Zion shuttle 2026: stops, first and last buses, holiday week

This is the single most common thing people get wrong about Zion, and they usually find out in the parking lot.

For roughly March through November, you cannot drive your own car into Zion Canyon. The Scenic Drive — the road to Angels Landing, the Narrows, the Lodge and most of what people come for — is closed to private vehicles. The shuttle is the only way in.

In winter the shuttle stops and the road opens to cars, which is why winter is a genuinely different trip — with one exception that catches people every year. From 26 December to 2 January the shuttle runs again and the Scenic Drive closes to private vehicles all over again. Dates are in the table below.

The nine stops

The thing that ruins mornings

The line at stop 1. It is free, which means there is nothing to book, which means everyone arrives at the same time and lines up.

The practical version: be at the Visitor Center before 7:00 a.m. in peak season, or accept an hour standing in a parking lot. By mid-morning in summer the line regularly runs well past the building, and the Park Service’s own figure for the wait at busy times is more than an hour.

Three stops only work one way. Buses stop at the Human History Museum (2), Canyon Junction (3) and Big Bend (8) only on the way down the canyon. You cannot board there going up, so plan to start at the Visitor Center, or at the Lodge if you are staying there.

Three things that help and are underused:

Stay in Springdale and walk in. The town shuttle runs to the pedestrian entrance, and walking through the entrance gate puts you at stop 1 without ever parking. If you are staying in town, the car should not move. Which hotels sit at which town-shuttle stop, and how far each is on foot, is on the Springdale hotels page.

Ride to stop 9 first, work backwards. Almost everyone gets off in the first half of the canyon. Going straight to Temple of Sinawava and working back means you are moving against the crowd all day. The itinerary page builds whole days around it and the permit lottery.

Skip the line on a bike. Bicycles may ride the Scenic Drive while it is closed to cars, and an e-bike makes the climb up the canyon easy — but e-bikes are not allowed on the buses, so an e-bike rides back down too. Prices and the rules are on the Zion e-bike and bike rental page.

What it costs

The shuttle is free. The park entrance fee is separate:

If you are visiting more than one national park this year, America the Beautiful pays for itself at the third park — and at Zion it covers entry but not the Angels Landing permit, which is a separate system entirely.

If you are not a US resident, read this line twice

Since the nonresident fee came in, every non-US resident aged 16 and over pays $100 per person on top of the vehicle or per-person entrance fee — so two British adults and two children under 16 in one car pay $35 plus $200, not $35. Children 15 and under pay neither fee. The park waives the $100 for anyone admitted on an annual or America the Beautiful pass, and a pass covers everyone in the pass holder’s private vehicle: foreign visitors riding with a US resident who holds an annual pass pay no nonresident fee at all.

That makes the arithmetic unusual, and almost nobody publishes it: the $70 Zion pass and the $80 America the Beautiful pass are sold only to US citizens and residents, so the pass a non-resident can actually buy is the $250 Non-Resident Annual Pass. At $100 a head, that pass is cheaper than the gate from three people aged 16 and over in one car, and it covers entry to every other federal site for a year on the same trip.

Checked against the park’s fees page and its nonresident fee rules on 16 October 2026. The fee page works through every case.

Season dates, from the park’s own table

The park marks this schedule “subject to change” and has moved it before, so the link below is the thing to re-check — but the 2026 dates are published, and guessing at months when there is a table is not honest. This is the Zion Canyon Line, the bus inside the park, as the park’s page gives it (last updated 4 October 2026, and unchanged on 16 October). The summer timetable has come off the park’s table now that its season is over, and off ours.

The holiday week is the exception that catches people. “Winter means you can drive the canyon” is true from 29 November to 25 December and again after 2 January — but from 26 December to 2 January the shuttle runs again and the Scenic Drive closes to private cars. That is the single busiest week anyone books for winter, and it is the one week in winter the road is shut. Driving, parking and ice in the weeks either side of it are on the winter page. When spring service has started in recent years, and what changes from March to May, is on the spring page.

Do not wait for the last shuttle. The park’s own warning is blunt: if the last bus is full, or you miss it, you may have to walk nine miles back to the Visitor Center. Aim for the one before it.

The Springdale town shuttle runs its own hours. The first bus leaves Hotel De Novo at 8:00 a.m. all season; the last one out of Zion Canyon Village, at the pedestrian entrance, leaves at:

Everything above is from the park’s own shuttle page, which is where to look before you plan a day around a first or last bus. What the 25 October and 29 November changes mean for a fall trip is on the October and November page.