re: Best place to see mountains outside of Grand Canyon part of the country?

We did this trip and it has been one of our favorites.

Flew into Phoenix and went to a diamondbacks game then the next day headed to the Grand Canyon and stayed 2 nights. Then we drove to Kanab, UT and stayed there as our home base. We stopped in Page on our way. Kanab is a great central location. We went to Zion one day, Bryce Canyon another day, UTV tours based out of Kanab two different days because we enjoyed them so much, some hiking around Kanab and went to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and got to bring the sweetest dog on hikes with us.

North Rim of the GC is far superior. Higher elevation, so cooler, and it is mostly forests until you hit Utah.

A few years ago we did Rocky Mountain, Arches/Canyonlands, Capitol Reef (very chill, self service orchards, fresh pies each morning), Bryce Canyon (overrun by tour buses from Vegas), skipped Zion (lower elevation means higher temps in late June), North Rim, through Navajo and Hopi rez (sad that we have people living in third world conditions here), Winslow AZ for photo ops, Sante Fe for OG Meow Wolf, then back to Louisiana.