I was headed to Nevada for a climbing trip near Las Vegas and decided to spend a couple days after for a quick round trip through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
Some people call it the Grand Canyon Loop, but I like to call it the NAU Loop (Nevada, Arizona, and Utah) I pronounce it as the "now loop" since you need to do it right now! It's that epic.
Want to see the route on a map?
The Main Stops:
- Red Rock, Nevada
Red Rock has a bunch of cool features for climbers, but also some hikes that you can do without worrying about getting lost.
- Grand Canyon
- Iconic and an epic view to see such a huge gap with flat land on both sides. They've also got a glass platform and a zip line now.
- Horseshoe Bend & Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona
- Horseshoe Bend is a great view for sunrise and a short walk from the parking lot. They are building a lookout platform right now.
- Antelope Canyon is a cool slot canyon to walk through but requires a guide and is a bit hard to get immersed in because you have to move along at the same pace as the rest of your tour group.
- Bryce Canyon
- Holy cow it looks like a maze of amazing rock pillars. It's definitely worth hiking through and the Navajo Loop is what I did.
- Zion National Park
- There is so much to see here but I only had enough time to do one hike and I chose to do Angel's Landing which was completely worth it. You get 3 different views on one trail!
- Valley of Fire
- Amazing views and really cool features with a lot of trails that you could easily spend a full day exploring
Things to Know:
Most of the National parks cost around $30 to enter per car, but if you get the Annual National Park Pass, you get access to all of the United States National Parks for $80! (It's worth it just for the NAU loop)
My Itinerary:
We started off a bit later that I was planning to on Day 1 and went to BabyStacks Cafe for pancakes and a Hawaiian style breakfast (really good!), then we started the drive to the Grand Canyon. We spent about an hour there walking alongside the rim and taking some photos next to the canyon edge. Then we hopped back in the car and drove to Page, Arizona a bit after sunset. Even though we missed the sunset and last remaining light, we still decided to walk down the trail to Horseshoe Bend for some night shots and I was able to snag this shot.
On Day 2 we woke up early to watch the sunrise at Horseshoe Bend and wow was it windy! The wind whipped around and caused the sand to sting our faces. After the sun rose and the crowds of tourists began arriving to Horseshoe Bend, we drove over to Ken's Tours for our scheduled tour of Lower Antelope Canyon. We started the tour and began walking through the famous slot canyon. When we ended though, we noticed that it had started snowing! It was around 10 AM and we drove to Bryce Canyon where it was snowing even harder! After waiting a little bit for a break in the snowfall, we walked around and started the Navajo loo. After a couple hours and a bit of walking around in Bryce Canyon National Park, we drove a bit more and stopped for the night nearby Zion National Park in preparation for Day 3.
The morning of Day 3 we woke up and began our hike up Angel's Landing in Zion National Park, It was a bit rough in places because of the recent snowfall, but it was well worth it for the impressive views. After completing that hike, we drove back down towards Las Vegas and stopped by the Valley of Fire around sunset before heading back to Vegas for our flight out that night.
Do I Recommend This Road Trip?
If you've only got a couple days, then of course! Pack as much in as you can! However, ideally you would spend a full week doing this road trip so you could relax a bit and explore more of each park. You can easily spend way more time in Bryce National Park, Zion National Park, and the Valley of Fire.
If you are even able to extend your trip by a couple more days, I would suggest increasing the loop to include Arches National Park, Moab, and the Bonneville Salt Flats.