Zion National Park

View from Angels Landing

Our next move was to Zion National Park to complete the Utah "Big Five" National Parks. This is a popular National Park even in the middle of October. We didn't have any problem with parking and beating the crowd by getting to the visitor center between 8 and 8:30 am.

View along Riverwalk to The Narrows

As with other parks, Zion is very pretty and has unique characteristics. In this case, these are very high, sheer cliffs of various colors. The main part of the park is Zion Canyon. You have to take a shuttle into the canyon but it is very efficient and there are a lot of stops where you can get off and on to enjoy the views. There are a number of hikes with varying difficulties to suit anyone. The iconic hikes are Angels Landing and The Narrows. Both of these are very busy so get going early. Read the conditions and difficulties of these hikes before attempting them.

Court of Patriarchs

There is a west part of the park called Kolob Canyons which we did not get to on this trip and there is an east side that we also didn't get to because we didn't want to deal with special tunnel permits for our dually truck. These areas have their own special features so keep them in mind if you make the trip and want to avoid the big crowds.

We thoroughly enjoyed our week here, punctuated by a number of good hikes.

View on trail to Observation Point

View from Observation Point

View behind History Museum