H and I are planning a trip (or trying to). We would fly into Las Vegas and visit family and then 3-4 night near Bryce, 2-3 Zion and back and out of Las Vegas. This is the last two weeks of Sept.
If we can not find good housing then we could wait until the first of Oct.
Hotel opinions? Food? Trails? Drives? Anythng at all is welcome!
Thanks!
You have to hike the narrows in zion. Rent your boots and hiking sticks at either zion adventures or zion rock.
The hike is a slot canyon which has a river flowing at the bottom so you spend time hiking in a river on bowling ball sized rocks. It’s 5 miles in and same 5 miles out with fairly flat gain in elevation. You can turn around at any time (ie 2 miles in and 2 miles out). It’s incredible!! Bring a waterproof bag or Baggie for your camera. Pick up food for your day pack from sol market. Meme’s cafe had a great brunch.
Try calling the national parks vendor, zanterra and see what lodging they have IN the park. That’s always our first choice. It may cost slightly more, but that may be a shoulder season with lower prices. I believe you may also be able to search online to check availability at each if those parks. Sounds awesome!
If you are driving from Las Vegas to the parks, St. George is along the way and a great stop for lunch and is a mountain biker’s haven.
We stayed at the Bryce Canyon Lodge inside the park and it was quite nice. If you can get a cabin, even better.
We did a sunset hike on one of the hoodoo trails in Bryce Canyon – stunning vistas. Sunrise would be even better if you can get there early enough. Bryce Canyon has some pretty high elevations if that is a concern.
As you’ll be in the middle of nowhere at night, consider doing some stargazing.
I second the recommendation to hike the Narrows in Zion. It was the highlight of our trip. We were so happy that we rented the boots and hiking sticks - I would consider it a necessity. We were amazed at the number of people who struggled along trying to do this hike without the proper equipment.
We also did the Angels Landing hike in Zion. It was pretty cool with great views, if you are not afraid of heights. If you don’t want to do the last bit where you have to hold onto chains - there are places to turn off.
We also did one hike in Bryce on horseback / mules. It was fun for something a little different. Although my husband’s mule likes to walk right on the edge which made him a little nervous :). And they didn’t allow us to carry our own water and ran out of water to give us (it was a very hot day in the middle of the summer). So after the hike my daughter almost passed out from dehydration. You should be fine in late September, though.
I am going to second the mule ride, only make sure you get a mule! We did this years ago after hiking down and up the Grand Canyon. This was like luxury after that! I was the only one in the family to get a mule, everyone else got a horse. I was a little put out until the trail ride began. Mules, as it turns out, are much more comfortable. They have an extra vertebra in their back and their walk is smoother. And they truly are more surefooted. They swing their heads to see where their feet are going. No stumbling like the horses. Anyways, you can really enjoy the views from either animals.
As for Zion, get there early before it gets crowded.
Such gorgeous country!
Definitely check with the lodges inside the parks. And keep trying because spaces open up due to cancellations.
Zion: Another vote for doing the Narrows. It really is incredibly fun! The Zion Lodge is a nice place to stay. One of the benefits of having a room at the lodge is that you can drive in as far as the lodge. While the little town at the entrance to Zion (Springdale) has several nice places to stay, you will have to take the shuttle in and out.
Bryce: The cabins at the lodge at Bryce are also very charming, old-fashioned, pleasant. The advantage is that you are right at the canyon just a short walk from the spectacular views. Bryce has some of the darkest skies in the country and star gazing is a big thing there. If you are interested in a star gazing ranger hike, sign up in advance. The hikes among the hoodoos are fabulous and not difficult.
Have a great time.
Thanks! Not a huge lover of height and drop off’s so a little concerned there. I do realize these are canyons, though!
I have had vertigo a few times on cliffs and so do need to be careful.
I am looking forward to seeing the stars, somehow it always puts thing in perspective.
Wil be calling the lodges and thanks for the tips.
The Cliffrose Lodge in Zion. Loved it! Great location, beautiful property. My kids still talk about it. There is so much to see in Zion, we preferred it over Bryce. I would recommend more time at Zion, less at Bryce. You can get excellent information on the TripAdvisor dot com forums. I found them to be very helpful.
Normally I’m not good with heights, but Bryce and the Grand Canyon were so big and strange that my brain didn’t evaluate them as being dangerous at all. Truly an odd experience!
Anyone else? More time at Bryce or more time at Zion?
happymom, that is interesting. My vertigo has been on hikes with sheer drop offs. Twice I had to crawl back.
Be careful. At college orientation 6 years ago, my older daughter found out that the mother of a new classmate had died a few months earlier, when she fell off a cliff at Zion during a family vacation.
Zion is quite a bit bigger than Bryce, so I would vote for more time at Zion. So maybe, 2-3 nights at Bryce and 3-4 at Zion would be a better balance. Both are truly spectacular places to visit and should be quite beautiful at that time of year.
I vote for more time in Zion! Both Zion and Bryce are amazing national parks, but I seem to remember more varied hikes and sightseeing in Zion. We loved the Narrows-agree with everyone above to rent the boots and hiking sticks. I think that you should skip Angel’s landing given your history of vertigo. It’s one of my favorites, but you climb very high and at the edge of cliffs, and my guess is that’s where the accident happened that @rosered55 referred to. I don’t recall anything else that seemed so dangerous. A lot of the beauty is also being in the canyons and looking up. You’ll have a great time at both parks!
Agree that the Zion accident was at Angel’s Landing. Unlike Grand Canyon and Bryce, where you are touring along the rim of the canyon, at Zion one enters at the bottom of the canyon. It is wide enough for a road, hiking trail, and river. After a while it narrows to just the river and hiking trail, then just the river. Very different experience!
I would take a day from the Bryce section and do a drive at least to Escalante, and preferably up to Torrey and Capitol Reef Nat’l Park. Bit over 100 miles one way to Torrey. The road basically goes through the Grand Staircase-Escalante Nat’l Monument and is spectacular!! You get such a wonderful visual of the geology and the layers that make up the Grand Staircase (the whites, the pinks, the yellows…). Getting out of Zion/Bryce and out into the Grand Staircase, you will see vistas that exist nowhere else in this country, if not the world.
I love Bryce but it is a bit of a one-hit wonder. You can hike through hoodoos and then you can hike through hoodoos some more. Couple of days max for the Park itself is my recommendation. Spend a day in Bryce, go to Torrey the next day for lunch (good places to eat) with a leisurely drive back stopping at various spectacular vistas. Escalante Outfitters is also a cafe and is a must stop spot, could have lunch there if slow getting going in the morning. Then maybe another day in Bryce or surrounding areas.
The Narrows are really cool and the water level should be down pretty low making hiking easier. We were one of the people without ‘proper equipment’ having only our Tevas on as we really didn’t plan to hike up the River. One step led to another… only made it up a couple of miles though before got hungry and turned back.
Also love the drive between Zion and Bryce…Long tunnel with windows! My favorite part of the country.
When we hiked the Narrows at Zion about ten years ago, no one rented anything. We just wore old running shoes that we didn’t mind getting soaked, muddy, or otherwise trashed in the stream, and there were plenty of free hiking sticks available. People just left them at the bottom for others to use. We made it all the way up without that much difficulty. And when we got back down to the bottom we left the hiking sticks for others too.
We also climbed all the way to the top of Angel’s Landing too. I’d say that was more physically demanding than the Narrows. Once we got on top of Angel’s Landing I had the thrill of watching a peregrine falcon circling around and swooping on a hunt, and I was watching it from ABOVE. Normally the only view you get of hunting raptors is from below.
Overall, the Zion/Bryce vacation was a great trip.
Also, there is a lot of fascinating geology to learn in these parks. We were fortunate to have with us my sister-in-law who is a professional geologist. She was pointing out fault lines and other features and explaining things that the guides and guidebooks made no mention of.
The guidebooks do mention the geological “staircase” nature of these national parks - the bottom geological layer of Bryce is same one that makes up the top layer of Zion. And the bottom layer of Zion is the top layer of the Grand Canyon.
^^ Absolutely,
This is my favorite depiction of the entire area. Zion and Bryce on the left of the picture.
I have this poster up at home 
