BY DENNIS DOHERTY

Backpackers claim they have the true picture of our national parks and pity the vacationers who drive from paved overlook to paved overlook, searching for Kodak directions to beauty.

For years, my wife, Jan, and I visited the parks via pullovers because I foreswore backpacking when I left Vietnam. But last month we discovered a middle, albeit rocky, road that gave us the isolation and serenity reserved for backpackers, but with nothing heavier to carry than camera gear and lunch. We learned the easy way that the backpackers are right -- the best pictures of our national parks are in the backcountry.

Our friends, Ann and John Schmidt of Pleasant Run, have made three trips to southeast Utah's canyon country and they challenged us to try a new way of visiting national parks. We flew to Salt Lake City, rented a high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle for 10 days and headed for Canyonlands, Arches and Capitol Reef National Parks and for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Each day we were able to explore the washes, cattle trails, creek beds and canyon rims of this magnificently gouged and painted landscape. Some of the best hiking trails in the parks are accessible only from remote areas so we would park the Blazer, drape ourselves with canteens and camera straps and begin our day hikes with fresh legs. We usually hit our first pothole about 7:15 a.m. and we shook the dust from our lenses about 4:30 each afternoon, ready for a cool shower in our air-conditioned accommodations before a nice dinner in town.

We skipped purifying water, building a fire, digging a latrine and hanging our food in a tree. And we bragged over dessert about how our photos would be so much better than those made by vacationers in the family sedan.

Three parks in one

Each of the parks we visited was distinctive, and one, Canyonlands, is the equivalent of three parks. A traveler can drive from the easternmost spot in Arches to the western fringe of Capitol Reef in four hours. Canyonlands is in the middle.

The most visited of Canyonlands three parts is Island in the Sky, a dominating mesa that separates the Colorado and Green rivers as they rush to confluence and, eventually, the Grand Canyon. Everyone who visits Island in the Sky has access to one of the most spectacular vistas we have seen in any of the 40 national parks we have visited. Sunrise at Mesa Arch turns rich, red Entrada sandstone into a shimmering bow of molten lava. But the back road to Island in the Sky is an equally breathtaking experience.

Only sport utility vehicles can traverse the White Rim Jeep Trail. Here you can dangle your legs off the edge of the cliffs that wring the Goosenecks of the Colorado River far below, as you eat fruit and cereal bars for breakfast. And the tortured, climbing switchbacks of the Shafer Trail, barely fit for the cattle who used it, brings awe and apprehensive silence. Use the best driver here. If heights bother you, let someone else take your photos.

The Needles district in southeast Canyonlands is dominated by rock spires, intimidating, gray slick-rock trails of Navajo sandstone and Horse Canyon. You can hike the floor of Horse Canyon, keeping sharp lookout for quicksand and the slippery stones hidden in Salt Creek. Or you can four-wheel it to the end and spend hours climbing, meditating, snoozing and loading roll after roll of film. In 10 days we exposed 29 rolls of prints and 16 rolls of slides. The Schmidts kept their tally secret because it was their fourth trip and the numbers would horrify even Jan and me.

The Mae, Canyonlands third and western district, is so remote and rugged that only experienced backcountry travelers should attempt it after checking in with the park rangers. We ran out of time and did not visit the area.

Symbol for Utah

Photos by Jan Doherty

Moab was our hub for the first seven days. We found adequate accommodations at an apartment complex converted to weekend or weekly rentals. Three furnished rooms, including equipped kitchen, and a refrigerator filled with milk, juice, pancake mix, butter, jelly, bagels, plus coffee, tea and condiments, cost $64 per couple per night. Every three days the fridge was restocked.

Canyonlands is 40 minutes southwest of Moab by paved highway, and Arches National Park is just 10 minutes north of Moab. Arches is a garden of elegant rock loops, soaring, slouching, crumbling and changing shades from burnt orange to red as the sun circumscribes the park.

Delicate Arch is the main attraction. It is the symbol for Utah and the hike to it is moderate -- uphill all the way and over slick rock, the smooth sandstone that lives up to its name when it is wet. The trail head is accessible to all vehicles, but leave plenty of time to climb if you are not in good hiking shape, and take water. The parks recommend each hiker drink a gallon of water a day.

Sunset in Arches transforms a tangle of dusty, red rock fins into fiery tongues licking at the white peaks of the LaSal Mountains in the distance. Hence, Fiery Furnace is a mandatory visit for travelers to Arches and one of the best sunset opportunities for photographers.

The Park Avenue Trail, also in Arches, may be the most popular trail in the park because it is powerfully beautiful and easy to walk. The fins and canyon walls swallow the hiker on this relatively flat trek, and Jan, a horticulturist, took as many photos of the valiant purple, white and yellow plants eking life out of rock as she did of the towering cliffs.

Some of the finest hiking country is outside the national parks on land administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The Onion Creek Jeep Trail and the trail to Fisher Towers are two of the best hikes in Utah and are reached from the Colorado River Scenic Byway (Utah 128), which stretches northeast from Moab along the river.

Only a four-wheel-drive vehicle can get you back into Onion Creek territory. The family car can make it to the trail head to Fisher (an instituted corruption of the original Fissure) Towers, Gothic spires of maroon sandstone which shoot into the sky. This hike is moderate and long. You must climb down to canyon floors and back up to the trail, which hugs the base of the towers.

Dead Horse Point, a state park, is one of the finest overlooks of the Colorado River. It's a great place for breakfast or lunch and accessible to vehicles and the disabled.

Watch for flash floods

The drive to Capitol Reef National Park from Moab takes about three hours, depending on your sightseeing habits. We made Torrey, Utah, headquarters for days eight through 10 of our trip. It is within 15 minutes of park headquarters and immediately accessible to a highway that leads south to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. At trip's end, the drive back to the airport in Salt Lake City is about three hours.

If you have but one day here, you can experience a complete vacation with a day trip to lower falls at Calf Creek. Take the Notom-Bullfrog Road south from Utah 24 to the Burr Trail, another old cattle trail. Put the best driver behind the wheel, grab the handholds inside the vehicle and four-wheel up the switchbacks to a sandy pullout at the top. Stop for breakfast and watch other travelers try to make the ascent.

In the foreground, you can see the enigmatic Waterpocket Fold, a huge scar on the surface of the earth that dominates the area. The Burr Trail winds through Long Canyon and empties into Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the trail head for Calf Creek. Roiling, dirty clouds and reverberating thunder drove us out of Calf Creek before we reached the falls but the Schmidts recommend it highly, provided the weather is dry.

Many attractions, especially in the backcountry, are subject to flash floods, and thunderstorms whip up in fewer than 15 minutes.

Torrey and Moab offer good restaurants, many with dinner entrees under $10. Each town has grocery and bakery stores so it is easy to shop European -- one day at a time.

The night preceding a hiking day we would purchase breakfast and lunch supplies, refrigerate or pack them in a cooler with ice and start the next day with those meals, plus thermoses of hot coffee and tea. We packed it in and packed it out, but never on our backs.

Tips for canyon trips