It’s my eventual goal to hike every national park in the U.S, so for the past couple of years, I’ve been asking my in-laws for a National Parks Pass for Christmas as a good motivator to wrangle Ryan into a couple NP trips throughout the year. When my NP pass was bestowed on me for 2022 and we didn’t have any Spring Break plans, I knew we needed to go on another camping trip. Popular national parks tend to fill up quickly (like 6 months out), but by some miracle, there were still a handful of spots available in March for Zion, one of the parks we’d been wanting to make it out to. So at the start of my Spring Break, we packed up all our camping and hiking gear and made the 27-hour drive from Kentucky to Utah.

Our last two camping trips have been varied when it comes to amenities. When we camped in Congaree National Park in May 2021, we had to hike a mile through the woods to reach a toilet or running water (which, as you can imagine, is not ideal when it’s nighttime and the woods transform into the Slenderman forest). We were also completely alone in a forested clearing (a mile away from anyone or anything) for at least one day/night. Our trip to Vermont didn’t involve a hike to the bathroom at least; however, with the limited and spread-out campsites, we felt very much alone in the woods for a couple days when there were no other campers around. This might appeal to some people, but I have anxiety about serial killers and bears, so I sometimes found it hard to sleep in these conditions.

The Watchman Campground at Zion National Park was comparably the Gatlinburg of campgrounds. It had electric lights in the bathrooms. It had two stalled bathrooms and two family bathrooms (ideal during COVID). It even had a sink for washing dishes. There were campers at every other site in the area, and it was essentially just concrete pads with wooden pergolas at each site, meaning there weren’t obstructions to visibility. You were sleeping on hard-packed dirt rather than grass, so I was glad for my sleeping pad; otherwise, I loved this campsite. Just make sure you stake your tent down securely because the wind does get strong at night!

Watchman Trail - 3.3 miles, out and back

This was the first trail we did on our first full day in the park. As you can probably judge by the name, it was right next to our campground and allowed us to sleep in much later than we did our other two days. This is a moderate-ranked trail, which neither of us found difficult. It did have a few sections that were uphill (it climbs 368 ft), and we saw some deer that Ryan was (irrationally) afraid would start attacking us. Otherwise, it was a relatively easy trail to an overlook of the Watchman, Temples, and Towers, lower Zion Canyon, and the Town of Springdale.

Pa’rus Trail (3.4 miles, out and back)

It was while we were on the Watchman Trail that a kind older woman struck up a conversation with us about how the road into the canyon had already been closed for the morning. “Closed?” we asked. You see, I’m normally the one who intensely plans out all our trips; however, I’m in a PhD program, and my brain had been completely focused on reading a 700-page Victorian novel every other week and teaching my own classes, so I’d failed to adequately research the driving/parking situation beyond the fact that we didn’t have to take the high-season shuttle into the park. Thus, it wasn’t until this conversation with this woman that we learned that most people woke up around 6-7 a.m. to drive into the canyon section of the park (where the most popular trails are), and there was very limited parking. As a result, when the parking was full, they’d close the road and reopen it later once people started to leave.

With this under consideration, we ate lunch at the campsite and opted to kill some time before the road reopened by hiking the Pa’rus Trail, which departs from the visitor’s center, walking distance from the campground. I’ll be honest: I did not feel that this trail was worth it. Maybe it was because it was completely unshaded and felt ridiculously hot for like 75 degrees. Maybe it was because the trail was just barren desert half the time and another campground the other half. Looking back, this trail doesn’t hold a candle to the others from this trip.

Zion-Mount Carmel Highway

At this point, the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive was still closed; however, we could access Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, which runs along the outside of the canyon. This road takes you through the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel, a 1.1-mile sandstone tunnel constructed in the 20s and completed in 1930. At the time, it was the longest tunnel of its type in the U.S. This route also takes you past Checkerboard Mesa, a huge sandstone rock formation naturally cut into a grid reminiscent of a checkerboard.

Canyon Overlook Trail (1 mile, out and back)

The trailhead for this short trail is found immediately to the right after the tunnel. Parking is extremely limited, and there isn’t always room to park off the side of the road (we saw one brave Subaru who parked off the side and only had two wheels on the ground, and we thought it might genuinely roll down into the canyon). We ended up having to park further down the road and walk a quarter mile down to the trailhead. The walk isn’t pleasant, as there isn’t a lot of room on the shoulder, and many cars blaze down the road going over the speed limit.

The trail begins with a set of sandstone steps ascending the ridge. These are easier to go up than down (and give a teeny tiny taste of what’s in store at Angel’s Landing). This trail is rated as moderate, and due to this first portion alone, I was glad to have a trekking pole. There are railings beside drop offs, but you should watch your step along the slick portions, particularly around the boardwalk.

After this hike, the scenic drive was finally open, so we decided to scope out the parking situation for the next morning, when we planned to do the Narrows. The road was still packed, no parking at any of the popular hikes, so we knew we’d need an early night to prepare for an early start the next day.

Up Next: Zion National Park (Day Two): The Narrows and the Emerald Pools