To my husband, an end of March / beginning of April spring break meant one thing… we could go skiing out west! To me, it meant we could go skiing out west AND add on something else. I really like to ski but 3 days is about my max. With a whole week of spring break, we had plenty of time to combine skiing with another location and activity.
Because it tends to be a little warmer in spring outside of its ski areas, we chose Utah as our destination. Aside from great skiing, Utah also offers some amazing national parks. Known as the Mighty 5, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands are some of the most stunning parks in the country… and they are all in one state!
We started off casting a wide net – could we possibly ski and see all 5 national parks in 10 days? After a lot of research the answer was yes, but probably not enjoyably. We briefly considered flying into Las Vegas, visiting all five national parks, skiing in Park City, and then flying out of Salt Lake City. But it was too much moving around and not enough time in each place to truly appreciate them.
So the more reasonable plan was to fly in and out of Salt Lake City, ski in Park City, head to Moab and visit Arches and Canyonlands. This gave us only two home bases but still a lot of interesting things to see and do.
This is what our final itinerary looked like:
Day 1 – Arrive in Salt Lake City and drive to Park City
Day 2 – Ski Park City
Day 3 – Ski Park City
Day 4 – Drive from Park City to Moab with a stop at Dead Horse Point State Park (this was a last minute change from our original plan of Goblin Valley State Park and Little Wild Horse Canyon, which we determined was too far off course)
Day 5 – Arches National Park
Day 6 – Canyonlands National Park and Hell’s Revenge Sunset Jeep Tour
Day 7 – Medieval Chamber Rappelling
Day 8 – Morning in Moab, drive back to Salt Lake City
Day 9 – Fly out of Salt Lake City
