10 Days in Utah’s Mighty 5
Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, west to east, with only four hotel changes in ten days. The version we’d actually book.
Seven days works. Ten days is the trip.
You can do the Mighty 5 in a week, and plenty of people do. What you get is five entrance signs and a lot of driving.
Ten days buys you two things that change the trip: a genuine rest day in the middle, and enough margin that a closed road or an afternoon thunderstorm costs you a stop rather than a park.
It also means four hotel changes in ten nights — Springdale, Bryce, Torrey, then Moab for four. That’s less packing and unpacking than most people manage in a long weekend.
📍 The route
Las Vegas → Zion → Bryce Canyon → Capitol Reef → Arches → Canyonlands → Salt Lake City.
West to east, which matters more than it sounds. Zion is the busiest park and the only one with a permit lottery and a shuttle system, so you deal with the hardest logistics on day one while you’re fresh. By the time you reach Moab you’re just driving and hiking.
You fly into Las Vegas and home from Salt Lake City — you never double back. See the note below about what that costs.
Five things to sort out first
Angels Landing needs a permit. Seasonal and day-before lotteries, run through Recreation.gov. Everything else in this itinerary is walk-up.
Arches has no timed entry in 2026. NPS lifted it — but parking still fills and rangers can hold traffic at the gate, so early still matters. Full explanation here.
The Zion shuttle needs no reservation or ticket. It’s free with park admission. Here’s how it works.
Buy the $80 America the Beautiful pass. Individual entry across all five runs about $150. Non-US residents: the annual pass is $250, and a $100 per-person surcharge applies at Zion and Bryce but not at Capitol Reef, Arches or Canyonlands.
Price the rental car carefully. Picking up in Las Vegas and dropping it in Salt Lake City means a one-way drop fee, and it’s often a few hundred dollars. Flights booked into one city and home from another can cost more than a return, too. Worth pricing the alternative — driving back to Las Vegas adds about six hours from Moab but avoids both.
Ten nights, four hotels. Springdale, Bryce, Torrey, and then Moab for four straight nights covering two national parks.”
Las Vegas → Zion
Don’t plan a hike today. Flights run late, rental desks take longer than you think, and the drive is close to three hours.
Land at Las Vegas
Collect the rental car. Build in an hour more than you think you need — the rental centre is a shuttle ride from the terminal.
Stock up
Water, snacks and sunscreen are cheaper in Vegas than in Springdale. Buy for the whole first leg.
Drive to Springdale
Roughly 2.5 to 3 hours on I-15 and SR-9. The last stretch through Rockville is slow and worth it.
Check in
Unpack properly — you’re here two nights and won’t touch the car tomorrow.
Pa’rus Trail
Paved and level, running from the visitor center to Canyon Junction with the walls going gold. About 3.5 miles round trip if you walk the whole thing, or turn back whenever you like.
Dinner in Springdale, early night
Tomorrow starts before six.
Zion
Breakfast, then the town shuttle
Springdale’s shuttle runs to the pedestrian entrance. Walk across and pick up the Zion Canyon line — free with admission, no ticket or reservation.
Shuttle to The Grotto
Shuttles generally run every 5 to 10 minutes in season. Earlier is emptier.
Angels Landing — or Scout Lookout
With a permit: 5.4 miles round trip, 1,488 feet, roughly four hours. The chains section is the famous part and it’s genuinely exposed.
Without one: the same climb up the West Rim Trail to Scout Lookout, stopping where the chains begin. No permit needed, and it’s most of the view.
Back down, lunch
Eat in the canyon or ride back into Springdale — the shuttle makes either easy.
Shuttle to Temple of Sinawava
The last stop on the line, and the deepest point in the canyon you can reach without hiking.
Riverside Walk
Paved, flat, about 2.2 miles round trip. It ends exactly where the Narrows begin.
The Narrows — conditions permitting
Not guaranteed. Check flow rate, weather and flash flood potential before entering; NPS tells visitors to do exactly that, and the canyon closes when the Virgin River runs high. What to rent and when it’s open.
Back to Springdale
Dinner, and repack for the drive east.
A guided Narrows hike is the one tour we’d book in Zion. Outfitters supply drysuits, canyoneering boots and a walking stick, which is the difference between an hour in the water and a full day. Zion tours and outfitters.
Zion → Bryce Canyon
Canyon Overlook Trail
Short, and it sits east of the tunnel — on your way rather than a detour. One of the best views in Zion for the least effort. Parking is tiny, which is why you’re here at seven.
Drive to Bryce
Through the Zion–Mount Carmel tunnel and east. Roughly two hours.
Check in, lunch
Bryce sits at 8,000 feet and it’s noticeably cooler than Zion. Layers.
Sunset Point
Start above the amphitheater to see the scale before you drop into it.
Queen’s Garden to Navajo Loop
2.9 miles, 625 feet, 2–3 hours. The NPS’s own most-recommended hike here. Descend Queen’s Garden and climb out on Navajo — the reverse is punishing.
Rim Trail, Sunset to Sunrise Point
A flat paved mile with the amphitheater open beside you the whole way.
The amphitheater
Every viewpoint faces east, so evening light climbs back up the hoodoos rather than dropping into the canyon.
Look up
Bryce is a certified Dark Sky park and this is your one night here. Night sky programs run through the season.
A horseback ride into the amphitheater is the Bryce experience you can’t replicate on foot — the concession trails go places the hiking trails don’t. Bryce tours and rides.
Bryce → Capitol Reef
Sunrise Point
One of two mornings on this trip worth setting an alarm for. First light hits the hoodoos straight on. Arrive 20 minutes early.
Breakfast, check out
Fill the tank in Bryce Canyon City. Services thin out fast heading east.
Scenic Byway 12
Bryce through Grand Staircase-Escalante, over Boulder Mountain, down into Torrey. About three hours without stops — and you should stop. This is genuinely one of the best drives in the country.
Arrive Torrey, drop bags
Eleven miles from the Capitol Reef visitor center. There’s nothing inside the park — no lodge, no restaurant, no fuel.
Petroglyph panel
Fremont rock art on two wooden boardwalks off Highway 24. Wheelchair accessible, 5 to 30 minutes.
Fruita & the Gifford House
Pie and homemade ice cream in a 1908 farmhouse. Open March to late November, 9:00–4:30 — and the pies sell out, so this is not a late-afternoon stop.
The Scenic Drive
7.9 miles one way, paved. This is where the $20 fee is collected — the booth is here, not on Highway 24. How that works.
Sunset Point
0.8 miles round trip, nearly flat, and the best light in the park lands on the Waterpocket Fold from here.
Capitol Reef → Moab
Hickman Bridge
1.8 miles round trip, 400 feet, moderate. A natural bridge 133 feet across. The trailhead is on Highway 24 and there’s no water there — fill up before you leave Torrey.
Watch the numbers: NPS publishes Capitol Reef distances one way, so their table shows 0.9 miles. All ten trails with both figures.
Orchards, if they’re picking
Apricots late June to mid-July, peaches late July to early September, apples mid-August to mid-October. Fruit you eat in the orchard is free. How the self-pay works.
Drive to Moab
About 2.5 hours east on Highway 24 then I-70. Fuel in Torrey or Hanksville — there’s a long empty stretch.
Check into Moab
Four nights in this hotel. Unpack properly.
Don’t go to Arches
Resist it. Tomorrow is a dawn start and burning an afternoon in the heat costs you the better day.
Moab
Dinner on Main Street, buy water for tomorrow, set an alarm you won’t enjoy.
Arches
Arches is an 18-mile dead-end road with everything hanging off it. Which direction you drive it depends entirely on when you hike Delicate Arch — and that depends on the season.
This is a safety call, not a crowds one. NPS advises against strenuous activity between 10 AM and 5 PM in extreme heat, and rangers responded to roughly 23 heat-related rescues across these two parks in 2026.
Leave Moab
Drive straight past everything to Wolfe Ranch, twelve miles in. No water at this trailhead.
Delicate Arch
3 miles round trip, 538 feet, strenuous. Exposed slickrock, no shade, and a 200-yard ledge at the end. Be off the trail by 9 AM. Full trail guide.
Sand Dune Arch
A short walk between two fins and one of the only genuinely shaded spots in the park.
The Windows & Double Arch
Windows Loop about a mile, Double Arch about 0.6. Both almost entirely unshaded — if it’s already brutal, do Double Arch and skip the loop.
Balanced Rock & Park Avenue, from the car
Both have roadside viewpoints that give you most of what the trails do.
Leave the park
Back to Moab, out of the sun. This isn’t giving up — it’s how the day is designed.
The heat constraint lifts and light becomes the deciding factor. Delicate Arch faces west and glows in the last hour.
Park Avenue
About a mile one way through a canyon of vertical fins. Point-to-point, so it’s two miles unless you have two cars.
Balanced Rock, then the Windows & Double Arch
Three arches on one short loop, then the tallest arch in the park a few minutes away.
Devils Garden
Landscape Arch is 1.9 miles and easy. Everything past it changes character — Double O Arch is 4 miles with narrow ledges and real scrambling.
Lunch and a break
Back to Moab or eat in the park. You’ve got a second hike coming.
Back to Wolfe Ranch
About six miles back from Devils Garden.
Delicate Arch
Aim to be at the arch about an hour before sunset. Bring a headlamp — slickrock is hard to read in fading light and the ledge is not where you want to improvise. Expect forty or more people in the bowl.
Canyonlands — Island in the Sky
Canyonlands is three districts hours apart, and NPS says plainly that visiting more than one in a day isn’t practical. Island in the Sky is the one 40 minutes from Moab.
Leave Moab
32 miles and about 40 minutes to the visitor center, plus a few more to the trailhead. That timing covers the drive and getting a spot before the tripods do. Fill water in Moab — there’s none at any trailhead here.
Mesa Arch
0.6 miles round trip, 56 feet. Light bounces off the canyon wall below and lights the underside of the arch orange. The honest version: the front row is tripods, often three deep.
Grand View Point
1.8 miles round trip along the rim above Monument Basin. The best long view in the district.
Buck Canyon & Green River Overlooks
Buck Canyon is a two-minute paved walkway. Green River is the best river view here — and NPS names it among the best sunset spots, which matters later.
Upheaval Dome
0.6 miles to the first overlook. A crater geologists argued over for decades — collapsed salt dome, or meteorite impact.
Back to Moab
Heat break. Refill water. Eat something.
Dead Horse Point — optional
$20 per vehicle, a separate Utah state park, open 6 AM to 10 PM. About 30 minutes from Grand View Point on the way back. Green River Overlook is the free alternative if you’d rather not pay twice.
A scenic flight over Canyonlands. The three districts that feel hours apart on the ground resolve into one landscape from the air — and the Maze, which you’ll otherwise never see, is right there below you. Moab tours and flights.
Moab — Your Choice
After a week of dawn starts, this is the day the trip stops being a checklist. Pick one — don’t try to combine them.
Go back for whatever heat or crowds cut short. Devils Garden past Landscape Arch is the obvious target — Double O Arch is 4 miles round trip with real scrambling.
74 miles and about 90 minutes from Moab, each way. Banded red-and-white spires instead of arches, and a fraction of the people. Easier version: Cave Spring, Pothole Point and the overlooks. Hiking version: Chesler Park Viewpoint at 5.8 miles.
Half-day rafting on the Colorado leaving mid-morning, a guided 4×4 run on Hell’s Revenge, or a White Rim tour. The things you genuinely cannot do yourself in a rental car.
Slow breakfast, the Colorado River scenic drive on SR-128, Corona Arch if you want one more, and an actual evening in town.
Half-day rafting on the Colorado is the strongest single tour on this route — morning departure, and it’s the only way to see this canyon from water level. It also solves the midday heat problem entirely, because you’re wet. Rafting, 4×4 and scenic flights.
We’d genuinely encourage Option D for a lot of people. Ten straight days of hard hiking is how a holiday becomes an endurance event.
Moab → Salt Lake City
One last Moab morning
Or a slow breakfast. You’ve earned either.
Drive north
Roughly four hours to Salt Lake City on US-191 and I-70 to I-15.
Arrive SLC
Book near the airport if you’ve got an early flight. We’d leave this as a driving day rather than forcing another park onto the end of the trip.
Fly Home
That’s the trip. Five national parks, four hotels, and enough time in each that you experienced them rather than photographed the entrance sign and moved on.
Where You’re Sleeping
- Springdale — 2 nights. Walk or take the town shuttle into Zion. Worth the splurge on this trip. Our Zion lodging picks.
- Bryce Canyon — 1 night. Prioritise proximity: this is sunset, sleep, sunrise, leave. Bryce lodging.
- Torrey — 1 night. Eleven miles west of the Capitol Reef visitor center, and there’s nothing inside the park. Torrey lodging.
- Moab — 4 nights. One hotel, two national parks. This is what simplifies the second half of the trip. Moab lodging.
- Salt Lake City — 1 night. Airport hotel. Nothing more complicated than that.
What ten days doesn’t get you
The Maze. Canyonlands’ third district needs multiple days and serious 4WD, and it isn’t happening on a road trip.
Cathedral Valley. Capitol Reef’s backcountry loop needs high clearance and fords a river with no bridge. One night in Torrey doesn’t cover it.
Fiery Furnace. Permits book within seven days and need in-person pickup plus an orientation. Too much friction to build a road trip around.
Every trail. You’re picking one big hike per park, and that’s the right trade. Five parks in ten days means depth in a few places rather than everywhere.
Only have a week?
The seven-day version works, but you make real cuts — you’ll split Arches and Canyonlands across one day and lose the Moab flex day. If you can add a single vacation day, take the eight-day version instead.
Each park also has its own full guide: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and Arches & Canyonlands.