Having just come from a park where I needed to learn the proper pronunciation, I figured our next stop would have no such issue. Zion National Park, one of the mighty five national parks in Utah, seemed to have a pretty straightforward name.
Yet, we quickly learned that many people mispronounce the name. We apparently had it correct: Zion, rhymes with “lion.”
Other folk call it Zie-on, rhymes with “tie on.”
And then a large percentage of Utahns (or Utes?) call it Zions, pointing to a successful marketing campaign by the local Zions Bank.
Maybe they should just go back to the native name for the canyon: Mukuntuweap, rhymes with “lukuntuweap.”
Whatever you call it, the canyon is simply gorgeous. The towering walls of red rock seem to change color throughout the day as the sun hits it from different angles. It’s no wonder that settlers thought of the site as the promised land.
The downside to all that beauty is that everybody goes to Zion. Each day, the park funnels thousands of tourists into a narrow canyon. There’s only so many place you can go, so you’ve got to work really hard to find some solitude.
The volume of tourists also necessitates a shuttle bus system. You’d never find a parking spot otherwise. Even with the buses, whenever we walked through the main parking lot towards our campground, we’d get asked if we were leaving by people desperately circling the lot looking for a spot.
In fact, there’s a second shuttle bus system designed to get people to the first shuttle bus system. You can park in the nearby town of Springdale and get shuttled to the park entrance.
As the day goes on the shuttles fill up more and more. Between 10 am and 2 pm, the buses are packed full.
If you like riding public transit during rush hour, you’ll love Zion.
The fact that people put up with it is testament to how beautiful the park is. We booked an entire week for a park that most people visit in a day or two. But it gave us a chance to explore the park in full and to slow down a bit. And sitting in our campground at the end of the day, watching the colors of the rock change was pure magic.
The park’s hiking guide lists 13 trails that start from the valley of the canyon and can be accessed at the shuttle bus stops.
Three of the trails were closed, including the Narrows, where you walk up the Virgin River as the walls close in around you. The flow of the water is still too strong from the spring snowmelt to allow safe passage. We’ll have to come back some time in summer or fall to cross that off our bucket list.
Two other trails were closed because rock slides have buried the trails. With a week in the park, we were able to hike the remaining ten.
That didn’t include the most famous hike in the park, Angel’s Landing. The dramatic climb up to a precarious viewpoint, is a branch of the Scout Lookout trail and requires a permit. Since I had hiked it years ago, I thought it best not to take a permit away from someone else who hadn’t had a chance to go.
Instead, I hiked up to Scout Landing, and then continued on the West Rim Trail to a scenic viewpoint. I had originally wanted to do the entire West Rim Trail from its start up on the canyon rim 15 miles down to the valley. But snow still blocked the trailhead. So I had to settle for a 6-mile out and back.
We were fortunate to have a spot in Watchman Campground, within walking distance of the shuttle bus and just beyond the park entrance. Twice we walked from our campground, across the bridge and out of the park into Springdale. One time was to pay for a shower at a local outfitter, as there are none within the park itself.
The other time was a visit to Zion Brewing Company for dinner and a cold beer. The restaurant has a wonderful outdoor seating area, with probably the most stunning view I’ve ever seen from the confines of a brew pub.
We also left the park twice, once to visit Bryce Canyon—I’ll cover that in a separate blog post—and the second time to visit Kolob Canyon. Kolob is another section of the park that is connected to Zion Valley, but you have to leave the park to drive there. Fewer people head up that way, but we still had trouble finding a parking spot. We had wanted to hike the Taylor Creek Trail, but couldn’t find a place to leave the truck, so we ended up doing a shorter hike to the Timber Creek Overlook. Then we had a picnic lunch and headed into St. George to resupply.
Seven days was likely overkill for Zion but we felt like we got to do everything we wanted to do (except hike the Narrows). It gave us a chance to catch our breath, even while the scenery took our breath away. And there are a lot worse places to hang out for a week.
Days: 111
Miles Traveled: 13,973
Next stop: Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
