Located in southwestern Utah, Zion National Park was the second most visited national park in the US in 2021. One of its most prominent features is Zion Canyon with massive red or tan-colored walls as high as 2500 ft. touching the skies with a blanket of green trees in the summers and white snow in the winters. Its picturesque landscape attracts visitors from all the nearby major cities like Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. After watching some Youtube videos, reading many blogs, and making a list of places to visit on Google Maps we finally planned a trip to Zion for 3 nights and 4 days during the July 4th weekend in 2022.
Summary of our Itinerary
Day 1: Drive from LA to Springfield, and Sunset at Canyon Junction Bridge
Day 2: Hiked the Narrows
Day 3: Kolob Canyons, Canyon Overlook Trail, and Lower Emerald Pool
Day 4: Drive back to LA
Hotel/Stay: Novel House Inn for all 3 nights
Tips: Buy the Annual Pass to save time, stand on the bus to save time
Day 1 (Saturday/July 2nd)
We started our 8-hour drive from LA at 8:00 in the morning and expected to reach Springdale, UT around 5:00 PM since we lost an hour due to a change in the time zone. We were stuck in the traffic for more than an hour after crossing Vegas, reached Springdale ~6:30 PM, and straight went to check-in at our hotel, Novel House Inn. As we entered Springdale, it looked totally different from other places we have seen so far as the red rocks were already giving Zion vibes. After check-in, we headed out to the park and watched the sunset at the Canyon Junction Bridge. There was no traffic at the Park entrance as it was late in the day. Roadside parking is limited near the bridge but we were able to find a spot quickly and watched a peaceful sunset and headed back to Springdale around 8:30 PM for dinner.
We are vegetarians, so we had already decided on a couple of places that have Vegetarian items and tonight it was going to be Zion Pizza and Noodle Co., located right next to our hotel. The place was super busy and had a long wait of ~45 minutes time to get a seat, but also had an option for to-go orders and we got our food 20-30 mins after placing the order. We ordered a Margarita Pizza (a Vegetarian favorite) with garlic bread and had dinner in our hotel room.
Day 2 (Sunday/July 3rd)
Our day started with beautiful views of the red mountains on a sunny Sunday. We are not morning people as we got up at 8:00 am, got ready, prepared our backpacks to hike the Narrows, picked up hiking sticks from our hotel, and headed out for breakfast. Breakfast was included with our stay but due to COVID-19, the hotel was not hosting breakfast inside and provided coupons for Oscar’s Cafe (a good option for breakfast) down the road. Today, we planned to hike only the Narrows as we are not regular hikers and not super fit. Generally, we go on easy to moderate hikes so we knew we will be tired after walking for hours in water. After visiting many NPs by now, we have learned to carry 4-5 liters of water, energy bars, and some Indian snacks. We did not rent any hiking gear as we wore our best hiking shoes, had full-length clothes to avoid cold water, and got hiking sticks (must have) already. Since we were hiking in summers were not too worried about the water being cold but if it was winter we would have rented waterproof suits and shoes.
After breakfast, we walked across the street to the Springdale shuttle stop 5 to catch the shuttle to the Park entrance. You can also drive to the Park entrance and park at the visitor center but the parking lot usually gets filled early in the morning. At the shuttle stop, we waited for more than 30 minutes for our turn and finally got in a shuttle that dropped us at the Park entrance in 10 minutes. After getting down, we joined a long slow queue to enter the Park (the walking entrance is different from the driving entrance) and expected another wait of at least 45 mins. Luckily, we heard Park rangers telling people about a separate queue for those who already purchased the tickets or have an Annual Pass. As we have an Annual Pass, we ran to the other line, showed our Pass, and entered the Park without any wait. We swiftly walked across the entrance, to the visitor center, and joined another queue to board the Zion shuttle to the Zion Canyon Scenic drive. Zion Canyon Scenic drive takes you to the main places like Zion Lodge, Narrows, Emerald Pools, Angel’s Landing, etc. but, you can ONLY go via shuttle from May – October, part of the efforts by NPS to manage the crowds. The queue was long but moving fast and since we were willing to stand on the bus, Park rangers allowed us to board the shuttle ahead of the others who wanted seats on the bus. We were excited to finally get on Zion Canyon Road and were amazed by the hugeness of the 2500 ft. high massive red rocks touching the skies from all sides of the road. The shuttle stopped at a couple of places before it reached the last stop i.e. Temple of Sinawava (starting point of the Narrows) around 11:00 AM. This is the last place where you can find restrooms before you start the hike.
To reach Narrows, we first hiked 1.2 miles on the Riverside Walk which is an easy hike with some elevation gains and drops along the Virgin river. After stopping at multiple places along the river we finally reached the starting point of the Narrows Bottom-Up hike. We had seen many photos and videos of people doing this hike but nothing compares to the nervous excitement of getting into the water. In the beginning, the water reached only our ankles and felt cold at first but it got fine within a few minutes. There were some patches of dry land with little more elevation which were helpful in figuring out shallow pockets of water to go further up the river. The water level was continuously rising, reaching our knees in some time as we stopped to capture some moments. As we continued further, the water touched our thighs at a couple of places making it more difficult, energy-consuming, and surprisingly more fun to go up the river. It had been almost 1.5 hours since we started walking in the water and were feeling hungry. We found a large dry area where we rested and had some snacks from our backpacks. As we were quite tired and still had to hike back, we decided to walk another 15-20 mins upstream to a point where we could get some good pictures.
The hike back was much easier as we were going with the flow and also we had a good idea as to which deep areas to avoid. It took us about 45 minutes to reach where we started this memorable hike. We took some rest, removed some sand from our shoes, and continued further down the Riverside walk to get to the shuttle stop at Tempe of Sinawava. Once again there was a long wait of ~30 mins for the shuttle but we were willing to stand and got in ahead of many people wanting to sit on the bus. Soon we were back at the visitor center, exited the park, and joined another queue with another wait time of ~20 mins for the Springdale shuttle. Finally, the shuttle came, we got in (standing again), got down at our stop, and reached our hotel around 4:30 PM. We had the leftover pizza from last night and took a nap as we were super tired of hiking in the sun with temperatures reaching high 90Fs. After taking a bath, we headed out again as there was still some daylight left, checked out the visitor center, and bought a fridge magnet, a customary souvenir for every place we visit. It was already dinner time and today on our list was a Thai restaurant, Thai Sapa near the park entrance. There was a long wait here as well but the food was delicious and the views of the red rocks we amazing. While waiting for our table, we drove to the Park entrance and took some photos with the Zion Nation Park signboard in the front and red rocks in the background. We had dinner, packed our leftovers, came back to our hotel, and called it a night.
Day 3 (Monday/July 4th)
The next day we again had breakfast at Oscar’s cafe and then started our 45 min drive to Kolob Canyons. Kolob Canyons was a separate National Monument that was included in the national park in 1956. Here the red rocks were hidden beneath a layer of green trees all around and had a sharp contrast to the scenery. We checked in at the visitor center and drove 10 mins more to the Timber Creek overlook trailhead. Took a few photos of the rocks from the lookout point near the parking and hiked 1.4 miles round trip to the endpoint of the trail, which provides an unrestricted view of the landscape in the south with a possibility of seeing the north rim of the Grand Canyon on a clear day. The hike was easy-moderate with many ups and downs requiring us to stop a few times to catch our breath on a sunny day. We stopped a couple of more places to capture the beauty around us and then headed back to Springdale.
On our way back, we had lunch in the town of La Verkin, pumped gas, and returned to Zion NP to check out the Emerald pools. We parked our car at the Zion visitor center, boarded the shuttle, and went again to the Zion Canyon Scenic Road. It was the middle of the day, so there was no wait, we were able to find seats easily and got down at the Zion Canyon Lodge. We walked across the road, crossed the small bridge, and turned right towards the lower Emerald pool, a 2-mile round-trip hike. In this peak summer, we did not expect to see any water at the pool we were happily surprised with plenty of water in the pool and also a waterfall from the pools above. After spending ~40 mins relaxing and taking photos, we hiked back to the Zion Canyon Lodge. We got the shuttle to the visitor center, drove back to our hotel, and had leftover Thai food for lunch.
After taking some rest, we drove to the Canyon overlook trailhead on the Zion-Mount Carmel highway through the tunnel. Fortunately, we found a parking spot right where the tunnel ends and the trail starts. It is a 2-mile out-and-back hike rated as moderate on all trails however there are a few points where the hike gets very narrow with rocks on one side and sharp drop-offs on the other. Slowly and steadily we reached the top in 40 minutes but the sun was still shining bright right in our eyes. We found shade behind a rock and waited more than an hour for sunset to get a clear view of the winding roads down in the canyon. This hike is a good alternative for those who don’t want to take the risk like us or could not get the permit to hike Angels Landing and still wants to enjoy similar beautiful views from the high elevation. We hiked down much more quicker as we knew the way back and were less scared. It was pretty late and only a couple of restaurants were open, making Zion Pizza and Noodle Co. our spot for dinner on the final night in Zion. It was a couple of days before a new moon so we went to the Park entrance in hopes of capturing the Milky Way with red rocks in the front. We were ecstatic to see the Milky Way with our naked eyes and even better using our camera on a tripod. Once satisfied after taking many photos, we returned to our hotel and ended our day and the trip.
Day 4 (Tuesday/July 5th)
Our last day was rather non-eventful as we had breakfast at the Cafe, checked out of the Hotel, and started driving back to LA. We stopped at an Indian restaurant in Vegas, Mt. Everest, as we were craving Indian food, and reached LA around 5:00 PM.
Definitely, a place to revisit!!