The one thing that shapes a Zion itinerary is the Angels Landing day-before lottery. It closes at 3 p.m. and tells you at 4 whether you are on the chains tomorrow. So the plan below enters it every afternoon, keeps tomorrow morning open for either answer, and puts the Narrows on whichever day the permit is not. Everything else fits around that and around the shuttle’s first and last buses.
Every day assumes you are in Springdale or at the Lodge, and that it is shuttle season (roughly March to November), when the Scenic Drive is closed to cars.
Before you arrive
- Seasonal lottery, if the window is open. You rank up to seven day-and-time choices months ahead. Weekdays have better odds. The windows are on the permit page.
- Rent Narrows gear ahead in high season, so there is a package in your size. See the Narrows page.
- Know the two bus times that matter. The first park shuttle leaves the Visitor Center at 7:00 a.m. The last one out of the Temple of Sinawava is 7:15 p.m. until 24 October and 6:15 p.m. from 25 October. In summer the park’s lots are often full by 9 a.m.
Three days
Day 1, the afternoon you arrive
- Before 3 p.m.: enter the day-before lottery for tomorrow on recreation.gov. $6 to apply, covering up to six people.
- Afternoon: ride the shuttle to stop 5 for the Lower Emerald Pool — 0.6 miles each way on pavement — or the Middle trail if you want the view. Or walk the Pa’rus from the Visitor Center. Emerald Pools has all three routes.
- 4 p.m.: results. They decide tomorrow.
Day 2, if you won a permit: Angels Landing
- First shuttle, 7:00 a.m., to stop 6, the Grotto. 5.4 miles and 1,488 feet round trip, about four hours for most people. Fill up at the Grotto: it is the last drinkable water on the trail, and the park suggests a gallon a person a day. See Angels Landing.
- Afternoon: the Riverside Walk at stop 9, a mile of pavement to where the Narrows begins, if your legs have it.
- Before 3 p.m.: enter the lottery again only if someone in the group still wants a permit.
Day 2, if you did not: the Narrows
- First shuttle, straight to stop 9, the Temple of Sinawava. Almost everyone gets off earlier, so going to the end first puts you ahead of them. Walk the mile of Riverside Walk and step into the river. Walk up as far as you like and turn back; Big Spring, the limit without a permit, is 9.4 miles out and back.
- Before 3 p.m.: enter the lottery again for Day 3.
- Evening: home on a bus well before the last one.
Day 3: whichever of the two you have not done — or the east side
- If Day 3’s lottery came through, it is Angels Landing; if not, it is the Narrows or the no-permit version of Angels Landing: Scout Lookout, 2.25 miles and about 1,000 feet from the Grotto, with the canyon view and none of the chains.
- Or drive east. A rockfall closed the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway to through traffic from Canyon Junction to the East Entrance from 30 September to 9 October 2026; it is open again, and if it closes, the east side from Springdale is a drive of two and a half hours or more round by Kanab. Highway 9 has no shuttle restriction. Canyon Overlook is a mile round trip past the tunnel, with a lot that fills before sunrise in high season. Observation Point from the East Mesa Trailhead is 6.8 miles round trip with about 300 feet of climbing — a higher view than Angels Landing, with no permit — but the trailhead is up a dirt road that needs high clearance or four-wheel drive. See Canyon Overlook, Observation Point and the closure on the tunnel page. While it lasts, Kolob Canyons, 40 miles north at Exit 40 on I-15, is the third-day drive.
- Bryce next? With the tunnel road open, Day 3’s drive east is the start of the road there. While it is closed, Bryce is two and a half to three and a half hours from Springdale by I-15 and Highway 20 — the Park Service’s figure and the router’s. The drive times, and where to sleep on the way, are on Zion and Bryce on one trip.
- Antelope Canyon next? Page, Arizona, is about 120 miles on through the tunnel and Kanab, two and a half to three hours each way, and every visit to the canyon is a guided Navajo tour on Arizona time, an hour behind Zion from March to early November. Which tour, which canyon and which clock are on the Antelope Canyon page.
- The Grand Canyon next? Its North Rim is the close one, about 122 miles on through the tunnel and Kanab, about three hours each way, and closed to cars every year from 1 December to 14 May; the South Rim is about 250 miles away, a trip with a night in it. Which rim, what is open and the tours are on the Grand Canyon page.
- Moab next? Arches and Canyonlands are about 345 miles away, five to six hours by I-15 and I-70, or two days by Bryce and Capitol Reef. Arches needs no timed-entry reservation in 2026, and neither park charges the $100 nonresident fee. The drive, the entry rules and the tours are on the Moab page.
Two days
Day 1 as above, with the lottery entry. Day 2 is Angels Landing if you won, the Narrows if you did not — and on the Narrows day, Scout Lookout is still open to you in the afternoon if you are fit and the buses allow it.
One day
- 7:00 a.m. shuttle to stop 9. The Riverside Walk and the first stretch of the Narrows — an hour upstream to where the walls close in is enough for many people.
- Back down to stop 6 for Scout Lookout, if you have the legs: 2.25 miles each way and about 1,000 feet of climbing, no permit.
- Stop 5 on the way down for the Lower Emerald Pool.
- Out on a bus well before the last one. If the last bus is full, the Park Service’s warning is that the walk back is nine miles.
Angels Landing itself is not on a one-day plan unless you entered the day-before lottery the afternoon before you arrived.
A day trip from Las Vegas, 164 miles away, spends about six hours on the road. How much of this plan a Zion day trip from Vegas leaves you, tour by tour, is on that page.
When the weather turns
Rain or a flood warning. The Narrows closes to all travel when the National Weather Service issues a Flash Flood Warning, and stays closed for at least two hours after it lifts. The Park Service’s advice on the chains is not to go up when the rock is wet: most accidents there happen in wet conditions. The flood ratings are explained on the flash flood page.
What still works: the shuttle for the viewpoints — Court of the Patriarchs, Big Bend — the Human History Museum at stop 2 (reached on a down-canyon bus), the Kolob Canyons road 40 miles north at Exit 40 (see Kolob Canyons), or a guided e-bike ride on a dry afternoon.
Heat. Summer is regularly over 100°F. Start the exposed hikes early — Angels Landing on the first bus, Canyon Overlook at sunrise — save the shaded Narrows for the middle of the day, and carry a gallon a person.
Closed or changed this season
- The Watchman Trail is closed pending repairs as of 16 October 2026, with no reopening date, so the usual arrival-evening hike is off the list until it reopens. The park’s ranger-led hike on it is canceled up to 17 October, the last date of its fall series, and none is scheduled after that. Its page has the details.
- The tunnel road — the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway from Canyon Junction to the East Entrance — was closed to through traffic from 30 September to 9 October 2026, after a rockfall, and is open again. The Scenic Drive and the shuttle were not affected. UDOT’s construction inside the park continues into 2027, Monday to Thursday. The tunnel page has the detours if it closes again and the latest.
- The East Rim Trail no longer connects to Zion Canyon after a major rockfall, so there is no walking route from the canyon floor up to Observation Point.
If you would rather be guided
Three guided trips start in Springdale and fit this plan. Two can replace Day 2’s Narrows: a private hike with a guide for your party alone and the cold-water gear included, with dates from October to February and again from June, and a full day in the Narrows with a guide, hotel pickup and the outfitter stop built into the day, once its dates begin on 1 March 2027. The third, a guided e-bike ride of three to four hours up the Scenic Drive, fits Day 1’s afternoon. All three are below, with the wider catalog. For a half day on ropes, the guided canyoneering tours all run on the land just outside the park.
