Hiking in Zion National Park
Zion's trail list is short enough to read in a minute and varied enough that reading it is not much help. A paved riverside stroll and a technical canyon descent are both on it. So is a hike performed entirely in a river, and one whose final half mile is a chain bolted to a fin of sandstone with a long drop on either side. Sorting by distance, which is how most trail lists are organized, hides exactly the thing that matters.
So these are grouped by commitment instead — by permit, water and exposure, which are the three reasons a Zion day goes wrong.
Short and easy
Paved or gently graded, no exposure, and no reason to skip them because they are the ones everybody can do. Pa'rus is also the only trail in the park that allows dogs and bicycles.
- The Pa'rus Trail: Zion's Paved, Pet-Friendly Path — The only trail in Zion that allows dogs and bicycles — 3.5 miles, paved, level, and the park's most accessible walk.
- The Riverside Walk in Zion — Zion's most-walked mile: paved, shaded, accessible with assistance, and the doorway to the Narrows.
- Zion's Emerald Pools Trail — Three pools on one route, so you pick your effort at the trailhead — plus why the water is green, why you cannot swim, and when the falls actually run.
- Canyon Overlook: Zion's Best Short Hike — Half a mile each way and 154 feet of climbing for the classic view down Zion Canyon — no shuttle, no permit, and parking as the only real obstacle.
Half-day walks with real climbing
Steady ascent, drop-offs you notice but are not scrambling along, and views that justify the effort. These are the routes to choose when Angels Landing is booked out.
- The Watchman Trail in Zion — The one real Zion hike you can walk to from the visitor center without boarding a shuttle — 3.3 miles, no permit, and the best evening light in the park.
- Kolob Canyons: Zion Without the Crowds — Zion's northern section off I-15: the five-mile scenic road, the three walks worth knowing, and honest expectations about Kolob Arch.
In the river
The Narrows is walked in the Virgin River rather than beside it, which changes the footwear, the season and the weather forecast that matters.
- Hiking The Narrows in Zion — The Narrows: hiking up the river itself. The route to Big Spring, the two closures, what belongs on your feet, and why you must not filter the water.
All day, or overnight
Long enough that water, transport and daylight become the planning problem rather than the climbing. These are point-to-point routes, so arrange the ride back before you start walking.
- The West Rim Trail: Zion From Above — Eleven miles from Lava Point down into Zion Canyon — the park's best backpacking route, and the trail whose last mile every Angels Landing hiker climbs.
Permit required
Managed by lottery, checked on the trail, and not something to plan a day around without one in hand.
- Angels Landing: Zion's Most Thrilling Hike — Angels Landing: the permit is the hard part, not the climb. How both lotteries work, what the route does, and how to decide about the chains before you are standing on them.
- The Subway: Zion's Iconic Canyoneering Hike — A permit-only route through the Left Fork of North Creek — two versions, neither of them a hike in the ordinary sense.
How the park rates its own trails
The National Park Service sorts Zion's day hikes into three bands, and the numbers behind them are worth knowing because they are not what the words suggest. An easy hike in Zion runs from about 0.4 to 3.5 miles and gains no more than a hundred feet. A moderate one stretches to roughly 7.6 miles with meaningfully more climbing. A strenuous one runs from 2.5 to 9.4 miles and can gain as much as 2,148 feet.
Two things follow. The first is that Zion's easy tier is genuinely easy — flat, short, and in two cases paved — rather than easy-for-a-national-park. The second is that the gap between moderate and strenuous is mostly vertical, not horizontal. A five-mile hike here can be twice the work of a seven-mile one. Judge a Zion trail by its elevation profile and you will be right far more often than judging it by its length.
Choosing well on a first visit
Most first-time visitors have one day and want Angels Landing. If you have a permit, take it: 5.4 miles round trip, 1,488 feet of climbing, about four hours for most people, and a final half mile along a knife-edge ridge that is the reason for both the permit and the reputation.
If you do not have one, the honest substitute is not another famous name — it is the walk to Scout Lookout, the saddle where the chains begin. Getting there needs no permit, involves the same switchbacks and nearly all of the climbing, and is where a good many of the photographs attributed to the summit were actually taken. Rangers check permits at the Grotto, at Scout Lookout and on the trail itself, so this is a boundary to plan around rather than one to test.
The river is a different activity
The Narrows is the other route people arrive committed to, and it is not a trail in any ordinary sense. You walk upstream in the Virgin River, on rounded cobbles, in water that stays cold in every season. From the Temple of Sinawava you can turn around whenever you like — an hour in the water is a perfectly good outing, and going as far as Big Spring and back makes a ten-mile day. None of that needs a permit. The sixteen-mile through-hike from Chamberlain's Ranch, top-down, is a different trip with a permit and a shuttle problem attached.
Three things decide whether the bottom-up walk works:
- Footwear. The Park Service is blunt about this: closed-toed shoes and a sturdy stick. Sandals, water shoes worn loose, and bare feet are all explicitly not appropriate on cobbles you cannot see through moving water.
- Flow. The route closes when the Virgin River runs above 150 cubic feet per second. That is a published number rather than a judgment call made on the day, so it can be checked before you drive up.
- The forecast for the whole watershed, not the canyon. A storm falling miles upstream is what produces a flash flood here, and the sky above you can be clear while it happens. When a flash flood warning is issued the Narrows closes, and it stays closed for two hours after the warning is lifted.
Heat, shade and the sections without either
The canyon walls give real shade that the surrounding desert does not, which makes Zion feel more forgiving in summer than it is. The trails that catch people out are the ones outside that shade: Canyon Overlook on the east side of the tunnel, the switchbacks below Scout Lookout, and anything on Kolob Terrace, all of which take full sun for most of the day.
Carry water rather than plan to find it. Most Zion trails have none, the river is not a substitute without treatment, and the standard desert discipline — start at first light, be off the exposed ground by midday, treat early afternoon as recovery rather than hiking time — applies here exactly as it does on the trails closer to St. George.
Why the trail list changes
Zion loses trails, sometimes for years at a stretch, and it is worth understanding why before you build a day around a name you read somewhere.
The canyon is cut into Navajo Sandstone, and its walls fail continuously. Water seeps into cracks and freezes; the rock expands and contracts through daily and seasonal temperature swings; groundwater pressure from the park's springs pushes from behind. Every boulder on the canyon floor started somewhere higher up. In 2019 a rock avalanche off Cable Mountain destroyed part of the East Rim Trail, and another slab came down near the same spot in November 2023 — years apart, in an area that remains active.
The Park Service's own summary is that it is impossible to predict when or where the next one will happen. The practical consequence for a visitor is small but real: confirm that a specific trail is open before you commit a day to it, and treat any trail list — this one included — as a description of the park rather than a guarantee about next weekend.
- Desert Hiking Safety: Heat, Water, and Flash Floods
- The Best Hikes Around St. George (Beyond Snow Canyon)
- St. George's Paved Trails: Biking, E-Biking, and Walking
When the canyon is full
Zion Canyon fills early in spring and autumn, and a full canyon is a genuinely worse day. Kolob Canyons, the park's northern section off I-15, has its own trailheads and a fraction of the traffic, and is closer to St. George than Springdale is. Beyond the park boundary, the desert around St. George holds slot canyons, lava tubes and slickrock of its own with no shuttle and no line to stand in.
Frequently asked questions
Which Zion hikes need a permit?
Some of the best-known ones do. Angels Landing is the significant case — the chained final section is managed by a permit lottery, and rangers check permits at Scout Lookout, so this is not a rule you can walk past. Anyone can hike as far as Scout Lookout without one, and the view from there is the one most photographs are actually taken from. The Subway and a top-down traverse of the Narrows are also permitted, as is all overnight backcountry travel. Everything else in the canyon — Emerald Pools, Watchman, Pa'rus, Canyon Overlook, Observation Point from the east, and the Narrows walked upstream and back from the Temple of Sinawava — needs nothing but an entry pass. Permit systems get revised, so confirm the current rules with the National Park Service before you build a day around one.
What is the drive through the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel like?
The Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel, drilled through the sandstone in the late 1920s, carries the highway between the canyon floor and the park's east side. It was built for the vehicles of its day and is too narrow for two large ones to pass, so anything oversized — most RVs, trailers and large trucks — is escorted through one direction at a time, which requires a permit and involves waiting. Cyclists and pedestrians are not allowed in it at all. If you are driving something big, plan the east side around this rather than discovering it at the tunnel mouth.
What are the best hikes in Zion National Park?
It depends on which of three things you are short of. If you are short of time, Canyon Overlook on the east side gives the most view per mile in the park — half a mile each way and about 154 feet of climbing to a viewpoint over the whole lower canyon. If you are short of a permit, walk the Angels Landing trail as far as Scout Lookout and stop where the chains start; you get the switchbacks, the height and most of the view without the lottery. If you are short of nothing, the Narrows walked upstream from the Temple of Sinawava is the hike people remember years later, because it is the one that is unlike anywhere else. The trails everyone agrees on are Angels Landing, the Narrows and Emerald Pools, and the first two of those are the ones worth planning a trip around rather than fitting in.
Are there easy or accessible hikes in Zion?
Yes, and two trails stand out. The Pa'rus Trail runs 3.5 miles round trip from the visitor center to Canyon Junction with roughly 50 feet of elevation change, is paved and wide, and is described by the park as its most accessible trail; it is also the only trail in Zion that allows dogs and bicycles. The Riverside Walk at the Temple of Sinawava is 2.2 miles round trip, paved, and listed as wheelchair accessible with assistance — it is also the approach to the mouth of the Narrows, so you can walk it and decide about the river once you can see it. Beyond those two, the Lower Emerald Pool Trail from Zion Lodge is 1.2 miles with about 69 feet of climbing, and the Grotto Trail is a flat mile. Trail surfaces change with weather and repair work, so confirm conditions with the park if accessibility is the deciding factor.
What is the best time of day to hike in Zion?
Early, and the reason is geometry rather than crowds. Zion Canyon runs roughly north to south between walls that rise about half a mile, so the canyon floor holds shade at both ends of the day and takes direct sun mainly in the middle of it. Starting at first light buys real shade on the climbing sections and gets you off the exposed switchbacks before the hottest part of the afternoon. The east side of the park, beyond the tunnel, works the opposite way: it is open slickrock with no walls to hide behind and takes sun all day, which is why a short trail like Canyon Overlook is better done early or late than at noon. In winter the calculation inverts on shaded north-facing sections, where ice forms and lingers precisely because the sun never reaches them.