Zion National Park

In the fall of 2019, we turned a work conference and the ability to work from anywhere into a week long trip to Zion National Park. The logistics of this trip ended up being a little easier than we thought, and if you’re curious, you can read about how we did it here. If you just want to know about the hikes we did, and see the pictures we took of this amazing landscape, then this is the page for you.

Zion national park

Zion National Park was one of the most amazing places we’ve ever visited. The Virgin River cuts through the canyon and has exposed layer after layer of multi-colored rock formations. The red is due to the amount of iron in the soil and the canyon itself is pot-marked with areas of vegetation surrounded by areas of desert, which is more indicative of the surrounding countryside. The animals are oddly friendly and seem to have no problem posing for pictures but please don’t feed them, you can spot the ones that have gotten a little heavy on human food. The town and the park seem to have gone out of their way to make this as pleasant of an experience as they possibly can.

On our first day, we took the free shuttle to the last stop, the Temple of Sinawava and traveled up the Riverside Walk, a very flat trail leading up river to The Narrows, and The Subway beyond that. We didn’t bring gear to walk through the river, which you need to go past Riverside, but all of that gear can be rented in Springdale. The hike starts near the bus stop where the canyon opens up and heads North towards the Narrows, there is very little elevation change and the most worrisome part of it is how many people try to feed the animals along the way, hello rabbis shot. We brought a tripod and camera remote on most of our hikes, and this one offered several places to snap pics.

riverside walk

To finish up the day, we took the shuttle to stop 6 and hiked the Kayenta Trail to the Upper Emerald Pool. This hike was a little more uphill than expected, and was certainly a bit tougher after the easy Riverside Walk. The Upper Emerald Pool was just a small body of water at the base of a cliff, no real views from the area, but there were some nice places to take pictures on the way up and down. There was no connection to the Lower Emerald Pool when we went, but that sounds like it would have been a good way to end this hike. Instead we went back the way we came and caught one of the last buses before the service ended for the day.

Kayenta Trail to upper and middle emerald pools

the watchman and pa’rus trails

Day two took us to a couple of smaller trails, The Watchman and Pa’rus trails, which couldn’t have been more different from each other. Pa’rus is a paved trail going from Stop 1 to Stop 3 and it offers some nice views from the canyon floor and a few bridges over the Virgin river. The Watchmen trail on the other hand was a steady climb that snaked up towards the top of a cliff that offered great views of the southern end of the park and Springdale.

Angel’s Landing

Day three at Zion National Park was an off-day for both of us, so we decided to do the toughest hike on the bus route, Angel’s Landing. We got on the first shuttle out of Springdale and made it up to stop 6 on the park shuttle by nine in the morning, and we were thankful we did, the sun was still below the canyon wall and the temperature was cool. The hike itself is a little over five miles round trip, but the second mile of it is straight up. There are about a dozen large switch backs that took us up the trail until we got to Walter’s Wiggles, a series of 21 short and steep switchbacks that took us to Scout Lookout. We could have stopped here and felt very accomplished, but we trudged on to the top of Angel’s Landing. To get there, we had to traverse about a half mile of smooth and narrow paths, cliff hugging climbs, steep sections with guide chains, and negotiating with groups of people going in the opposite direction, there’s only one way up, but lots of ways down. We went through about 6 liters of water in five hours and we even started early, this hike was no joke, if you’re going to do it, be prepared.

the hike up to Scout lookout

the last mile up to angel’s landing

observation point via east mesa trail

Our final day of hiking took us to Observation Point. A landslide in August of 2019 closed the only available way up to Observation Point from the bus path so we took our rental car through the park and out to the East Mesa trail head. If you’ve got a smaller rental car then be careful, that whole last mile or two of road is dirt and likely impassible when wet without four-wheel drive. The hike itself wasn’t really anything spectacular, change the tint on some of the landscape and it’s any other hike in Missouri but the payoff at the end was well worth the 7 miles of blah. Observation Point towers over Angel’s Landing looking south through the canyon and it was amazing. There are other spots along the last mile where the trail gets close to the canyon edge as well.

Zion National Park is a hikers paradise, it’s so well kept and accessible that you’ll be exhausted long before you run out of things to do, I know we were. The miles of trails that are paved, rough, uphill, downhill, and through the river are as beautiful as they are diverse. The wildlife is deceptively calm and accessible, and the town of Springdale is very accommodating, it was very hard to leave.

Our favorite trail, hands down, was Angel’s Landing, and our favorite meal was Zion Pizza, long line and all. Get to where you’re going early or be ready for a line. We went in October, great hiking weather, but probably the off-season for most travelers.

I’m not sure we’ll go back, there are plenty of parks we haven’t seen yet. I think we both felt that we got our fill, but if we do, we’ll probably try some of the more exotic things like hiking up the Narrows or maybe even camping out in the park, wonder if the wildlife is as tame after dark.