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Utah Motorcycle Trip

Ready for the journey of all journeys? The big one on your bucket list? This 7 day itinerary is the granddaddy of all itineraries and hits the Mighty 5 - every National Park in Utah - as well as the north rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, at least 3 National monuments, plus a couple of State Parks along the way! One day of this trip could set you up with enough adventure for a year. These 7 days will fill you with enough adventure for a lifetime.

This website provides an itinerary for a planned motorcycle trip to southern Utah and northern Arizona during September of 2017. The month of September was chosen to avoid the larger crowds and hotter weather in the area during the summer months. Hotel prices are still expensive near the Parks but they are a bit more reasonable during that time of the year. Popular Hotels and Resort can book up to a year in advance!

This trip will be a bit different from the other motorcycle trips in that it tends to be more focused on hiking, scenery, and unique photography opportunities instead of choosing the roads for their motorcycle technical attributes. However many of the roads will inspire more than a few grins and giggles with their curves and scenic beauty.

An attempt was made to include as many sites as possible but a person could easily spend a couple of days in each Park or Monument area hiking the many trail systems within their borders. An attempt to fit Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park into the same day proved to be a very rushed adventure so a whole day was reserved for each of them. Besides those two magnificent Parks we will also have a short drive through Capitol Reef National Park, an evening and morning at Bryce Canyon National Park, an evening and the most of the next day hiking at Zion National Park, plus a mid day visit to the north rim of the Grand Canyon National Park.

Other planned or potential excursions include a stop at Dead Horse State Park, Kodachrome State Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Lower Antelope Canyon, and Natural Bridges National Monument. If possible, an attempt was made to arrange visiting many of National Parks and Monuments during the early morning or late afternoon hours when the low rising or setting sun would best show off the Park's beautiful colored rocks. As a bonus, in some areas of the trip the trees may be changing color adding even more color to an already colorful trip.

Some of the days offer optional side trips or sites to see which may add some length and time to the days schedule. These include the La Sal Loop Road, the Potash Road, the Burr Trail, Horseshoe Bend, and the Moki Dugway.

Because it appears that Zion National Park is one of the most beautiful places to explore a "rest" day of riding on day 5 of the 7 day trip to explore more of this Park on its shuttle system and hiking many of the fine trails within the Park.

Moab, Utah was selected as the starting and ending point for this adventure because of its accessibility to the first two National Parks visits. Our spouses would also have an option of flying into Denver, Grand Junction, CO, or Moab, UT if their work schedule did not allow more than one week of vacation for this trip. This trip also puts us driving through Colorado at the peak color season, an added bonus to an already great trip.

The selection of routes gave more weight to those aspects most meaningful to motorcyclist such as:

• Fun road to ride
• Scenery
• Duration
• Distinctiveness
• Lodging availability
• Destinations in addition to the ride itself

When you read about each route I think you’ll agree that this trip offers a lot of great riding opportunities and great sites to see.

Day 1 (Sunday, Sept 17, 2017) 51 miles 1.5 hours saddle time Moab, UT (exploring Arches National Park)

Day 2 (Monday, Sept 18, 2017) 217 miles 4 hours saddle time Moab, UT to Caineville, UT (exploring the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National Park)

Day 3 (Tuesday, Sept 19, 2017) 209 miles 5.5 hours saddle time Caineville, UT to Bryce, UT (includes Capitol Reef National Park, Burr Trail, and Kodachrome State Park)

Day 4 (Wednesday, Sept 20, 2017) 171 miles 4 hours saddle time Bryce, UT to Springdale, UT (includes exploring Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks)

Day 5 (Thursday, Sept 21, 2017) 43 miles 1 hours saddle time Springdale, UT to Kanab, UT (after exploring Zion National Park)

Day 6 (Friday, Sept 22, 2017) 249 miles 6 hours saddle time Kanab, UT to Page, AZ (includes exploring the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park)

Day 7 (Saturday, Sept 23, 2017): 308 miles 5.5 hours saddle time Page, AZ to Moab, UT (267 miles and 4.5 hours of saddle time if we skip Natural Bridges Monument and the Moki Dugway)

Approximately 1250 miles total

.gpx files (for newer Garmin GPS units) of the daily routes are available for download at the bottom of the Trip Links page.

I ask everyone who is interested on going on this motorcycle trip to read about each day itinerary. It is important that everyone who is considering this trip become familiar with all of the planned routes and activities slated for each day so you have a better understanding of potential time restraints we may encounter. There has been an attempt to try to plan each day to have adequate time to see the sites, take some hikes, and ride to our destinations. However, spending more time than allotted for some activities will throw the schedule off which may result in eliminating some planned stops or routes. I would rather stop more often for a shorter period of time, than to stop only a few times during the day to do only a few activities.

Additional optional rides for Days 1 or 2 are detailed on the Day 2 page

Options for Day 7 have been added for your consideration.