After arriving in Las Vegas the night before after visiting Oregon, we planned to wake up early and make the ~3 hour drive to Utah to visit Zion National Park. Zion has been high on our radar as it is often considered one of the best state parks in the United States. While the drive was long and mostly straight on the highway, it was a unique experience to see Utah – a state that is often quite underrated.

Upon our arrival in Zion National Park, we became accustomed to the layout of the park and the bus system they have in place to get around the park. From a certain point, visitors are not able to drive themselves throughout with their cars, minimizing traffic and to some extent the volume of people hiking on the trails.

Given our limited time to spend in the park (a good couple of hours to make just one hike!), we prioritized the Angel’s Landing hike due to the rave reviews it has received. Little did we know, this is one of the most difficult hikes we have ever been on. The way up is around 5 miles uphill, with multiple sets of switchbacks. Fortunately, we visited on the perfect day – with ideal weather conditions of around 85 degrees and a gentle breeze in most areas. Still, we are pretty athletic people, but this was a challenge. We had a good laugh with several other hikers on the way up, all acknowledging the challenge, yet taking it on. It is a fun experience, but definitely something to keep in mind if you are planning to visit Zion yourself – this is really a state park that requires more than one day to absorb all it has to offer. We already plan to return some day in the future to take on The Narrow’s hike, which requires wading through a river for the majority of the day hike. The views alone just getting up to the top of the peak to see Angel’s Landing are so breathtaking and once you make it to the top with the incredible 360 degree views, you will just want to sit up there for hours to soak it all in.

We’ll leave our collection of personal images from Zion National Park to do the talking, but while we have you, we may as well mention the great food at Zion Brewery we got after. Great outdoor seating and a perfect setting to enjoy pub fare.