A Southwest road trip through Bluff, Kanab, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Arches took us through a landscape that seemed to reinvent itself with every stretch of road. In Bluff, southeastern Utah’s wide skies and sandstone cliffs set the pace, with a stop at a new favorite coffee shop, Cow Canyon Coffee.
Around Kanab, we explored the winding sandstone corridors of Buckskin Gulch, where towering walls narrowed the sky to a sliver. The Wave brought another kind of wonder: bands of red and gold curling across the rock like water caught in motion. At Bryce Canyon, tightly clustered hoodoos filled the amphitheater, their colors shifting with the light.
In Zion, we climbed from the Grotto along the West Rim Trail, tackling the 21 tight switchbacks of Walter’s Wiggles before reaching Scout Lookout. After all those turns, the view opened into a sweeping expanse of canyon walls and the valley far below. The Narrows offered an entirely different perspective, following the Virgin River between immense walls and looking up at the sky.
Arches brought graceful spans of red rock and open desert views. And after dark, there was still reason to keep looking up: a comet hanging above the desert beneath an extraordinarily dark, star-filled sky. Days spent tracing the curves of canyons and nights watching the heavens—this trip gave us plenty of reasons to linger.
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