Zion National Park

Zion Canyon is the park most people picture: the Virgin River running clear and cold between walls of cream, salmon and rust-red Navajo Sandstone that climb more than 2,000 feet. The scale is the point. Cottonwoods turn the canyon floor green in summer and gold in late October, hanging gardens drip from seeps in the cliffs, and the light changes the color of the rock by the hour.

For most of the year the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive is closed to private cars and served by a free park shuttle that stops at every major trailhead, from the Court of the Patriarchs to the Temple of Sinawava at the canyon’s end. Park in Springdale, catch the town shuttle to the pedestrian entrance, and let the bus do the work. The arrangement keeps the canyon quieter than its visitor numbers would suggest.

The classic hikes are famous for good reason. The Narrows, wading upstream from the end of the Riverside Walk, puts you inside the river with the walls a few dozen feet apart. Angels Landing climbs a knife-edge fin with chains bolted to the rock and requires a permit from a lottery. The Emerald Pools, the Watchman and the Pa’rus Trail are gentler, and the Canyon Overlook Trail on the east side gives a big view for a short walk.

Zion is bigger than the main canyon. The Zion–Mount Carmel Highway climbs switchbacks and a 1930s tunnel to slickrock country full of checkerboard mesas and bighorn sheep. Kolob Canyons, off I-15 south of Cedar City, is a separate section with a five-mile scenic drive to finger canyons of deep red rock and a fraction of the crowds.