where to see the best fall leaves in Utah

Let’s talk about where to see the best fall leaves in Utah.

Because I have a little problem with fall foliage.

Like, I cannot get enough of it.

I get so overcome with the fact that the earth does this:

And that we get to experience it.

Can you even believe how lucky we are as human beings to watch the world renew over and over again? And that it is just so incredibly gorgeous?

So each year when Fall Break comes along I am dying to get to Utah in the midst of all that glory (and we have growing reasons to long to get up there with so many kids up there, and Lucy dying to see her siblings):

This year I think we hit the leaves pretty perfectly.

So I wanted to share here, in hopes that anyone in that area will still get to check out some of that beauty (we were hitting the tail end so get out there fast if you’re close!), and also so that I can remember where to go next year (I’ve tried to do the Alpine Loop three different years with no luck…too late, no car, grumpy family, blah blah blah, but this year we made it! And it lived up to the hype!)

Ok, so here we go:

Where to see the best fall leaves in Utah

These were our favorite spots:

Hope Campground

(This is at the end of Kyhv Peak Road up Provo Canyon.)

My sister Charity told me about this spot and man oh man did we ever hit the jackpot here!

Not only with the leaves, but with the company:

Lucy was in sheer heaven being surrounded by all those people she loves.

Abby and Max have kind of an inside family joke with this pose (since they got engaged), and we had to reenact it:

Ha! Love.

(Max and Dave weren’t able to make it and we missed them!)

Yes, as you can probably tell, we couldn’t get enough of that spot.

Guardsman Pass

This is where ALL the yellows are. And oh my word, they took our breath away.

I realized this trip that Grace just might be even more enthusiastic than I am about all this beauty.

So it was extra fun to be with that girl driving through all this.

(The other kids weren’t available this day…)

These two were not quite so exuberant, (they were a few levels below…which is still pretty enthusiastic I must say!)

They were sure great to put up with us:)

Silver Lake

We realized we were so close so we took the road up after Guardsman Pass just a little further to this gorgeous spot:

Alpine Loop

This is the road I’ve wanted to travel forever and we finally got to go (not without a wrong turn 45 minutes out of the way, not a high point of the day). But it was so worth it.

It might be a little nutty on a weekend when everyone and their dog is there to maneuver their way through those leaves on those tiny streets, it was even slow on a Thursday, but gave us time to take it all in.

We got to see our friends who hosted Elle on her “junior year summer internship” in London at the end of the Alpine loop.

Sure love them and SO grateful for the impact they had on Elle as well as on our whole family.

(Brian was one of the guys who started the Come Follow Me app we use for our scripture study each morning and we are SO grateful for that!)

Park City

I mean, Park City is just a pretty cool place. And my parents happen to live right outside of it.

Everything is gorgeous there right now I tell you.

I went on a little hike by myself:

Lucy played some gorgeous music with her Grammie with a view:

And we even caught Grandfather for a little bit to take in all that beauty with all our senses:

Neff’s Canyon

Lu and I took a little detour to take in this view of this gorgeous canyon:

(The same spot where we took our “In the Arena” picture for the podcast…fun to see it in it’s Fall glory.)

There we go, a little wrap up of GLORY in Utah right now!!

In other Utah news, Dave and I got to go on our own little hike:

We got to see a volleyball game:

Got an autographed team poster:

WooHoo!

Got to hang with Dave’s sister and her daughter:

As well as this other part of the cousin crew in Provo:

And we got to see my parents.

It was a good Fall break.