Zion Side Trip

When I was planning for our trip to Zion National Park, I noticed that we would be just about 100 miles from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

I’ve been to the South Rim several times, but never made the trek around the canyon to see the North Rim. We decided to make it a day trip.

We started out in the morning by driving out the West gate of the park. It’s quite the drive, a steep climb with lots of hair pin turns.

After leaving the tunnel (which is quite the engineering feat), the drive is pretty easy. We stopped for lunch at the Jacob Lake in Arizona, about ½ way to the Grand Canyon.

We were amazed at how much of the forest has burned recently.

After a little more driving we arrived at the entrance to the North Rim.

We drove to several look-out points and wandered around. It was much like the South Rim, just less crowded and 1000 feet higher elevation (we wandered out to point Imperial, at 8800 feet the highest point in the park)

The roads are pretty narrow, and the jerks in SUV’s and large trucks speeding around corners using both lanes can make for some white knuckle moments, but it was worth the drive.