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Spotted Dog Café

Don’t be put off by the white tablecloths and black-shirted waiters; snobbery is not on the menu at this upscale hiker’s fave. 435-772-3244; Flanigan’s Inn, 428 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale; mains $19-28; 5-10pm

SLEEP

Boulder Mountain Lodge

Watch the birds flit by at the wildlife sanctuary and stroll through the organic garden. Don’t forget to recycle – Boulder Mountain Lodge has a strong eco-aesthetic. 435-335-7460; www.boulder-utah.com; cnr Hwy 12 & Burr Trail Rd, Boulder; r $97-175;

Fruita Campground

June through August, the 71 first-come, first-served riverside sites fill up by noon. Drinking water, pit toilets available. 435-425-3791; www.nps.gov/care; Scenic Dr, Capitol Reef National Park; campsites $10;

Ruby’s Inn

Motel rooms, hotel suites, post office, grocery store, ATV rental and outfitter tours are just some of the facilities at Ruby’s. 435-834-5341; www.rubysinn.com; 1000 S Hwy 63, Bryce Canyon; r $81-145;

Sunflower Hill B&B

Kick back in an Adirondack chair amid the manicured gardens of two inviting buildings – an early-20th-century home and a 100-year-old farmhouse. 435-259-2974; www.sunflowerhill.com; 185 N 300 East, Moab; r incl breakfast $155-225

Zion Lodge

Despite a late-’90s American motel style, this park lodge is admirably green: 85% of its power comes from solar and wind, and lodge vehicles are all hybrids. 435-259-4295; 60 N 100 West; r $150-180

USEFUL WEBSITES

www.nps.gov

www.utah.com

LINK YOUR TRIP www.lonelyplanet.com/trip-planner

TRIP

32 Hiking the North Rim

34 Polygamy Country

36 Trail of the Ancients

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Return to beginning of chapter

Trail of the Ancients

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WHY GO Dusty and desolate, hot and hardscrabble: parts of southeastern Utah were so forbidding that they were the last to be mapped in the continental US. Yet it’s precisely this isolation that has preserved the rocky natural wonders and numerous Ancestral Puebloan ruins and petroglyph sites for us to ponder.

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TIME

3 days

DISTANCE

180 miles

BEST TIME TO GO

May – Jun & Sep

START

Monument Valley, AZ

END

Mexican Hat, UT

ALSO GOOD FOR

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Dramatic chocolate-red buttes and layered mesas grow smaller in your rear-view mirror as you head north from Monument Valley. Not to worry, there are plenty more sights – both ancient-man and nature made – on this route around Utah’s nearly uninhabited southeastern corner. Turn north up Hwy 261 and branch off to Goosenecks State Park Overlook to see how the San Juan River’s path carved tight turns through 1000ft of sediment, leaving gooseneck-shaped spits of land untouched.

Back on Hwy 261, get ready for a ride. You’ll ascend Moki Dugway, a roughly paved, hairpin-turn-filled road section that rises 1100ft in just 3 miles. Miners ‘dug out’ the extreme switchbacks in the 1950s to transport uranium ore. It’s far from wide by today’s standards: you can’t see what’s up around narrow corners, but you can see down the sheer dropoffs. Those afraid of heights (or in trailers over 24ftlong), steer clear.

From about AD 900 to 1300 Ancestral Puebloans (or Anasazi) inhabited this region; theories abound as to why they left (drought, deforestation?) but none have been proven. You’ll need one of the limited day-use permits to get your first glimpse of their inhabitation in the wild and twisty canyons of Grand Gulch Primitive Area. Call the Monticello Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office to reserve ahead and pick it up near the trailhead at Kane Gulch Ranger Station. Then you can scrabble 4 miles down Kane Gulch to a view of Junction Ruin cliff dwelling. Hundreds of sites have been identified in the backcountry.

You’ve reached your day’s destination when you get to Natural Bridges National Monument, a dark-stained, white-sandstone canyon with three stone bridges formed by under-flowing water. The oldest, the beautifully delicate Owachomo Bridge, spans 180ft but is only 9ft thick. All are visible from a 9-mile winding loop