zion – life on macro.

Observation Point. Take the shuttle to the Weeping Rock stop.

If you’re short on time and deciding between Observation Point or Angel’s Landing, I’d pick the latter. Angel’s Landing has more of a thrill factor with the chains and the narrow paths — lots of picture opportunities and you can be done in 2.5 hrs. Observation Point is a strenuous 5-hour hike, 8 miles round trip, and has similar views as Angel’s Landing (but higher and has a nice panoramic view). It IS longer and steeper, so I would start earlier in the day to avoid the sun.

Definitely bring some snacks and lots of water. This is really good, by the way. Rip van Wafels! Dark chocolate sea salt. Sorry for the dark picture.

This was a similar viewpoint as Angel’s Landing (previous post here).

Some people rock climb in this crevasse. Pretty cool.

After this hike, we left Zion and drove towards Bryce Canyon National Park.

The drive was insanely awesome. Very scenic, no boring roads here.

Checkerboard mesa. Look at the checkerboard marks!

You can see we’re leaving Zion when the road abruptly stops being red.

We stopped by this gift shop/restaurant for huckleberry ice cream.

Onward to Bryce!

We got to the campground (near Bryce) around sunset. After we set up camp, we drove into Bryce Canyon to eat at the lodge restaurant. You can drive right into the park after hours for the restaurant.

Hoodoo beer!

Some notes about the campgrounds: I recommend all the ones we stayed at — they will be listed at the bottom of each post. They were all very clean and had great individual showers, which was important to me…

Campsite Info:
Ruby’s Inn Campground
300 So. Main Hwy 63,
Bryce Canyon, Utah. 84764
$62.78 for 2 nights

We drove from Las Vegas to Zion National Park, Utah. You’ll know you’re in Zion when all the rocks turn red.

Since it was September, we had to park the car in the parking lot at the entrance and take the free shuttle to get to different parts of the park. In the winter time, they let you drive into the park since there are less visitors. Get there early to get a spot!

The Zion Canyon Shuttle stops at nine locations in the park. Buses run frequently throughout the day, as often as every seven minutes.

I wanted to hike up Angel’s Landing ever since I heard of it — it’s so narrow at the top that “only an angel can land on it”, and I wanted to conquer my fear of heights. There are chains for you to hold onto!