Utah 2023: Zion National Park

In my last post we hadn’t yet made it to our destination. We had a couple more hours of driving. The drive coming in the east entrance of Zion was spectacular.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised. I knew about the tunnels, but that was about it. The only downside was the sun was now low in the west and for the most part shining directly in our eyes. Coming out of that last tunnel was magical. I was here. Zion National Park. 

We stopped for a few minutes to scope out a few things…like parking and stuff. We had a few more miles to go to get to our lodging. I kind of regret not staying in Springdale, but the bargain-hunter in me, had found cheaper digs in Hurricane, about a half hour away. In hind sight, I would stay in Springdale next time and pinch pennies elsewhere. 


Driving to Zion via the East Entrance






The next morning we headed back to Zion, hoping to find parking (not a problem it turns out) and hop on the shuttle. Originally we had planned to bike the canyon, but decided we wanted to do some hiking and the shuttle would be the better option. 


We rode to the end of the canyon road and stopped at The Temple of Sinawava. We hiked the river walk, an easy, accessible trail along the Virgin River. The Narrows were closed due to the cold, fast moving water. Afterwords we made our way back down the canyon, stopping for hikes as we went.







The next hike was Weeping Rock, a short, Somewhat steep climb to, well, a weeping rock and waterfall. Very refreshing.


Then it was on to hike the Grotto, which would take us to Zion Lodge. We had lunch at the lodge and just enjoyed hanging out in the sunshine with everyone. I was busy, but not obnoxiously so. We decided to do a hike across from the lodge that would take up back up stream a bit. Honestly, we had a map, but never did find the trail we were looking for. Instead we ended up hiking to lower and middle Emerald pools. This was more climbing that we had planned for. Not bad mind you, just that we planned something less ambitious. We did skip going to the upper pool. It was a scenic hike, and not terribly strenuous. 

Middle Emerald Pool



Overlooking the valley


Ha! Did not expect Cactus 
(although, why not?)


We headed back down to the car for a short rest and to make a plan for dinner. I had scoped out a likely candidate: Oscar’s cafe in Springdale. We hopped on the Springdale shuttle that took us directly there. So nice not having to drive and find parking. Dinner was delicious, and afterwords we had a few minutes to poke around some shops before shuttling back to the car. 


It was a nice evening and feeling refreshed, we opted to drag out the bikes and go for a ride along the Pa’rus Trail, a short paved trail within the park. The canyon was particularly beautiful now with the evening light. Good thing we had skipped riding the canyon road. I discovered my rear brake had lost most of its fluid and barely worked. 









Thus ended our day at Zion. Another park I need to return to with more time to spend. Tomorrow we would head home driving up through Nevada to Oregon.



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