Take a week to explore southwest and take an epic Colorado to Arizona road trip. Canyons, mountains, and ancient ruins highlight an adventure you’ll always remember.
This isn’t a circular trip, it has a start point and an end point that are hundreds of miles from each other. It’s up to you to get to the starting point. If you’re coming from the west, then by all means start at Toroweap Overlook and work your way west. The great thing about this trip is that it’s scalable, you can spend 1 night at all places, or you can mix up your stay length to suit your interests.
Starting Point: Durango Colorado
The start to this Colorado to Arizona Road trip begins in Durango, Colorado. Durango is the gateway to the San Juan National Forest. It’s also the gateway to days of adventure. Ziplines, river rafting, and hiking/biking trails are all within reach. If you want to slow it down a bit, there are museums, hot springs, fishing, and golfing.
Jump on board the 140-year-old Durango and Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad. Take in the views as you ride along rivers, into canyons, and over bridges. Cascade Canyon and the mining town of Silverton are popular day trips. Also offered are adventure packages that include ziplining on 56-1,400-foot ziplines, 27 different lines total. It’s the United States largest zipline course and the only way to get there is by rail. They also have rail-to-river raft tours, and rail-to-jeep tours. The train ride itself is pretty reasonable (starting at $98), but the Adventure Packages can get a bit pricey, $600 per person for the zipline, $227 for the raft, and $335 for the jeep package.
There are over 2,000 miles of hiking/biking trails around Durango, 300 miles are within 30 minutes of downtown. There is everything from a grueling 6 mile long, 2,000-foot elevation change trail, to a paved 7-mile trail that runs along the Animas River.
You could spend a week in Durango and not run out of things to do, but, once you do your next destination on this epic Colorado to Arizona road trip is waiting for you.
Mesa Verde National Park is the Second Stop on This Colorado to Arizona Road Trip
Mesa Verde is about 75 minutes west of Durango in southwestern Colorado. The park was established in 1906 and preserves more that 600 cliff dwellings that were built starting about 1,400 years ago. For 700 years the ancestral Pueblo people inhabited this area until cold and drought drove them to other places in New Mexico and Arizona.
The only places to stay in the park are the Far View Lodge and Morefield Campground. Both are closed during the winter months. Current operating dates are the third week of April to the third week of October. Rates are $135 per night for the lodge, and $38 for RV or tent camping. The city of Cortez is about a 15-minute drive from the park entrance and has lodging and restaurants.
The entrance to Mesa Verde is a thirty-minute scenic drive to the visitor center and cliff dwellings.
There are five guided tours of the cliff dwellings, pretty much the only way to make reservations is online at recreation.gov or calling 877-444-6777. Make sure that you reserve your spot before you get there otherwise you’ll risk being left stranded on the curb while the tour leaves.
Cliff Palace and Balcony House are near the visitor center, have multiple tours per day, and can both be done in one day. Square Tower House, Long House, and Step House are considered “backcountry” and are only toured once a day.
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Cliff Palace
The largest cliff dwelling in the United States. You’ll go up and down ladders and stone steps, total distance is about 1/4 mile. The tour takes about an hour.
Balcony House
If you don’t mind climbing ladders up to 32′ while on the side of a cliff, this one’s for you. Bonus, at the top you get to climb through a tunnel. This one is not for the faint of heart, but it’s definitely an hour that’s worth it.
Square Tower House
The tallest structure in the park is the Square Tower House, it features a roof, intact plaster and paint. The two-hour tour includes steep drop-offs, switchbacks, two ladders, and a narrow cliff ledge. All being done at 7,000 – 7,500 feet in altitude.
Long House
The trip to the Long House is over two miles and lasts about 90 minutes. When you get there you’ll find the second largest dwelling in the park with over 150 rooms.
Step House
No reservations are needed for the Step House. It has both pit houses (about 600 CE) and cliff dwellings (1200 CE) to cover the span of the Puebloan inhabitation. It’s self-guided but there are rangers that are there from time to time to answer questions.
There are several hiking trails in Mesa Verde National Park. All but one are considered strenuous and are at 7,000-foot elevation. The Petroglyph trail is a 2.5-mile trail with elevation changes and great views. It starts out at the Visitor Center and there really are petroglyphs along the way.
On your way to the next location, make sure to stop at Four Corners Monument. There you’ll be able to stand in four states at the same time and buy some souvenirs from Native Americans.
Page, Arizona/Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
About four hours west of Mesa Verde is Page Arizona, a small town on Lake Powell. One of the most popular things to do is to rent a houseboat and cruise around Lake Powell for awhile. While the lake is low compared to its historic levels, there are still a lot of canyons to explore.
Two other main attractions in the area are Horseshoe Bend, you’ll know it when you see the pic, and Antelope Canyon. Both are in the Glen Canyon National Recreation area and require an entry fee ($15-$30). Despite how remote it looks; Horseshoe Bend is right off the highway. Park in the parking lot which is owned by the City of Page, and they want their $10. After you pay, it’s just a short 1 1/2 mile hike up to the rim that overlooks the Colorado River. Make sure to bring your camera, because you’ll definitely want to post it to the gram.
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Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon, and you must have a tour guide to enter. There are multiple tour operators that’ll take you through the canyons, prices range from $65 – $100. Tours are about 1 1/2 hours long, but if you’re a photographer they have special tours that go to less crowded areas so you can get spectacular shots.
Before you leave town, sign up for a tour of the Glenn Canyon Dam.
The Grand Canyon North Rim
On your two-hour trip from Page to the North Rim, you’ll pass over Marble Canyon on the Navajo Bridge. You’ll want to take some time here, when the new bridge was built in 1993, they converted the old bridge to a pedestrian bridge. Now you’ve got great views, you can look for and photograph the California Condor who frequent the bridge, and you don’t have to worry about being hit by a car. There is also an interpretive center on the west side of the canyon.
Unfortunately for the remainder of 2025 the Grand Canyon North Rim is closed due to fires. Jacob Lake and Toroweap Overlook are still open.
There is one campground in the Grand Canyon on the North Rim, and one lodge in the park. If you make reservations early it’s usually easy enough to find accommodations. If you don’t have any luck with those, there’s a great campground about 15 minutes north of the park, Demotte campground in the Kaibab National Forest campsite rates are $38 a night. There is also the Kaibab Lodge, which offers small rooms for $142 per night. A little further away, about an hour and a half from the entrance is Jacob Lake. There you can hike, horseback ride, and camp at the Jacob Lake Campground.
The North Rim of the Grand Canyon offers views that are unmatched and fantastic hiking. For a relatively easy hike with wonderful views take the 1/2-mile Angel Point Trail to Angel Point. A little more strenuous hike is the 2.1-mile Uncle Jim Trail. Offering great views of the canyon but keep your eye out because this loop trail is used by mules also.
The North Kaibab Trail is the most popular trail on the North Rim. It stretches all the way down to the Colorado River in the bottom of the canyon. There are multiple popular turnaround spots for day hikers with up to 2,200′ of elevation change. Make no mistake, this is a strenuous hike so be prepared by taking plenty of water and fuel for your body. The North Kaibab Trail is also the starting point for the “rim-to-rim” challenge, if you’re into that sort of thing.
The Grand Canyon North Rim should be on everybody’s bucket list. It’s less crowded than the South Rim, and it’s also 1,000′ higher. It has wonderful views, and you can hike for days on a different trail each day.
Toroweap Overlook is The Last Stop on this Colorado to Arizona Road Trip
A three hour sometimes very rough drive from the Grand Canyon is the Tuweep area of Arizona. Named by the Native Americans who lived there, the Tuweep area is a high elevation plateau. High clearance vehicles are recommended for this trip due to the terrain you’ll be crossing. Getting there is half the fun, the other half is spent walking right up to the edge of a 3,000 foot drop off and exploring the cliffs around the overlook.
There is a remote campground with no facilities, but what it lacks in creature comforts it makes up for in nighttime views! No light pollution in this part of the country means that you can gaze up and see more stars than you ever have in your life. This is a great overnight trip from the Grand Canyon, or you can do it in a day. Just check the weather because the road does get impassable when it rains.
That’s the trip, now it’s time to turn back around and go home unfortunately. This is a great trip for a week, or even two weeks or however long that you want to get lost for. If you love it so much that you want to stay at the Grand Canyon indefinitely, you’re going to have to go to the South Rim, because the North Rim will close in the middle of October.
For more detailed information about Toroweap Overlook just click on over here.
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