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I'm having a tough time deciding how to best allocate a 6 day roadtrip from Vegas to Denver. The driving dates are: September 7-12 (Departing Denver Airport on the 13th). I'll be renting a car with 3 friends which will be their first time visiting the states. Previously i've visited Zion NP, Bryce Canyon, and Arches NP, so i'm leaning towards seeing new areas. The rest of the group is pretty easy going and letting me draw up a route and places to go, except one who wants to see Zion NP. I've drafted an overly ambitious route which I know is not realistic in any sense, but this where I need help in suggestions on what routes to take and where to spend more time. LINK to our roadtrip itenerary All the items are just things that caught my interest. I'm thinking staying in Boulder and exploring Rocky Mountain NP would be a must. Sand Dunes NP looks like another great park but i'm not sure if it's worth taking a huge detour to check it out. We would love to see the Coyotte Butte North (The Wave) but it looks almost impossible even with a walk-in permit. It looks like that also requires to apply the day before, which would mean driving to Zion the first day, and check it out, and then sleeping at Kanab to get up early for permit application. Overall, we're just looking for the most geographically diverse and scenic driving route to our destination (Denver) that would offer us the chance to visit some of those bucket list items. I'm guessing the sane thing to do is pick 2-3 significant points of interests where we sleep at a hotel, and do a quick stop with some of the other bucket items if that's doable. I think even this is stretching it, given the huge distance involved. I thought it would be more pratical to fly to Denver and just explore Colorado, but then we would miss out on the desert landscapes and the scenic roads in between Utah/Arizona/Colorado. The problem is i'm not sure if these other points of interests require an entire day or hiking to trailhead to appreciate the attractions. Oh, and how hard would it be to rely on finding and walking in a motel without reservations? We'd rather keep this trip flexible in case we want to stay longer in an area. However, we would only be looking for hotels after dark, which is possibly a problem in these remote areas. Bad idea? Our idea is just to see the beauty of America's landscapes and go for some hikes or fishing, and maybe rafting or other must-do activities. I'm open to all suggestions. Movendi fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 08:55
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 07:33 |
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I would suggest something like the following: 1.) Grand Canyon - North Rim. Very different from the south rim, a lot more greenery, different views. 2.) Drive across the Painted Desert to Southern CO. Mesa Verde and Black Canyon of the Gunnison are two interesting locations. Plus lots of state parks and towns. 3.) From there you make your way to Denver. Probably want to leave some time to check out the city so that's that. I would agree that Sand Dunes is too far out of the way and not worth the deviation given your tight schedule. You don't have a huge amount of time so I wouldn't try to pack in too much. The drive from Vegas to Denver will already give you a lot of different scenery no matter which route you take. As for motels, it helps to call ahead earlier in the day just to be sure. Generally though you shouldn't have a problem that time of year. You may be running into some colder weather at higher elevations at that time of year so be prepared for that. Roughly something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Las...2d39.737567!3e0 Mesa Verde might be a stretch. It takes a long time to actually drive into the park.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:09
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Sand Dunes is pretty cool to see if it's on the way, but probably not worth a big detour. If you go that way, there's also a civil war era frontier fort between there and Walsenburg. Since you're tight on time, I'd keep the Grand Junction detour, but then stay on I-70 to Denver. If you want to do a 14er, Bierstadt is the easiest to climb. That's around Georgetown. Mt. Elbert is cool, but Bierstadt is really just as good and a lot more convenient. If you're going through Monument Valley and the Colorado Nat'l Monument, Garden of the Gods isn't worth the trip. Plus Colorado Springs is kinda lame to visit. Local tip: if it's hot enough, when you're in GJ you should try to find the potholes. They're kinda hard to find (they have the tiniest sign), and it's a bit of a detour if you're doing the rim road drive along the Monument. It's pretty surreal to find a natural waterslide in the desert. posh spaz fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 10:59
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Thanks for the suggestions. Grand Canyon would be nice, but we're going to do a chopper ride there (although not in the north), it would be satisfying enough. Which makes us rethink if the desert part of the road trip is worth the drive if we're just only going to see a couple things. It's 8 hours to Durango, and most likely that's where the scenery begins. I talked with my friend and his willing to compromise skipping on Zion. But we're still tightly squeezed and can't add any more days as we've made the booking for Vegas and NYC. We're most likely going to leave from Vegas on Sunday 7th later in morning/afternoon because it's going to be a big weekend, and then we gotta be in Denver Airport to NYC by 8am. To put things in perspective, Aug 14-16 - Portland Aug 16-21 Fly to Glacier NP, Montana - hiking Aug 21-26 Fly to Grand Teton/Yellowstone and explore the parks and hike Aug 26 Fly to vegas, pickup RV and drive to Black Rock City (Burning Man) Aug 27-Sep 1 - Burning Man Sep 2 - Drive to Yosemite NP and rest for the day or 2 Sep 4 - Drive to Las Vegas by this night Sep 5 - Helicopter ride to Grand Canyon Sep 6 - Vegas Pool party Sep 7-12 Sunday - Road trip to Denver Sep 13 - Morning Flight to NYC Sep 14-21 - NYC As you can there's a LOT of flying/driving/hiking/partying. I'm thinking we might be trying to bite off more than we can chew. This roadtrip period is really our chance to relax, especially considering that a week in NYC is ahead of us. So i'm not sure how tiring this kind of roadtrip will be. It's hard to say whether we can keep up, we're in our late 20's so we probably could manage it, but it might be rough. It sounds like the Durango-Ouray /Million dollar hwy route is not to be missed. We did find a cheap flight direct flight to Grand Junction on Sunday 7 which would save us a lot of driving through the desert. But then we're above the million$ hwy and would most likely have to skip seeing anything below Grand Junction. I'd like to know if we would be missing out a lot by skipping Mesa Verde NP, Black Canyon and the million $ hwy and its surrounding attractions? Maybe we could drive from Ouray to Durango and loop back up another way with the time saved skipping the desert road trip? Or would there be equally, if not more amazing scenic drives and inspiring landscapes/parks from Grand Junction to Boulder? Such as going through Aspen, Vail etc? We could try find a flight to Durango although it will be 5 hours and $320 compared to Grand Junction 1hr $88. So if we did take a flight to Grand Junction we would save 2 days and start our trip there from Day 1. Or fork out extra to fly to Durango, 5 hour flight and do the drive to Ouray. Either way, flying would skip desert landscape but it seems like the first leg of the road trip would just be needlessly driving to Durango, and seeing Monument Valley and possibly antelope canyon if we have the strength. Movendi fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 01:25
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Ok, so you're doing a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon. While the Painted Desert is beautiful, as you said there's a lot of driving through that area and there's not a huge amount of stuff between the canyon and Cortez/Durango, at least on a route that would make sense for you. However, a route up through Utah and Grand Escalante could be cool and take you on some less crowded locations if you skip Bryce and Zion (which you already said you had decided on). Something like this for the first bit of the trip: Day 1(Sep 7): Vegas to Escalante, UT, taking Route 12. (~5 hrs driving). A great ride that will take you straight up a good chunk of the Grand Staircase. Some decent hiking, lodging, and food in Escalante as well. Day 2(Sep 8): Escalante to Cortez/Durango, southern route. (6-7 hrs driving). Longer day, but will take you through Capitol Reef, down through Northern Lake Powell, and near Natural Bridges. Day 3(Sep 9): From Durango, up the Million Dollar Highway, through Ouray. Or from Cortez, up 141/62. General destination is Montrose and Black Canyon of the Gunnison. This will put you within a day's drive of Denver. Day 2 could be broken up by taking the northern route to Moab, and then down towards Monticello and out to Cortez/Durango. Alternatively, for Day 3, you could spend a whole day in Cortez and check out Mesa Verde. You also have the option of stopping by Zion on Day 1 as well.
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Aug 1, 2014 01:52
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 07:33 |
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I live in the High Rockies (Breckenridge, CO). Hit me up if you want to say hello while you are in the neighborhood and we can talk about the internet.
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Aug 12, 2014 21:57
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