After our adventure through Valley of Fire State Park, we headed to Springdale, Utah to start our National Park tour starting with Zion. While we only spent one day in Zion, we stayed in Springdale for three nights. We stayed at Driftwood Lodge and while it was basic for the amenities, the views were gorgeous. I *think* anywhere you stay in Springdale would give you great views though as you are surrounded by red rock.

Shuttle Buses in Zion National Park

Currently, Zion National Park has COVID-19 restrictions for the amount of people who are able to shuttle into the scenic drive daily. Private vehicles are not able to drive on the scenic drive. You either have to reserve your tickets through recreation.gov. The cost of a non-refundable ticket is $1. Tickets are available for one hour blocks between 7am and 3pm. You can board the shuttle at any point during that hour window you have reserved. One ticket is needed per person, per day. You have two booking windows to obtain tickets. One block of tickets are released 2+ weeks in advance. A second block of tickets are released one day in advance at 9 am MT. For advance shuttle tickets, they have dates on the recreation.gov for when tickets will be available for specific dates.

When we got tickets, we booked ours one day prior and were able to get into the park from 12pm – 1pm. After 3 pm, you don’t need a ticket, but it is on a first come, first served basis. The number of tickets are limited.

If you do not have tickets, you can pay private tour buses to get into the canyon, I saw prices for $30 per person.

Zion National Park

You do not need tickets to drive through the park itself, just the scenic drive. The views along the park itself are gorgeous so I definitely recommend driving through and admiring the beauty. One thing to look out for is wildlife, there are some turns where you can’t see what’s coming and to our surprise, we did slam on the breaks once to avoid hitting bighorn sheep.

There are trails to hike along in the park and my favorite hike we did in Zion wasn’t actually in the park itself. Since our shuttle tickets weren’t valid until 12 pm, we woke up and headed to do the Observation Point via the East Mesa Trail. This is a 3.2 one way trail and pretty easy. The view is absolutely gorgeous and incredibly high, my legs were wobbly and my head got woozy. The other way to get to Observation Point is through the Weeping Rock and is currently closed due to a massive rockfall that has buried the Observation Point Trail/East Rim Trail and the Weeping Rock pantheon.

Once we were at the top, there were quite a few people eating snacks and taking photos near the edge. We overheard another couple close to us where the guy told the girl who was also uneasy about heights “if they fall, it’s none of your business” and we recited that quote a couple of times throughout our trip.

After completing the hike, it was time to head back so we could catch the shuttle into the canyon. We were late since we misplaced our National Park Pass which you do need to get in, but we had no issues getting through.

Shuttling Into Zion National Park

We went to the top to start where the famous Narrows Hike is, we did not hike it though as there was warnings of Toxic Cyanobacteria and it’s not something we were willing to risk as I did have an open blister on the ankle but plenty of people did it even with the warning signs to avoid until further notice. We did the one mile Riverside Walk where the beginning of the Narrows Hike begins though.

The line to go to our next stop was pretty long since that hike is one of the most popular hikes and the shuttles were not filling to capacity to social distance. A lot of shuttle stops are closed for the time being and while we were visiting, for instance, Angels Landing trail was closed at a certain point of the trail due to deaths. It is one of the most dangerous hikes in the United States.

We stopped at Zion Lodge and walked along the one mile Lower Emerald Pools which took about an hour and is considered an easy trail. After, we headed back to the shuttle to go grab some dinner back in Springdale. We grabbed dinner from MeMe’s Cafe and it was delicious.