After a beautiful 2 weeks in Prescott, we headed up and over to Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. We snagged a full week at the Watchman campground just inside the entrance – the perfect base camp for exploring the park!
Some years back, Zion implemented a shuttle system in the main canyon – today you can’t drive in the canyon at all. The shuttle sets off from the visitor center, which is just a short walk from the Watchman campground.
We started off the week by heading outside the park to ride the IMBA epic trail loop at Hurricane Cliffs. The ride ended up being around 24 miles, and while we did enjoy it, we likely wouldn’t do it again. The single track was great, but there was a fair bit of gravel road interspersed.
We did a fair amount around the park, starting off with a nice, easy walk on the Pa’rus trail from the visitor’s center. It’s along a concrete path – but still beautiful, especially early in the day.
Another day, we headed up the West Rim trail. During our last visit to Zion, we did Angel’s Landing – this time we decided to go up and past that. It ended up being a good call! The crowds dropped off considerably just past the junction with Angel’s Landing, and the views were awesome!
Later in the week we went up to hike Observation Point. A couple years before this trip, a rock slide demolished all of the trails up from the valley floor on the east side of the canyon. These trails are still closed off – but you can go around to the top and hike from there. However, it’s a little more difficult due to limited parking. We ended up opting to take a shuttle from Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort – it was only $7/person in early 2022 and eliminated the stress of so many people trying to park at a tiny trailhead.
Likely the best thing we did while at Zion was head up the canyon for an evening bike ride. Since the canyon is shuttles only, there is basically no traffic – plus the shuttles stopped running at 7:15pm while we were there. We basically had the canyon to ourselves! It was a great way to explore and really gives you a sense of scale for the canyon.
We had a great time in Zion. Watchman campground was a spectacular location – being inside the park near the shuttles was very convenient. We didn’t have to worry about parking or traffic to get inside the park.
After we left Zion, we headed to Moab – that post will be next!
-Kyle