The Zion of My Dreams

Have you ever heard someone say, “Zion is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,”? They are not lying. It’s incredible. When we first came through the tunnel from the East entrance and it opened up to a canyon, I literally gasped. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL….see unedited unphotoshopped photo below for proof.

We love the Junior Ranger Program through the National Park Service. It gives our kids a chance to really learn about the place we’re visiting, and to record and be rewarded for those thoughts and efforts. Each park has some version of a workbook (interestingly, they are all different formats!) that prompts kids with questions and activities around that particular park. It’s awesome. Often the requirements (I use that word loosely) include attending a ranger talk in the park. The talk we attended at Zion was SO good and was better than any science lesson I could have ever pulled together! The ranger who gave the talk was a geology expert and it showed. We learned SO MUCH about the history of Zion from a geological perspective (and lots about how all the pieces of the Grand Staircase fit together….Google it). At the end of it all (the rangers do actually “check” the workbook and ask the kids questions about their time in the park) they get sworn in as junior rangers by a ranger from the park and are given a pin. We opted to purchase vests for all the pins as kind of a fun way to collect/store them, and all because we are suckers.

We did a short little hike (calling it a hike is generous) to Weeping Rock. It is estimated that the water dripping from the rock has taken nearly 1,000 years to get from the very top of the mountain/hill/cliff down to where we were standing. ONE THOUSAND YEARS.

There were several hikes that rangers considered “family friendly” followed by the warning that they had several hundred foot drops and narrow paths. SOOO….needless to say, we explored and enjoyed the surroundings a little more simply at Zion rather than deep into the trails of the park (we’re going back for that someday, 100%). That said, the beauty at this park is EVERYWHERE and you should drop what you’re doing and start planning your visit immediately. We spent an afternoon at the Zion Lodge, enjoying the beer garden, the giant green space for the kids to run around like yahoos, and to be surrounded by the greatness of the park. We can’t wait to go back when the kids are a tad older and do ALL the things.

*we visited Zion National Park October 2023