Day Trips from Bryce Canyon

Swap Bryce Canyon's spires for Zion's thousand-foot sandstone walls. After the scenic drive through the Zion-Mount Carmel tunnel you reach the Temple of Sinawava, where the Virgin River draws you to wade upstream between glowing pink cliffs. In late summer the water rarely tops your knees, and every bend drips hanging gardens onto your shoulders.

A 6-mile sandy track threads a sunset-colored canyon to a 126 ft waterfall that smashes into a jade pool. Cottonwood shade and the scent of wet sandstone keep the hike cool even in July. Petroglyphs on the north wall show bighorn sheep chipped 1,000 years ago.

Empty dirt roads snake between white sandstone monoliths that look like half-melted cathedrals. You'll splash through the Fremont River, usually hub-deep, and stand under the 400 ft Temple of the Sun with nothing but ravens overhead. The silence is so pure you can hear your pulse.

Nine miles west of Bryce Canyon, the same pink limestone becomes a single-track playground that whoops through ponderosa and manzanita. Sun-warmed pine sap rides the breeze as you drop 1,500 ft of flowy trail, finishing at a trailhead where ice-cold lemonade waits.

Picture Bryce Canyon lifted to 10,000 ft with half the people. A natural amphitheater of vermilion hoodoos sits cupped in alpine meadows that ignite with lupine and Indian paintbrush in July. The thin air tastes metallic. But the 360-degree view reaches 80 miles south to Navajo Mountain.

Sixty-seven stone spires, some ten stories tall, stand in a juniper-scented valley after rain. A short detour down a graded road brings you to Grosvenor Arch, a double span you can stroll beneath while swifts chirp from the cool shade.