Beginner’s Guide to Zion National Park

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I recently visited Zion National Park. It was a spur of the moment, completely unplanned, breathtaking, potentially life changing, all-in-all amazing girl-powered-road trip. And it inspired this Beginner’s Guide to Zion National Park.

I learned a lot about the park in a very short period of time. I want to pass all these learnings onto you, hoping that it inspires you to add this park to your bucket list. It will forever hold a special place in my heart. Here’s a quick 2:34 video pictorial of it all…set to the theme song of our road trip.

Beginner’s Guide to Zion National Park: How to Get There

Zion is in Southern Utah, just about 40 miles, almost an hour from St. George. The town at the base of the park is Springdale, UT. Depending on where you live in the world, you can easily fly into Las Vegas. Then you have a beautiful drive up to the park. It’s about 2-2.5 hours and you’re not likely to hit any traffic.

Or, if you’re from nearby, you can drive the whole way. It took us about 9 hours from San Diego with a few stops. We also had a 90 minute, inevitable delay on I15. A car had caught on fire at 2:30am and somehow managed to back up traffic 10 hours later. But I suppose that’s the price you pay for traveling on Thanksgiving weekend.

Where to Stay

Well it couldn’t be a Beginner’s Guide to Zion National Park if I didn’t give you the DL on how we figured out where to stay. This part of the adventure turned out to be a real treat for us! Originally, I thought Zion was much closer to St. George. I was wrong. Springdale is much smaller and it as a holiday weekend. We really had to scramble to book a hotel on the drive up. We were about to fork over $300 per night to stay at the Hampton Inn. But the universe had our back on this entire voyage.

We found the Bumble Berry Inn on Hotels Tonight.* Even though it was fully booked Friday night, somehow Julie squeezed us in at their premium “holiday rate” of about $110 per night. It’s in a great location, just a mile outside the park. It featured a hot tub, free cook-to-order breakfast at Wild Cat Willies everyday and beautiful patio views. We were in heaven!

You can also stay at the lodge in the park, which would be nice for hiking. But not ideal as you’d probably want to leave the lodge at night for dinners as it only looked like there was one restaurant at the lodge. You can also camp at the base of the park and up in the mountains. That seems like a pretty fun idea too! But I won’t lie, I was really happy to come home to a bed, shower and yummy food and wine after each long day of hiking.

What to Eat

In Town: Clearly we were fans of Wild Cat Willies for breakfast as it was included in our rate from the Bumbleberry Inn. It did not open until 7, but since the sun was coming up after 7 and it was low 40s in the morning, it worked out for us on this trip. But I would imagine in the Summer, when the days are longer and the weather is warmer this might be a problem. We had dinner at the Bit n’ Spur, a southwestern bar/restaurant on Friday night and Jacks, a sports bar on Saturday night. Sunday, we drove back to Vegas to break up our long drive home.

On The Trail: The days are pretty short this time of year with the sun rising after 7 and setting just after 5. So we stuffed our bellies at Wild Cat Willies in the morning. I had the hikers granola and yogurt, it was perfect! It’s a huge portion so you can pack the extra and take it on the trail with you. We loaded our packs with snacks, including Quest Bars, Lara Bars, trail mix, and my some mini muffins I had leftover from Thanksgiving. Because we had such a go-go-go hiker mission and short days, we didn’t stop to picnic. We just snacked as we went.

What to Pack

They say you should be prepared for anything and everything and in our case, that is pretty much on target. We went from beanies, gloves, layers of long sleeves, and puffy vests to tank tops and sports bras. Or in this case…topless. LOL  Layers went on and came off as we hiked. Saturday it was sunshine and blue skies and Sunday it snowed.

I’m not actually much of a hiker. Apparel wise, I was wildly unprepared. Katie loaned me a vest and one of her long layers. At the Zion Outfitter, I invested in some tougher pants and bad ass hiker socks. We had a feeling Sunday was going to require them. I was forever grateful for my Tasc Performance long blue layer. I practically lived it knowing no matter how far I hiked, it would never smell. LOL

Where to Hike

There are trails for all levels here! You’ll find short flat trails along the base. And are long tough climbs with breathtaking views throughout both sides of the canyon. It does not matter where you are, below looking up or up looking down — it is all awe inspiring and breathtaking. We only had 1.5 days to see as much as we could, so we charged on…here’s what we covered.

Saturday – Blue Skies and Sunshine!

Everybody will tell you that you must hike Angels Landing, and you must. But beware of the crowds. It’s a narrow/single track trail along the final .5 mile summit. There is quite a bit of waiting involved for the chains and some scrambling is require. But it is worth it.

We tackled that one first. Then about half way up, the trail splits to the West Rim Trail at Scout’s Landing.  We took off on that route and were super stoked to have wide open space to roam.

This trail goes for like another 14 miles and is better for longer days or camping out there as a multi-day hike. We made it about 5 miles in…simply stunning and we saw only 5 people the entire time we were on the trail. If you ever want to feel very small, and a part of something very big, visit this park.

We finished at the Grotto base and saw that the Emerald Pools were just one mile up the trail. We took that route and climbed all three levels. After all that, we ended up at the Lodge stop. Then we caught the shuttle back to our car feeling very pleased with the 18 miles we had covered in a fairly short day.

Sunday was a totally different experience!

For starters, the shuttle stopped running for the season. Which was kind of cool because we got to drive through the park. I’m pretty sure you can’t normally do that. And there really are only like 2 roads, yet somehow, we found ourselves on the wrong one.

Which was ok, we got to see more of the park, including the mile long tunnel (that’s when we knew we were off course!) This was of course also the perfect time to stop and take a few jumpy pics.

We parked ourselves at the base of Observation Point which is must do #2 when you ask people. And for good reason. It’s STUNNING! To get to the top, you get to hike through Echo Canyon which quite literally looks like a painting.

We were dusted with soft Utah snow as we climbed. It was like wonderland. We had no wind and the life of the mountain kept us warm as we climbed. Miraculously my feet stayed warm and dry in my New Balance trail shoes (which doesn’t even really make sense to me now). It’s a solid climb up about 4 miles. But when you reach the top, the view of the canyon will take your breath away.

Somewhere up here, you can skirt off to the East Rim and East Mesa Rim trails which, similar to the West Rim go for miles and miles and have camp sites for multi-day hiking. It was actually quite chilly at the top so we headed down. You can also easily split off to Hidden Canyon which is short and fun. You can go beyond the trail a bit where “scrambling is required.” Then also pop up to Weeping Rock at the very end of the day. We ended our second day just shy of 12 miles and were happy with that.

I will go back to hike The Narrows

That is the #3 hike everybody will tell you about and you must rent water proof shoes and pants as you hike straight through the water for as much as 16 miles one way. It’s a temperamental trail due to flash flooding and with the chill in the November air, we decided to table this for a Spring or Summer visit.

Beginner’s Guide to Zion National Park: Trail Summary & Cheat Sheets

They gave us this little map at the hotel. We used it each morning to plan our trial attack. This summary grid is awesome! I’m not sure I would have planned more had I had this ahead of time, but it might help you as you plan now.

And to give you a little park perspective, here’s the whole sha-bang! We covered 30 miles in 1.5 days and as you can see, there is SO MUCH MORE!

We were left wanting more…

And I think that has to be a good thing. I’m always  nervous to go back to places I love for fear that expectations will steal the beauty of the voyage. But I feel like Zion is a safe bet. It’s full of beauty, kind people, a small town and a huge adventure. I sure hope this Beginner’s Guide to Zion National Park has given you some inspiration!

Have you been to Zion? What are some of your favorite adventure trails? 

*This post was originally published on Eat. Drink & be Skinny”