Visiting Zion

We woke up from our yurt camping and it was time to make our way to the final part of our “fall break” National Park tour. We arrived at the entrance to Zion National Park just before lunchtime and drove through the windy thoroughfare to the town at the south entrance of the park. Lunch was at a casual spot — MeMe’s Cafe – nice spot for salads, creative sandwiches and yummy vegetarian (and not-so) crepes. Recharged with some food in our bellies, we decided to spend the first day at a few lookout spots in the park.

We and especially the boys spent some time exploring around a beautiful river

and visited the lookout for the Checkerboard Mesa:

Then it was time to settle in at Zion Mountain Ranch, our home for 4 days. We rented a two bedroom cabin with a beautiful lookout (two porches!). The Ranch is a working buffalo farm and has a great restaurant at the entrance to the property.

Since it was the 2020 election our first night of the visit, we cozied in and ordered takeout.

On our second day, we went back into Zion and took the boys on a hike to a beautiful lookout. The entrance to the hike was just on the east side of the mountain road tunnel – very tough to find parking in Zion. Along the way there were a number of rock outcrops for the boys to explore — an interesting and not too challenging trail.

After the hike, we headed back into the town at the south entrance of Zion. We grabbed cold drinks at the Zion Pub area and enjoyed an early dinner at Whiptail Cafe — Mexican with a twist — and the most amazing goat cheese chile relleno!

On our last full day in Zion, we purchased shuttle tickets so that we could visit the north area of the park where all of the notable hikes begin. Typically the shuttle in Zion is open for anyone to take, but to keep crowds down in the park, shuttle tickets were limited. The hike we targeted was to Angel’s landing — there’s a several mile, very steep hike up to an outlook and then a dangerous section of hike from there that we agreed William would do solo. The general portion of the hike was our hardest and most rewarding of the trip. The boys continued to enjoy all of the hiding places along the way (and of course surprising other passerbys).

While the boys played on the outlook and I read a bit, William took the last ~mile of the trip up to Angel’s Landing. For a good portion of Angel’s landing, hikers must hold onto a metal chain to stay safely on the mountain. We were all happy to see William return!

We were all a good bit zonked and headed to the restaurant at Zion Mountain Ranch for our last meal. We loved trying the buffalo raised on the property (best burger’s ever, said the boys.. or at least top 10). First pictures are our cabin and visiting the horses just outside of the restaurant.