Almost nobody organises a trip around the sky. Trips are organised around cities, routes or landscapes, and night is accepted as what is left when the day ends. There is one state where that order can be inverted without losing anything, because its main nocturnal attraction is measured, certified and signposted.
Utah has 24 places certified as dark sky spaces, the highest concentration on the planet, and this is where it all began: the world's first dark sky park was certified in the state's south-east in 2007.
01 The world's first was this one
On 6 March 2007, Natural Bridges National Monument became the first International Dark Sky Park certified by the International Dark-Sky Association. It was not an honorary title: it was the start of a category that today includes more than two hundred parks worldwide.
And it remains one of the darkest of them all. Natural Bridges sits in a remote corner of south-eastern Utah, a long way from any city, and its characteristic feature is three natural stone bridges that work as a frame for the Milky Way.
The most photographed is Owachomo, the thinnest of the three, and with reason: it is a low, broad arch through which the entire galaxy passes. That is why this monument appears in any list of night photography.
02 Twenty-four certified places
The figure that turns this into a trip rather than an outing is 24. That is the number of certified places in the state, among national parks, state parks, monuments and also whole communities that have adapted their street lighting.
The certified list includes Arches and Bryce Canyon, both in 2019, as well as Natural Bridges itself and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In other words: the same parks visited by day are certified to be seen by night.
That solves the logistical problem that usually ruins this sort of trip. There is no need to hunt for a distant empty lot: you can sleep at the gate of a certified park, go in at night and have the foreground already in place.
03 Why the sky here is so dark
There are three reasons and all of them are measurable. The first is population: 3,538,904 inhabitants across 219,887 square kilometres, and almost all concentrated in the northern strip, around Salt Lake City. The state's south-east is practically empty.
The second is dryness. Moab, the base for Arches and Canyonlands, receives 232.9 millimetres of rain a year over 61.6 days of precipitation. With that figure, the vast majority of the year's nights are clear, and dry air also scatters less of what little light there is.
And the third is altitude. Much of the territory lies above 1,200 metres, and high parks like Bryce reach 2,775 at Rainbow Point. The less atmosphere overhead, the less the image degrades.
04 Seven thousand five hundred stars
The figure that best translates all of the above comes from Bryce Canyon, certified in 2019. Its sky is measured at magnitude 7.4, one of the darkest in North America, and under those conditions around 7,500 stars can be seen with the naked eye.
It is worth putting that figure in context. From a medium-sized European city you see, with luck, two or three hundred stars. From a small village, a couple of thousand. Seven thousand five hundred is a sky most people have never seen, and which a hundred years ago was simply the sky.
At Arches, moreover, the Andromeda galaxy is visible to the naked eye, two and a half million light years away. It is not a telescope object: it is a faint smudge you can see if the sky is dark enough.
Seven thousand five hundred stars is a sky almost nobody has seen and which a hundred years ago was simply the sky.
05 Night as the plan, not as the day's leftovers
The practical consequence of organising the trip this way is that you have to invert the timetable. The best hours are between ten at night and three in the morning, and that means sleeping in the morning and giving up part of the daytime programme.
The second condition is the moon, and it is not negotiable. With a high moon the sky brightens and the Milky Way vanishes, so the trip's dates are decided by the lunar calendar rather than the working one. Look for the days around the new moon.
And the third is cold. You are in a high desert, where the daily range is enormous: in April, Moab's average low is 5.9 degrees and Bryce's is −4.4, even though the highs on those same days are 22.4 and 11.5. Spending four hours standing still before dawn requires winter clothing.
06 How the trip is put together
Eight to twelve days allow you to string together three or four certified places without driving at night more than necessary. One arrangement that works: Arches and Canyonlands from Moab, then Natural Bridges, and finish by climbing to Bryce Canyon, the darkest and the highest.
Reckon with the distances. These places are spread across a state of 219,887 square kilometres and the driving legs are long. It pays to do them by day and keep the night for the sky, not for the road.
What makes this trip special is not that Utah's sky is beautiful. It is that it is measured. When a place states magnitude 7.4 and 7,500 stars, you know exactly what you are going to see, and that turns a lucky clear night into a plan you can book months ahead.
