Las Vegas Day Trip #1: Zion Canyon National Park
Last week my little nephew was in town visiting from Houston. He’s been coming out the last few summers to stay with me for a week or so and I always like to take him on a little trip. In the past we’ve gone camping up on Mount Charleston, gone to Disneyland and the Santa Monica beach.. that sort of thing. This time I thought we’d go up to a place I’ve wanted to visit for a number of years and never got around to going to for whatever reason, a place a little Cub Scout could definitely appreciate – Zion Canyon National Park.
Zion Canyon, obviously renamed to its current moniker by religious folk, has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. It’s a truly beautiful area to see, the canyon walls having been carved over millions of years by the Virgin River. Though surrounded by desert, the river and the altitude, as well as the fact that it’s a bit further north than Las Vegas, make for warm days and cool nights.
I’ve chosen to feature Zion as #1 in my Las Vegas Day Trips series, as it is about two to two and a half hours away in the southwestern part of Utah. You could drive up early, have lunch, explore the area and be back in town by dinner time if you want to, though it would make for a pretty long day. We opted to take a tent and a little gear and camp in the canyon. We set up camp at one of the two main camping areas – Watchman Campground – which is run well, has clean restrooms, and a tiny man-made stream of fresh water running along behind the tent and picnic table areas at your site. Our four person group had three adults, one child, and two tents and it was $16 to camp for all of us. (there is a $25 per car fee to enter the entire park, but it is good for an entire week.)
In order to eliminate over-crowding of vehicles and ruin the natural, peaceful setting with unnecessary noise, the only cars allowed further into the canyon beyond the two camping areas are those belonging to people staying at the lodge. Don’t worry about that, though, as driving isn’t what you want to do anyway – there’s too much to look at. The National Park Service provides (as part of your $25 per car admission fee) a propane-power tram that simultaneously takes hundreds of visitors as deep into the canyon as they want to go while reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles that would be driving in there otherwise. The day that we were there on the tour there were sixteen trams running, all capable of taking several dozen passengers each. You can park at the main visitor facility, wait a few minutes and begin the tour, which takes about 90 minutes round-trip if you don’t get off of the tram, which you absolutely will want to do because there are so many great hikes to take.
We opted to go a fairly short distance into the canyon on the tram and take a short hike, having more of a laid back visit than some of the more adventurous people that were there that day, as my nephew was getting over being sick and we didn’t want to push him to hard. As it turned out, we accidentally chose a neat little hike called the Emerald Pools. A short .6 mile hike is paid off with a natural pool collecting water from springs seeping through the cliff’s cracks and two waterfalls overhead. It was very lovely. As pretty and relaxing as this area of the canyon was, it’s apparently even more beautiful the further in you go. I plan on going back before too long. When the heat is pretty killer down in Las Vegas, the nights up in Zion Canyon are still pretty airish. We had to snuggle pretty good to stay warm while we were sleeping later that night…
The village just before you arrive at Zion Canyon proper is a quaint little place, filled with tourist shops, local crafts, and some pretty interesting food. There’s one ice cream parlour in town and we went in (I suspected they had some unique sorts of ice cream for some reason and I was right!) I had my first ever huckleberry ice cream and I have to say, damn it was good! The next morning on our way out of town we had bumbleberry pancakes from the Bumbleberry Inn. I don’t believe in bumbleberries! I think they are blueberries rebranded by a very well-paid marketing department staffed by crafty Mormons! Tasty, those things were, though.
And oh yeah! They had horseback rides in the canyon! I didn’t have enough time to go on one, but next time it’s on like Donkey Kong.
So there you have it.. My first “While Las Vegas Sleeps…” recommended Las Vegas day trip!
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One Comment
thetopicmonster on August 25, 2009 :
This is perfect, just what I was looking for. As my wife and I travel from Vegas to Page, AZ I noticed Zion right there almost in the middle and wondered how we would squeeze something like that into a day and the approach you’ve taken seems perfect. I’m planning my trip now, thanks for the info. I’d love to see the rest of this series. #4 5 etc..