SOUTHERN UTAH IS FILLED WITH STUNNING RED ROCK CANYONS, ARCHES AND HOO-DOOS—BUT IT ALSO HAS A DECADENT SIDE.
Under Canvas Bryce Canyon. PHOTO BY BAILEY MADE
THE CRUX IS A RITE OF PASSAGE CARVED IN STONE. After six miles of walking through narrow passageways of red rock walls, scrambling down 12-foot ledges and wading through waist-high water, I face the hike’s most dramatic moment: an 8-foot waterfall cascading into a deep pool. The most viable option is to gingerly lower myself into the rushing water and take the plunge, my phone and extra layers tucked in a waterproof bag. “We’re walking through the oldest exposed rock in the park,” says Mason McCord, our guide from Sleeping Rainbow Adventures (sradventures.com), pointing out “tafoni” rock formations—eroded cavities in the rock that look like giant honeycombs. “This was the west coast of Pangea about 250 million years ago.” The waterfall is an exhilarating finish to a slot canyon adventure through Sulphur Creek in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park (nps.gov/care).
The hike is just one highlight of a June trip to Utah’s Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon national parks. Along the way, we discover culinary genius and decadent spa treatments in rural outposts. The big a-ha moment for me is a meteorological myth buster: While temps in Arches National Park outside Moab, Utah, can be scorchingly hot in summer, Capitol Reef is higher in elevation (5,500 feet), so temps are more reasonable. The average August temp at Bryce Canyon (8,000 feet) is 76 degrees—18 degrees cooler than Arches. You can, in fact, comfortably visit these two of Utah’s “Mighty Five” national parks in summer.
Sulphur Creek in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park. PHOTO BY KELLY VANDELLEN/ISTOCK
We cap the day with a tasting at Etta Place Cider (ettaplacecider.com). Owners Ann Torrence and her husband, Robert Marc, regale us with tales of Butch Cassidy, who used southern Utah’s mazelike canyons as a hideout, and Etta Place, a companion of the Wild Bunch who is said to have married the Sundance Kid around 1900.
This being Utah, the land of weird liquor laws, the handcrafted hard cider tasting takes place in a back room hidden behind an eight-foot-high “Zion Wall.” Torrence meters out precise one-ounce pours of the award-winning cider. (The total tasting can be no more than five ounces.) A decade ago, the couple planted 500 cider heritage apple trees on six acres, with varieties that date back to the 1800s. “Who knew what would grow at 7,000 feet?” she says. Apple varieties that thrived include Kingston Black, Wickson Crab and Cox’s Orange Pippin. After the harvest, apples ferment in giant tanks in a back room, filling the air with the sweet scent of apples.
Capitol Dome is an iconic view in Capitol Reef National Park. PHOTO BY BY FRANK JENSEN/VISIT UTAH
We stay at Skyview Hotel (skyviewtorrey.com), in Torrey, Utah, gateway to Capitol Reef. The 14-room boutique hotel is the brainchild of Joshua Rowley and Nicholas Derrick. The hotel’s facade is defined by a curtain of rose-colored ropes undulating in the breeze, at once creating a shady walkway and an art installation. Each room has a private deck and hot tub, with views of red rock cliffs and cowfields. “Torrey is a small town but has everything you need,” Rowley says. There’s Hunt + Gather for locally inspired slow-cooked dishes, Wild Rabbit for breakfast burritos and Shooke Coffee Roasters for your caffeine fix.
Both Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon are International Dark Sky Parks, and in 2018, Torrey was designated as the first International Dark Sky community in Utah. On clear, moonless nights, the sky turns into a star-studded canvas. Skyview’s cozy rooftop terrace is the perfect venue for astrogazing. Better yet, bunk down in one of Skyview’s geodesic glamping domes with clear ceilings to watch the stars sparkle.
Hell’s Backbone Grill is an epicurean oasis within Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument. PHOTOS COURTESY OF HELL’S BACKBONE GRILL
After the high-octane adventure of the day, a visit to Torrey’s Red Sands Hotel & Spa (redsandshotel.com) is a welcome pause. The spa offers a menu of treatments as well as three ways to soak: a private hot tub with mountain views, a bath in a copper tub with essential oils or a salt float. I choose the float tank filled with warm water and 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt. I pop in earplugs and cover the cuts on my hands with cream. (Salt in the wounds is a legit concern here.) It takes me a while to relax, but when I do, it’s the most extraordinary feeling of weightlessness combined with silence. Every muscle relaxes. Floating blissfully, I fall fast asleep.
I fell in love with Utah’s rugged desert geology during a ski-bumming season at Alta. I went on this trip for the stunning rocks—I wasn’t prepared to discover incredible cuisine. Bryce Canyon National Park is our next destination, two hours south of Torrey. We take the scenic route on a road ominously named Hell’s Backbone. In the early 1930s, the Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) built the road atop a jagged spine of rock. Along the way, we stop for lunch at Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm (hellsbackbonegrill.com).
A soak with a view at Red Sands Hotel & Spa in Torrey, Utah. RED SANDS HOTEL
When President Clinton declared Grand Staircase-Escalante a national monument in 1996, chef-owners Jen Castle and Blake Spalding moved to Boulder, Utah, opening Hell’s Backbone Grill in 2000. They planted a garden straight away. “I was sort of an acolyte of Alice Waters and Odessa Piper. We wanted to grow our own food and offer a place-based and seasonal menu at a time when that was not at all popular,” Spalding says. “Back then, if you were eating fancy, the food was from far away. Maine lobster in LA. Chilean sea bass in Maine. We set out to change the dialogue.”
Their six-acre organic farm officially opened in 2006, and much of what we find on the menu was harvested from the fields and orchards. There are apricot, cherry, peach and apple trees; fields of strawberries, cucumbers and rhubarb; and gardens with fresh herbs and edible flowers. They have a flock of 100 chickens, and the menu’s beef comes from local ranchers. Spalding shows us the asparagus spears growing in the garden; later, we have the most delightful asparagus soup in mismatched teacups, garnished with a freshly picked honey locust blossom. Our lunch menu also features a goat cheese fondue with chevre from nearby Mesa Farms and plated with strawberries picked from the garden hours before. “We were doing ‘farm to table’ well before anyone had coined the phrase,” Spalding says. The restaurant recently brought on executive chef Tamara Stanger, who’s been tapping Indigenous farms for ingredients like the 800-year-old Fremont beans in our charro.
The glamping domes at Skyview Hotel in Torrey, Utah, are perfect for stargazing. PHOTO COURTESY OF SKYVIEW HOTEL
Though the restaurant is blissfully in the boondocks (Boulderfs population: 252), foodies have been making pilgrimages here for 24 years. The James Beard Foundation has recognized the restaurant and chefs on six separate occasions. In 2020, Spalding and Castle won the James Beard award for best chefs in the mountain region, but the awards were canceled just 10 days before the announcement (due to concerns about a lack of diversity and allegations of unethical behavior among the winning chefs). At the foundation's request, the duo had already recorded a video of their acceptance speech. “It was gut-wrenching to have it taken away like that,” Spalding says. James Beard award or no, the cuisine is worth the trip.
Next, we head for Under Canvas Bryce Canyon (undercanvas.com), a glamping outpost that opened in 2022. Its safari-style canvas tents erected over wooden platforms are spread across 750 acres of secluded high mountain plains and juniper forest. When I zip open the tent flap, I am delighted to find a king-size bed stacked with fluffy pillows, cowhide rugs, a private shower, en suite bathroom and a wood-fired stove. Roughing it means getting out of bed at midnight to stoke the fire. After dinner at the Under Canvas restaurant, we gather around the fire pit for s'mores and red wine.
Bryce Canyon National Park is a 15-minute drive from Under Canvas. At 35,835 acres, the park is small compared with other national parks. Yellowstone, for one, spans 2.2 million acres. But Bryce packs in incredible views, including the largest concentration of hoodoos on earth in Bryce Amphitheater. In 1923, President Warren G. Harding established Bryce as a national monument, meaning our trip coincides with the park's centennial. After a day of e-biking along the park's rim trail, we return in the evening to watch a concert staged on the lip of the canyon. Cello music fills the air, but the setting, in hues of pink and purple over the red rocks, is the real showstopper.
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