The Ultimate National Park Loop

According the National Park Service, five of the top twenty National Parks are located within a day’s driving time of each other, and for those lucky enough to live in southern Arizona, a day’s drive of Tucson. These majestic natural wonders are the Grand Canyon and four of Utah’s five National Parks: Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, and Zion. By adding Capital Reef National Park in Utah and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, this loop could be considered the ultimate in National Park Trips. Each of these parks offers visitors its own unique history, geological treasures, archaeological deposits, natural beauty, and recreational activities.

If you were so inclined, you could see these parks in a very hurried one week, touch and go trek. To accomplish this you'd start by making a loop that begins at Mesa Verde and then heads up to Canyonlands and Arches, looping around to hit Capitol Reef, Bryce, and Zion, and then finally ending your trip at the awe inspiring north rim of the Grand Canyon. But if you did it this way, you could hardly say anything more than I’ve been to that park. Each national park requires at least a full day to see just its highlights, and in some you could spend weeks walking the trails and taking in the unique sights.

Mesa Verde National Park offers an unparalleled opportunity to look back in time. Here, you'll be able to see into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people. Communities flourished throughout the area from approximately A.D. 600 through A.D. 1300, eventually turning into elaborately built stone villages in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then, within one or two generations of building these palaces, the Ancestral Pueblo People abandoned the area. These archeological sites are some of the best preserved in the United States, and attract professionals and scientists from around the world. No less than twenty-four Native American tribes have an ancestral affiliation with the sites located at Mesa Verde. There are some superb photo opportunities here – as there are in most national parks. The unique, elaborate constructs of the Pueblo ancestors are always of interest to people, and pictures of them make great additions to your vacation slide show.

Canyonlands National Park is an exceptionally colorful landscape of sedimentary sandstone that has been eroded into canyons, mesas, and buttes by the awesome power of the unrelenting Colorado River and its tributaries. This park preserves one of the last, relatively undisturbed areas of the Colorado Plateau – a unique desert ecosystem. One of the most attractive features of this region is simply its vastness. There are places you can stand and look out into what appears to be never ending space. The sparse vegetation of this semi-arid region contributes to this noteworthy appearance.

The name of this national park sort of betrays its most prominent natural feature. Arches National Park has over two thousand natural sandstone arches within its boundaries. This is the greatest density of natural arches found anywhere in the world. Additionally, the park offers its visitors a broad variety of other unique geological formations. In some areas, ground faulting has exposed millions of years of geologic history – to any who can read the language. The extraordinary natural features of this park run the gamut. Here you'll find geological eye candy that includes balanced rocks, fins, and pinnacles. All of these features are wonderfully highlighted by a striking environment of starkly contrasting colors, unusual landforms, and accenting textures.

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....sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls: There are three classifications of rocks: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. The most widely known sedimentary rock is sandstone. Of the three types, sedimentary is the most easily eroded. Since sandstone is often colorful, and can relatively easily be worn away, large, older deposits of this rock can create some bold and stunning vistas.

....Colorado Plateau: An area of southwestern North America covering approximately 150,000 square miles in the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. The elevations in the Colorado Plateau range up to 13,000 feet above sea level, and are offset by some of the deepest canyons in North America - including Grand Canyon. Roughly one-third of this region is now reservations for native Americans.