Utah's National Parks Trip: Day 6 (Zion)

I had originally planned for us to spend 2 days in Bryce but by Tuesday when we realized that our second rental house was only an hour and a half away from Zion we began reading up and talking about adding this fifth and final Utah national park to our trip. Since it was a rather late addition to our itinerary it was the park I knew the least about and we went with the mentality that anything we managed to see would be more than we'd ever see if we didn't go so why not?

Well, we did amazing! We left our rental around 7 and arrived at the east side of the park by 8 but we had to drive all of the Zion-Mount Caramel Highway to reach the visitor's station which took another half hour and by then all the spots were filled so we drove just outside the main park entrance and parked in a lot in Springdale then walked back in. While you are free to drive Mount Carmel highway at any time from April until November (I think?) you can only access the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive by shuttlebus. The road is closed to all other traffic; the only exception seems to be people driving to & staying in the Lodge but even they can not drive the road for sightseeing beyond the Lodge. 

Driving to Zion from Panguitch:

 I only took a few photos inside the park as our windshield was filthy with dead bugs and the sun was working against me on the glass. 

After parking it was a real short walk into the park. 

 

We walked right onto a shuttle and decided to make stop # 5 our first stop of the day. We exited at the Lodge and went over to the Lower Emerald Pool Trail. It's a very easy, paved 1.2 mile trail out to a "waterfall" though this year it was more of a trickle; which we expected. 

can you see the water? It's right where the 2 trees meet

walking under the water sprinkle

We returned to the Lodge and picked up the Grotto trail. It's a 1 mile trail that leads to The Grotto-- this used to be the very end of the park and was a camping site near an an actual grotto pool but there has since been a rock slide that filled it in. The area, however, keeps its name for the historical context. It was an easy hike and at the time of day we were hiking was all shade. 

From the grotto we jumped back on the shuttle and took it to stop # 7 for the Weeping Rock Trail. This one too was fully paved, if a bit steep at times but it was only a quick .4 mile walk. We were most interested in the hanging gardens-- plants that grow even upside down sometimes attaching themselves to the wet rocks. 

 

We walked back to the shuttle and went to stop #9 to walk the riverside walk trail-- a paved 2 miles or so that runs alongside the virgin river and is the entrance into the Narrows. We did find there were a few places where we could walk in the sand alongside the river as there were steps here and there that led down to these non-paved areas. This area, however, is mobbed. Nearly everyone wants to see or attempt walking the narrows. 

We did not step foot in the river. That water was only 52 degrees today and much too cold for me. We walked back to the shuttle.

It was noon so we decided to ride the shuttle to the Lodge (stop #5) and see if we could eat lunch in their dining room. The Red Rock Grill had a 5 minute wait and we were thrilled as the area was packed and we were guessing upwards of an hour. We were given the option of eating inside or out and we picked out. The views and the food were SO good! 

 

Alec got the 1/2 sandwich with cup of soup, a small Caesar salad, and a side order of fries-- that gave both the waitress and the server that brought our food a good laugh.

I got the Zion burger and my husband ordered the bison burger

Evan tried the blueberry BBQ ribs 

We pulled out our maps and list of hikes at lunch and decided we really were done. We had driven both scenic drives from one end to the other and hiked a wide variety of trails. So we hopped on the shuttle and headed back to stop #1 the Visitor's center.  

The lodge area

 

 We did a quick bit of shopping and hopped back in our car. It had to have been around 2 since we got back to our rental around 4. It took us longer to get home because we had to get into the line to enter the main park entrance, show our pass, and drive all the way back out the east side entrance at the other end of the Mt. Caramel drive... and we were waylaid a bit in the middle as one of the tunnels is pretty small so it's often treated as a one way road (but early in the morning it was not). But I did get to take lots of photos on the way out of the park! 

yep, that blue color is the crazy switchback filled road we had to drive

I can't believe we covered 5 parks in 5 days! Granted we could have hiked more in ALL the parks but we mostly felt like we saw all the major points and attractions and got a good feel for them all. 

 

Others in this series: 

Our Trip by the Numbers 

Day 1: Travel day

Day 2: Canyonlands  

Day 3: Arches 

Day 4: Capitol Reef  

Day 5: Bryce Canyon  

Day 7: Red Canyon & Traveling Home 

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