Utah Camping in April

[jkoelker01]

Hello All -

My wife and I are going to Utah April 12th - 16th and are looking for any must sees. This is a short trip so we will be fitting only so much in it but I wanted to see if there were any must do's. We will be flying into Las Vegas on April 12th and will then drive to Zion National Park. We are staying at the Watchmen campground the nights of the 12th, 13th and 14th. During our stay our only for sure thing we are doing is the Angel's Landing hike. We probably won't do the narrows but aren't entirely opposed to it. What are some must see things in the park.

From there, on April 15th we intend on staying the night in Vegas at a hotel. We are not gamblers and have been to Vegas before so I'm not really into anything there. Our initial thought was from Zion we would head to Bryce but that is the wrong direction and am not sure if I want to backtrack that far back to Vegas that night. I looked at the map and see Valley of the Fire which looks cool. Does anyone think it is worth to stop there or would something else around Zion or on the way to Vegas be better. We have the whole day on the 15th. Our flight leaves out of Vegas the morning of the 16th.

Thanks for any and all suggestions. We are adventurous so open to anything.

 

[BaysideJim]

There is a park near vegas called red rocks... nice day trip. Doing the Hoover dam tour is also very interesting Both are about a 1/2 day trip at hoover dam do the long tour... you go all the way to the bottom and get to stand in the tunnel where harrison ford jumped of the dam in the movie fugitive Ive been to both and recommended them both highly

 

[kitphantom]

Angel's Landing is one of my husband's favorites, he hikes it on most visits. I've gone as far as Scout Landing, I don't like heights. There are several other hikes up and down the canyon, at shuttle stops. The Narrows is probably out for your time frame - too high and/or cold. DH did it once in May, but it was an unusually low snow pack year.
Bryce is great, but probably a big chunk of driving time for your length of visit. On one visit, with a fiend interested in animal rescue, we drove out to Kanab and took a tour of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Then we drove back to camp by the southern route (through Fredonia, etc.) and visited Pipe Spring NM.

 

[Micahb]

Check out Lake Mead outside of Henderson NV.

There's a place to rent boats if that's your thing or there's plenty of hiking and swimming.

Shouldn't be too hot that time of year either.

 

[romno]

I recommend Snow Canyon State Park outside of St. George. It's kind of a mini-Zion with added volcanic points of interest. A half day would work great here.

 

[jkoelker01]

Awesome, thanks everyone. Red Rocks and Snow Canyon both look pretty cool. I'll let the boss take a look at them and decide as well which route we should go. We are pretty excited. The first time we went out to Vegas we did that Hoover Dam tour, that was a site to see. Definitely a marvel in terms of the sheer size. It's amazing what the people were able to build without modern equipment.