williams if you like, however the grocery story near the Mather campground in the park itself has everything you could possibly need as well as a great selection of beer and wine.  Wood can be expensive wherever you go $4-5 dollar a bundle is typical, if you are able to bring some with you. Hiked the South Kabib trail - start early morning, gets hot anytime after noon.

Moab and area - the drive from the Grand Canyon to this area is roughly 4 hours, beautiful drive through Monument Valley and the towns of Bluff and Blanding are nice - the picture of the van below the Twin Rocks in the Bluff area - great lunches. 
Moab is outstanding, good grocery store for supplies, excellent Moab Microbrewery, nice scenery.  Moab is home to two of the National Parks in Utah - Arches and Canyonlands.
Arches has roughly 25-30 campsites which are reserved well in advance so unless you book something 6 months out you need to find other options.
Up highway 128 are at least 6 basic campgrounds and our favorite was Big Bend - great location right on the Colorado river and only a 10-15 minute drive into town.  Hikes at Arches can be crowded anytime after 11am - so start early.  We enjoyed Devils Garden, Delicate Arch.
Canyonlands was a daytrip for us, I have heard the camping is great, but due to its location you need to be out there looking for people leaving by 8am in morning to secure a site and that did not work into our timing at all.  Before leaving Moab gas up if heading west to the rest of the National Parks, as gas stations are more limited and get progressively more expensive until you hit St. George at the other end - we saw differences of over .30 cents a gallon in less than 50 miles of driving. Good shower facilities in Moab, the Visitor Centre has a list of 5-6 properties that allow outside people to shower - roughly $4-6 for each person.

Capitol Reef National Park - our favorite park, more for lack of crowds and great location.  Smaller campground with around 100 sites with all loops included - decent bathroom facilities, town of Torrey to the west is only place around for groceries and showers.  Minimal grocery selection but you can get by if needed to, little store near the campground is touristy but sells chips/salsa, small baked pies for 2, coffee, ice cream etc.  Need to be here by 10am if you don't have reservations.  Hikes - Grand Wash to Cassidy Arch was amazing, as is Cohab Canyon and the hike to Hickmans Bridge.

The drive from Capitol Reef to Bryce is stunning, but drivers should be forewarned that due to the altitude of Boulder Pass (9600 feet) there can be snow and icy driving conditions and it can be cold at night.
Just south of Boulder is an amazing treat restaurant called Hells Backbone Grill - put some money aside and treat yourself here - amazing stuff!  We stayed at a smaller campsite for the night called Calf Creek Falls which was excellent - about 14 sites - get there early again to secure a spot and the 6 mile return hike to the falls is perfect.  One other driving note - between Boulder and Calf Creek the road can get amazingly narrow with shear dropoffs on both sides of the paved road (number 12) especially between mile markers 75-80 - be forewarned, great views but if you don't like heights you are not going to enjoy this short segment of road. 
Supplies can be picked up in Escalante, but once again not much selection so plan accordingly.

Most places are pretty closed up in Utah on Sundays, so don't go expecting everything to be open on that day of the week.  Sidebar - you can't buy a beer in a restuarant by itself, but need to order food - yes old and backwards but this is utah, plan accordingly.

Bryce Canyon - the area just outside of the park gates we called Rubyland - as they own everything there and it is the ultimate
ticky-tacky tourist area - grocery store is basic at best, mostly processed can foods and only meats are generally pre frozen and
selection is minimal.  Grocery store in the park itself is lacking most of everything - if you can live off of hotdogs and canned goods you will do okay, but if you like to eat anything healthy you will need to search elsewhere.  Good shower facilites here however -cheap, lots of hot water and not busy.  Hike we loved was anywhere on the Rim trail and then we did the Fantasyland Trail - a good 8 miles round trip with over 2500 feet of elevation gain and loss.  Stayed in South Campground - once again need to be here by 10am at latest to get a site - in most circumstances we left our previous spot by 7-8am and drove to next park first thing to get a site then headed out to hike - worked really well everywhere!

Just west of Bryce is Red Canyon camping area - didn't stay here but would next time, location is great, campground looked perfect and without the crowds of Bryce.  Also west of here is a little town called Panguitch which we would highly recommend to stop into.  The main block of main street has some really funky stores - motels in the area are roughly 35-40 a night, so if looking to treat yourselves to a non-camping night (Bryce is about $16 a night) without breaking the budget this would be a great town to do that in, good shopping - cheap gas (about .30 cents cheaper a gallon) and some good little restaurants.

Zion National Park - as we were leaving this area there was some scheduled construction to take place on highway 9 east of the park which could mean delays of up to 3 hours we had heard, worth looking into.
Zion is beautiful and busy and we were there in May.  We arrived at the first campground by 9am and found a spot quite easily, but once again anytime after 11am and your chances are going to be minimal.  Good grocery store in town, only one spot to get wine at a small resort west of the Sol Foods store - not a great selection, this is one step away from wine purgatory.  The town of Springdale is quite nice, good selection of restaurants - loved the Spotted Dog and Oscars for lunch or breakfast is excellent.  Hikes - wanted to do Angels Landing but while we were there the winds we quite strong so avoided the last section, did the Pools, Watchmans (great surprise hike!).

All in all great trip, van ran very well and overall a great way to experience the national parks
on a decent budget - good luck to your company, we would recommend it highly to our friends or people we know looking for a more authentic experience.

Until next time.....

Chris Williams
Innkeeper
Mount Engadine Lodge
Canmore, AB
www.mountengadine.com