Great Western Road Trip: Zion National Park is Beautiful and Deadly

Zion National Park is located in southwest Utah along Highway 9, just off Route 89. It's a park of contrasts, with flat, calm valley floors and threatening sandstone giants towering overhead. There are activities to be enjoyed requiring very little effort and others only for the most foolhardy. It's an amazing place.

Zion National Park is entered from the east by a mile-long tunnel carved through the mountains in the 1920s. As you come out the other side the pure contrast between the cliff faces overhead and the green valley floor below is obvious. After a few switchbacks on the road you come to the flat and wide green valley floor that curves between the largest sandstone monoliths in the world.

According to geology, the towering sandstone giants of Zion National Park were once the largest sand dunes in the world, at over 3000 feet each. After time and weather turned them into rock, the Virgin River came along carved a canyon through the middle of them. This water is what provides the beautiful contrast, making the valley deeper and supporting the lush green vegetation that stands distinctly different from the deep red sandstone that rises every higher overhead.

Like all the other national parks, this one has a great visitor center with great models and explanations of the parks ecology and geology as well as helpful park rangers to fill you in on any other details you're interested in. Zion National Park offers standard hotel-style lodging as well as traditional campgrounds and backcountry camping.

Zion National Park has some really easy and rewarding hiking trails as well as some incredibly difficult and dangerous ones. Some of the easier ones include the Weeping Rock trail and the Lower Emerald Pool trail, whereas some of the more difficult ones include the Narrows and the infamous Angel's Landing.