Ever come across an incredible hotel that stops you mid-scroll and makes you think, Wow, wouldn’t it be something to stay there? We do, too—all the time. Welcome to Friday Fantasy, where we highlight amazing hotels, lodges, cabins, tents, campsites, and other places perched in perfect outdoor settings. Read on for the intel you need to book an upcoming adventure here. Or at least dream about it.

Ten feet overhead in a desert canyon in Utah, a jammed log spanned the gully, left by a recent flash flood. In the next passage in Harris Wash inĚýGrand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah, our group gazed up at a tangled brown stripe of debris from the same flood, adorning a green cottonwood tree like Spanish moss.

All our lives we marvel at nature’s power. Here we also appreciated the immovability of geology—rock walls—as our group of nine, all staying in the region atĚýthe complex, at first walked and then arduously wormed through a narrowing slot canyon. When the sides pinched down to only a foot wide, my friend DeMarco Williams, athletic and deep-chested, said from two feet ahead, “I don’t know if I can do this.” He was pinned.

Ofland Escalante, two miles from the town of Escalante, is situated amid the landscape of the national monument and between two national parks. (Video: Eric Vega)

I had it easier, being smaller. As a climber, I’ve been in squeeze chimneys before; they can be awful and claustrophobic, and you just want out, but have to make it happen.

DeMarco pressed on, and something gave, and he scraped through the constriction. I followed, ducking, and emerged into the light, where he waited smiling. At each obstacle, following canyoneering practices shown us by Rick Green, owner of the guiding outfit , one of us waited to help the next person.

This trip last August was to the treasure that is Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, where friends and I all stayed two nights at Ofland Escalante, an ideal, central base located within the national monument and two miles west of the pioneer town of the same name. (Harris Wash was some 25 miles from town, with much of the drive on a washboard road.)

Not everyone in our group loved our several-hour canyoneering experience. Some cried, and some half-laughed, half-cried. But no one will forget it.

Toward the end, having split into two groups (one with Amie Fortin of the same outfit), we all convened for lunch in a bowl among blunt buttresses that were once ancient sand dunes, the slickrock around us inscribed with fine criss-cross lines. Sage and grasses waved in the wind, with hardy piñon-juniper trees in clumps nearby. Paiute, Ute, and Navajo tribes once dwelled in this region. So did dinosaurs. We saw no one else all day.

As we all looped back out of the canyon, we scrambled a little, but much of the return was just a quiet, reverent walk through washes and passages. Tracing the undulating wind- and water-sculpted walls, I peered into natural niches like little altars, holding swirls of sediment.

The Lodge

Closed each winter but slated to reopen March 12, Ofland Escalante is located just off Highway 12. Opened in 2021 on the site of an old RV park and drive-in movie theater, the place was in recent years, per the website, a “luxury RV park” known as Yonder Escalante. In May 2023 the new owners added “deluxe” cabins, and last year renamed the place (“Ofland” is for “of the land”). Ofland has varying services and prices, and brings people together in communal spaces.Ěý

The place offers four types of accommodations. I bunked in a Deluxe Cabin, simple and boxy with floor-to-ceiling windows, able to sleep up to four people. Also available are vintage Airstreams, tiny cabins, and campsites.

The central common area draws visitors with a fire pit, picnic tables, complimentary hot drinks, and shelves of books, board games, and cards. Our crew brought over s’mores supplies from our rooms and gathered at the tables for spirited rounds of Uno.

On Ofland Escalante’s 22-acre grounds, you can still enjoy the vintage outdoor “drive-in” theater, where you watch from inside one of nine in-situ classic cars. Other property diversions include a hot tub and swimming pool.

But the big deal is the place’s location amid the wonders of the Utah desert. The nearby town of Escalante is on the northern border of the 1.87-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and just off the 123-mile-long U of scenic highway 12, which runs between Panguich, 67 miles west of the town, and Torrey, 65 miles north of it. Escalante sits between two national parks, about 50 miles east of Bryce Canyon and 67 southwest of Capitol Reef. Highway 12 links them all.

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Escalante (and Ofland Escalante) are in road-trip reach of five national parks, four state parks, another national monument, and the vast Dixie National Forest, all boasting a myriad of .

You’re also in the high-elevation desert here. The town of Escalante is set at 5,800 feet, and the surrounding area rises to about 8,600 feet, while reaches 9,000 feet. So ascend gradually and, while you are outside and exerting, pay attention to your water intake.

Escalante is famous for its slot canyons, and Excursions of Escalante can take you out, set up rappels, and use their guides’ situational experience to avoid dangerous floods. The outfitters gave us packs, helmets, and water bottles, but you should arrive wearing good trail shoes and clothes that take being abraded.

A little on-site commentary from a canyon in Harris Wash, the Utah desert (Video: Neil Tandy)

A Utah friend tells me that , a 6.7-mile out-and-back starting 19 miles northeast of Escalante, is her favorite hike ever. It has birdwatching—for hawks and ravens, and she once saw a condor—and “a little of everything” else, from steep sections to sandy patches and a 125-foot waterfall.

For me, a dark-horse favorite was also . We hiked the Rainbow section (and added a few other loops), where we saw petrified wood in scattered chunks, from wastebasket- to coffee-table size, with hues of sulphur yellow and iron red but also deep blues and violet. The starts on an uphill past a tram-size balanced rock overlooking Wide Hollow Reservoir, where you can camp, swim, or .

Please do not pocket any pieces of petrified wood. Things in the desert are supposed to stay there. Besides, I’ve , and taking one only brings you ill luck.

Choice Rooms

My Deluxe Cabin’s outside shower was heaven. The water was plenty hot, and I could gaze out at the sky and the surrounding scrub-covered dun bluffs.

The Deluxe Cabins (from $259 per night) are the most cushy places, the only ones with private bathrooms and their own driveways. Each has a kitchenette and Wi-Fi, a deck with picnic table, and a queen bed and pull-out sofa such that it can sleep up to four. From the cabins it’s a five-minute walk to the main lodge. ADA cabins are available as well, and the lodge has golf carts for transport around the property.

Other options include vintage Airstreams ($175 per night), which sleep up to three people, and tiny cabins ($169), located just paces from the common area. The cabins have front decks and the Airstreams step out to picnic tables and fire pits. Both use shared bathrooms with amenities and open-air showers.

Ofland also has five campsites (from $99, per night). Each comes with a picnic table, grill, fire pit, filtered-water hookup, power, and bathroom access.

Eat and Drink

Pop over to the on-site food truck, prepare your own meals in your kitchenette, or go out for dinner at in the delightfully small and funky town of Escalante. 4th West offers 30 types of beers; burgers, paninis, and nice spicy tacos; a pool table, where my friends played half the night; and a nice local vibe. The evening was cool, so we skipped the outdoor seating, but in warm temps it would be wonderful to enjoy the view from there over dinner.

, 14 miles east of town and located within the national monument, is a magical-looking complex overlooking the startlingly green forest lining the Escalante River. It offers vegetarian-friendly Southwest fare, indoor and outdoor seating, and lodging.

Thirteen miles farther north is in the town of Boulder. The place, which has a devoted following, features ethically sourced ingredients and its own organic garden. The owners practice Buddhist principles and are committed to social responsibility.

At the end of Highway 12, in the town of Torrey, is the family-owned Wild Rabbit Cafe, with an on-site coffee roaster, and vegan and vegetarian options.

When to Go

Ofland Escalante is open mid-March through October. Spring and fall will have you cozying up around the fire pits, and maybe hitting the hot tub. Summer is bound to put you in the swimming pool. All indoor accommodations have heat and A/C.

How to Get There

The small Bryce Canyon Airport is just four miles north of Bryce Canyon National Park, 48 miles from Escalante. Most visitors and rent a car for the amazing 294-mile drive south and back with its section on Highway 12.

Don’t Miss

Hike to the 100 Hands Pictograph Panel, actually site of three major rock-art panels, via a family-friendly 1.2-mile round-trip off Highway 12, starting from the Escalante River Trailhead 14 miles east of Escalante. Ancient petroglyphs—sheep, deer, a snake—are visible just five minutes along the trail. The trail contours up to an alcove where you see the 100 Hands (more like 160 Hands) panel, and beyond that is the Shaman and Hunter panel, with a bowhunting scene and collection of shaman figures wearing headpieces.

Forty miles beyond Escalante, stop and get out at the Homestead Overlook, at 9,600 feet elevation, to see the tableau of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Waterpocket Fold of Capitol Reef National Park, with their oceanic deposits and sedimentary layers, red and gold desert against the bumpy skyline of the Henry Mountains. Descending, you pass the Fishaven Reservoir and may see some sandhill cranes, before winding through the treed hamlet of Boulder, volcanic rocks and basalt scattered along the roadway.

Details

Price: From $99

Address: 2020 UT-12
Escalante, UT 84726

Alison Osius is a senior editor in travel at şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř magazine and şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online. She is a longtime climber and a former editor at Climbing and Rock and Ice magazines. She’s recently written about seeing the Utah desert from a lodge made of glass sky domes; hiking the memorial Storm King Trail, scene of one of our country’s greatest firefighting tragedies; and how to approach traveling to altitude (which starts with: paying attention). Oh, and if you were wondering, here are 8 simple rules for visiting your friends in mountain and waterfront towns.

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Utah is stacked when it comes to outdoor adventure. Not only does the state have some of the country’s most badass skiing and mountain biking, but it also boasts the nation’s third most national parks in any state, which include some of the world’s best hiking trails.

These protected meccas—Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion, known as the Mighty Five—capture unique and stunning landscapes that represent the desert at its absolute finest, from striking sandstone arches to isolated slot canyons to lush oases. And over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit all of Utah’s national parks. Some, during my explorations as a nascent single dude traveling in a diesel VW Jetta with pink bumpers looking for adventure (true story), and others later in life with my wife and kids in tow.

Do I have a favorite? Absolutely. Arches. Wait, Bryce. Definitely Bryce. Or, actually Zion. Okay… truth be told, I can’t pick one. They’re all breathtaking for different reasons, and for me, that’s an impossible task.

I did however pick my two favorite hikes in each park—one for beginners and one for the more adventurous—that you absolutely can’t miss when you go. Especially if you’re a first-timer to Utah’s national parks, consider these hiking trails the ultimate primer. And if you keep coming back as I do, maybe you’ll discover which park you like best. (Good luck with that.)

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Arches National Park

As the name suggests, Arches is loaded with more than 2,000 rainbow-like curved sandstone features within its borders—the highest concentration of such outcroppings in the United States. You’ll also find colorful cliffs, towering pinnacles, and balancing rocks that combine for a red rock landscape like no other.

Best Beginner Hike: Park Avenue

Yes, the national park is named Arches, but takes you through the center of towering cliffs and spires, so tall they’re reminiscent of New York City’s skyscrapers. It’s popular, and can get crowded, but it’s a must-do when you’re in Arches. The 2-mile out and back takes you through the middle of the park’s signature outcroppings, including Tower of Babel, a distinctive, freestanding fin that is part of the larger group of Courthouse Towers. (Some people shuttle themselves via two cars and make it a mile-long point to point.)

Best Advanced Hike: Primitive Loop Trail

The 7.9-mile , the park’s longest maintained trail, accesses a handful of distinctive sandstone features in the Devil’s Garden area and delivers the desert solitude you probably crave after navigating crowds at the park’s entrance. Its landscape-to-arches bang for buck, combined with the opportunity to ditch the masses, make this my favorite trail inside the park. Spur trails lead to Landscape Arch, which at 306-feet across, makes it the longest stone arch in North America. You’ll also be able to see Double O Arch, Private Arch, and the weird Dark Angel, a black sandstone spike emerging from the sand.

Pro Tip: Arches now requires to enter the park (get them up to three months in advance) between April 1 and October 31. But show up after 4 P.M. and you can enter the park without advanced notice. Just bring a headlamp in case your hike goes longer than expected.

Canyonlands National Park

At 337,598 acres, Canyonlands is the largest national park in Utah, with three distinct regions; the day-hike-friendly Needles, Island in the Sky (which covers a plateau between the Colorado and Green Rivers), and the super remote Maze. The Needles has the most developed trails for hikers, as well as some of the park’s signature canyons and spires.

Best Beginner Hike: Mesa Arch

This .5-mile in the easy-to-access Island in the Sky District, delivers hikers to a 27-foot arch that’s perched on the edge of a cliff more than 1,000 feet above Buck Canyon. Peer through the arch and you can see some of Canyonland’s signature features, including the massive monoliths of Washer Woman and Monster Tower, as well as the La Sal Mountains beyond the park.

Best Advanced Hike: Chesler Park Loop

Hike some of the best scenery in The Needles District on this that delivers the slot canyons and arches most hikers come to the area to see. The tread is slickrock and sandy washes as you combine four trails (Elephant Hill, Druid Arch, Joint Trail, and Chesler Park), which will have you squeezing through boulders and scrambling through stone notches. Chesler Park itself is a circular valley surrounded by towering sandstone spires.

Pro Tips: First, try to time your visit to Mesa Arch for sunrise, when the red rock cliffs framed by the structure are set aglow by the emerging daylight. Second, there are no reliable water sources on the Chesler Loop hike, so make sure you bring plenty for a full day in the desert.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Hoodoos are a trip. These tall, stone spires look like huge versions of the drip castles you made as a kid on the beach, and Bryce Canyon National Park is full of them, as well as deep canyons, surprisingly lush forests, and elevations that top out at 9,100 feet.

Best Beginner Hike: The Rim Trail

The traces the edge of Bryce Canyon for 5.5 miles, connecting two popular overlooks, Bryce Point and Fairyland Point. A run by the park service hits multiple overlooks and access points along the Rim Trail, making it easy to treat this as a point-to-point, and there are three overlooks and trailheads along the way, so you can tailor the distance to your own ability. Do the whole thing and you’ll only gain 200 feet of elevation, while the views into the canyon offer peeks of the park’s grandiose canyons and spires, including the appropriately-named Thor’s Hammer.

Best Advanced Hike: Under-the-Rim Trail

At 23 miles, you’ll need at least a couple of days to complete this point-to-point highlight reel of Bryce Canyon. But you’ll be glad you dedicated the extra time, as boasts serious backcountry goods, including views of towering orange cliffs, clusters of the park’s signature hoodoos, and even forests of ponderosa pines and aspens. It’s not an easy stroll as you’ll gain 5,500 feet along the way, but primitive backcountry campsites enable you to break it up into a multi-day effort.

Pro Tip: Bryce has a free park shuttle, but it doesn’t access Rainbow Point Trailhead, so you’ll need to hire a shuttle (, from $15 per person) or have two cars complete Under-the-Rim Trail, or if you’re planning to hike the entire Rim Trail.

Zion National Park

To say Zion protects a desert landscape would be too simple of a description. The 148,733-acre park actually encompasses an area where three distinct ecosystems, the Mojave Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and the Great Basin come together. The result is terrain that’s rich with canyons, lush river valleys, and soaring peaks. It’s also one of the most popular national parks in the entire country, with five million visitors last year.

Best Beginner Hike: Emerald Pools Trail

There are three Emerald Pools in Zion, each of which is an actual oasis in the middle of the desert, located on different tiers of a stream, tucked into the base of a massive, sandstone amphitheater. The Lower Emerald Pool, which is actually a couple of separate pools fed by a small waterfall that tumbles over an alcove, is wheelchair accessible via a 1.2-mile . The Middle and Upper Emerald Pools are a little tougher to reach; a 2.5-mile loop accesses all three, but Upper is worth the effort, as the pool sits at the base of a massive sandstone wall. Show up in spring and all of the pools could be fed by seasonal waterfalls.

Best Advanced Hike: Orderville Canyon

Yes, The Narrows is the park’s most lauded hike, but offers a similar experience over more technical terrain that keeps the masses away. The first few miles are easy going, but as you descend deeper into Orderville, the canyon narrows and becomes a tangle of boulders you have to climb and repel over, interspersed with springs and waterfalls. It’s a 12-mile point to point through a lush playground that should take a full day, and you will need technical skills and gear to tackle it safely. You’ll also need a ($10 per person). (If you’re not comfortable with canyoneering, hire a guide. Commercial guides can’t lead you through canyons inside the national park, but they can take you through similar canyons outside of the park’s boundaries.)

Pro Tip: Zion has a that begins at the Visitor Center and delivers you to popular trailheads, but you need to show up early to get a parking spot. During summer, the first shuttle leaves the Visitor Center at 6 A.M. Be on it.

Capitol Reef National Park

Natural arches and bridges, singular rock pillars, canyons… the 241,904-acre Capitol Reef is home to all of the highlights you’d expect from a national park in the desert of Utah. All of these features are a result of the Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long “wrinkle” in the earth’s crust made by an uplift of an underlying fault about 15 million years ago, which caused massive cliffs to rise and eventually erode into domes, towers, canyons, arches, and monoliths that are found throughout this park. Cool, right?

Best Beginner Hike: Grand Wash

gives you a taste of the narrow canyons that people go ape over, but via a flat hike that’s easy to follow and super family friendly. The entire hike is a 4.4-mile out and back, but if you start on the Highway 24 trailhead, you enter the canyon early, with 200-foot vertical rock walls on either side of you, and can turn back when you’ve seen enough. After hiking a half mile over sandy terrain, the canyon begins to shrink and soon you’ll hit the narrows, which has slot canyon vibes without getting so tight it causes claustrophobia (the walls are about 20-feet apart at their slimmest point). The tan, sandstone walls are pockmarked with holes and small caves, and even offer shade in the morning and late afternoon.

Best Advanced Hike: Sheets Gulch Slot Canyon

Capitol Reef has a bevy of canyons to explore, but might be the best non-technical option. There’s no official trail through the narrow gorge, which can be found 12.7 miles south of Highway 24 on the paved Notom-Bullfrog Road, but the occasional cairn and obvious route through narrow, sandstone walls make this journey relatively straightforward to navigate. (Bring a map, regardless.) While you won’t need ropes, you’ll need to muscle up and over several chockstones and wade through the occasional pool to keep moving forward, but that’s half the fun. It’s a 9-mile point to point, but most hikers turn around when the canyon begins to open back up, roughly 6.5 miles from the trailhead, making it a long, 13-mile all-day adventure.

Pro Tip: Bring a 4WD rig. The hikes I mention here are accessible via paved roads, but if you have a high clearance, 4WD vehicle, the entire backcountry of Capitol Reef becomes your oyster, and you’ll have options for free, primitive camping and an easier time getting into the remote Cathedral Valley—a backcountry district of the park where you can find a cluster of sandstone monoliths.

Graham Averill is şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř magazine’s national parks columnist. He’s fresh off of a trip to Utah, where he was able to hike portions of Capitol Reef National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. He also just survived Hurricane Helene at his home in Asheville, North Carolina and wrote about it, and ranked the best national parks in the nation for fall foliage.

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Ever come across an incredible hotel that stops you mid-scroll and makes you think, Wow, wouldn’t it be something to stay there? We do, too—all the time. Welcome to Friday Fantasy, where we highlight amazing hotels, lodges, cabins, tents, campsites, and other places perched in perfect outdoor settings. Read on for the intel you need to book an upcoming adventure here. Or at least dream about it.

Waking up in the middle of the night can be maddening. Unless you’re able to gaze directly up at the firmament.

The skies are the star attraction at Clear Sky Resorts Bryce Canyon, a new property set in a quiet gulch just 16 miles southeast of Bryce Canyon National Park. Far from light pollution and adjacent to this certified International Dark Sky Park, it offers superb stargazing by night and an otherworldly landscape by day.

Most nights, that is. I could consider it unfortunate that rain fell during my visit, but precipitation is good for the high desert. And while I lacked lucid starry skies, I enjoyed a daytime rainbow and an evening lightning show, both plenty compensatory. Upon waking at first light—usually discomfiting to this night owl—I watched raindrops run peaceful rivulets down the glass wall of my geodesic dome.

The resort is a collection of these futuristic structures, their surfaces half-glass and half-paneled. The window sides of each dome face up and also away from other units, though as darkness fell, I couldn’t help wondering (hey, a little) about anyone looking in. But all I had to do was close the lower tier of curtains, leaving the top ones open for viewing.

Hal Feinberg, resort founder and co-owner, said in the dining hall that evening that he came up with the sky-dome idea after seeing a teepee hotel in Livingston, Montana, that felt close to nature yet offered decks and nice indoor furniture.

In 2021, he opened Clear Sky Resorts Grand Canyon, 30 miles from the South Rim, with 45 sky domes that, like the ones in Utah, are connected by paths to shared activity spaces. With the Bryce iteration, Feinberg upgraded from using clear PVC canvas windows to ones made of glass. The result, he said, “is like going from a Chevy to a Corvette.”

Clear Sky Resorts Bryce Canyon opened August 9. It currently offers 25 domes, out of an intended final total of 62. Also underway is an employee-housing structure for up to 40 people.

This is luxury glamping with a jazzy, celestial theme. In the lobby, I passed a robot whose concierge duties include greeting guests by name and pulling up hiking maps. The nearby dining-hall dome, also known as the café, featured a gleaming central boomerang-shaped bar. That evening as friends and I stared out of the café’s 28-foot-tall window, the amber lights lining the surrounding gravel paths and access road glowed like airport jetways.

A singer-guitarist played during dinner, and afterward, between showers, we hung out around the decorative fire pit on the deck. Daytime, people lounged there at the outdoor tables, and a grandfather smiled as his two grandsons went at it with cornhole.

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You can sign up for stargazing tours and outdoor yoga, or walk a pleasant mile or two around the property on the gravel paths and roadway. A nearby option is to drive ten miles to the northernmost hike in the national park, the moderate (0.8 mile one-way, with just 150 feet of elevation gain). This waterfall hike, a rarity for the area, winds along the park boundary.

But most visitors are here to explore the heart of . Friends and I intended to hike with April LeFevre, a fourth-generation area resident who drove shuttle groups in Bryce for 18 years before opening her own outfit, . Rain, however, nixed the morning’s hike, and instead we motored along on the main park road, UT-63, which stretches 18 miles north to south. Before doubling back to finish at the famed Bryce Amphitheater overlook near the entrance, we marveled at seeing the arch at Natural Bridge, 12 miles in, and two miles later the Hunter spire at Agua Canyon, come in and out of the mist.

Along the way, LeFevre recounted many local tales, including that of LeRoy Parker, later known as the outlaw Butch Cassidy, who grew up 50 miles away in Circleville. His life changed when he was 13, LeFevre said, after he visited a mercantile to pick up a pair of overalls he’d had repaired, and, finding the place closed, slipped through a window to take them and a pie. He left a note regarding payment, but the owner pressed charges. Though acquitted, the youth henceforth resented authority. LeFevre also said that while Cassidy is thought to have died with his partner, the Sundance Kid, in Bolivia, an area rancher (now long gone) told her that Cassidy had returned to Circleville. The rancher claimed to have given the former robber a ride in his wagon. Some say Cassidy is buried in a secret location in Circleville.

Anyone visiting the park will want to see the spindly hoodoos, striated in red, gold, and white. Bryce Canyon has the greatest concentration of hoodoos in the world: 12 amphitheaters of them. According to an ancient Piaute , the hoodoos were once people who’d committed evil acts. A coyote spirit invited them all to a party, to trap them, and turned them to stone.

In geological terms, the hoodoos and holes in the walls are remnants from 50 million years ago when the area was a lake surrounded by rock walls. The spires formed from erosion, weather, and ice expansion during freeze-thaw cycles.

Later, when the clouds cleared, our crew hiked the , a 1.8-mile round-trip, to reach a formation that supposedly looks like Queen Victoria. I didn’t think too much of the resemblance, but marveled at the views of endless golden towers and labyrinths. This hike is commonly for a stellar three-miler. I’d have loved to do the 4.2-mile hike to see the top-heavy hoodoos of the .

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Bryce is known as an otherworldly place to see the sunrise (head to Sunrise Point) as it lights up the hoodoos. Rangers offer in the park as well, and doing that would be amazing.

The landscape is also a bird-watchers’ dream, drawing hawks, eagles, peregrine falcons, and swifts. I delighted in seeing both ponderosa pine, which smells of vanilla, and, at the highest point of the canyon, ancient twisted bristlecone pines. The mellow one-mile cuts through a forest, with side views of hoodoos. (This trail is considered largely wheelchair accessible, with assistance.)

Much of the hiking at Bryce begins at about 8,000 feet, and the Bristlecone Loop reaches 9,100 feet, so in coming from lower elevation, be prepared to deal with altitude. Always bring water and pay attention to intake.

Choice Rooms

The Standard Sky Domes sleep two. I stayed in a Deluxe, called Milky Way, with more controls for lights and temperature and vents than I possibly knew what to do with. The place had a patio (some have decks) and kitchenette, a king bed and two twin beds in a loft, and a rad shower with six adjustable side jets. The Milky Way ($730) was dubbed an XL in that it slept four, and I thought about how much fun (aside from the snoring) it would be to have my husband and two sons here.

The designs varied. One friend stayed in a two-occupant Deluxe called the Big Dipper ($630) with no loft but a cool swinging chair. Another was in Nova ($680), also double occupancy, that had, I kid you not, a dance floor, disco ball, and flashing lights. There’s a two-suite dome that sleeps eight ($1,125) if you want to go big.

Eat and Drink

The resort’s Sky Nova Café Bar and Grill, open to the public, affords wall-to-ceiling views of the canyon and sky and has a lot of fun themed touches, like little inverted domes within the water glasses and crazily multicolored silverware.

Entrées are generously sized and range from $20 and to $35, though the 20-ounce Atlas Ribeye is $49—and that thing is a brick. I ordered the heavenly pan-seared Titan’s Trout with lemon-dill sauce.

I didn’t know I liked barbecue that much until I had lunch at i.d.k. Barbecue, six miles from the resort in the town of Tropic. While I had the sweet chicken and baked beans, also on offer were pulled pork, beef brisket, slaw, potato salad, and cornbread.

Ebenezer’s Barn and Grill, 15 miles away in Bryce Canyon City, is a popular “gourmet cowboy” music hall, with a fixed-price meal served to hundreds in turn. The night we visited, Due West, a country band founded in Nashville, Tennessee, played original tunes.

When to Go

Clear Sky is open year-round, as is Bryce Canyon. Most visitors to the park come from June through September to take advantage of the warmer weather and clearest skies. The months of October through May are cooler but the upsides are fewer crowds, autumn foliage, and spring wildflowers. Some say the park is at its most beautiful with white snow atop the red rock.

How to Get There

The small Bryce Canyon Airport is just four miles north of the park. Most visitors fly into Salt Lake City and rent a car for the spectacular 294-mile drive south.

Don’t Miss

Stick your head into the lobby of the Bryce Canyon Lodge, built in 1924 in the Rustic style of national-park architecture and one of some half dozen lodges designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it meshes development, landscape architecture, and the environment. The lodge is located in the forest only 700 feet from the canyon rim, and a beautiful half-mile walk from Sunrise Point.

Details

Price: From $525
Address: 855 UT-12, Cannonville, UT 84718

888 704 4445

To Book

Alison Osius is a senior editor at şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř and part of the travel team. She lives in Western Colorado. Previously, she had only flown over Bryce Canyon, though in a small plane with a sunset view. This was a prized chance to explore the park from the ground.

Looking for more great travel intel?

For more by this author, see a personal tale of years of hiking the Storm King Memorial Trail, just off Interstate 70, in Western Colorado, site of a famous firefighting tragedy.

See also this tribute to the most beautiful mountain town in Colorado.

And a lifetime’s accumulated camping tips.

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