There are two ways to ride a horse at Zion, and they are not competing products so much as different things that happen to involve a horse.
Inside the park: one operator, fixed times, fixed prices
One company, Canyon Trail Rides, holds the park concession, and it runs two guided horse and mule rides: an hour along the Virgin River, or three hours on the Sand Bench Trail. This is not a market with ten operators to compare. These are its terms as listed in September 2026.
| Virgin River Ride | Sand Bench Trail | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 1 hour | 3 hours |
| Price | $60 per person | $125 per person |
| Minimum age | 7 | 10 |
| Weight limit | 220 lbs | 220 lbs |
| Departures | 9:30, 11:00, 2:00, 3:30 | 9:00, 1:30 |
The three-hour ride “will take you around the Sandbench Trail, gradually ascending 500 feet.”
Where you meet: the Emerald Pools trailhead parking lot, across the road from Zion Lodge. Check in 30 minutes before the ride. In shuttle season that is stop 5. The Park Service lets Canyon Trail Rides guests with a reservation drive the Scenic Drive to designated parking, with a pass or code issued at booking; everyone else rides the shuttle, so build it into the 30-minutes-early arrival.
Season. The Park Service says rides “typically begin mid-March and run through October 31st, depending on weather.” The operator’s own page says “March – October.” Close, not identical, and the difference is a couple of weeks in March.
Cancellation: “24 hours in advance of reservation to qualify for a refund for the cost of the ride. Online booking fees are non-refundable.”
One operator, three names
The same operator brands itself three ways. Its footer says Canyon Trail Rides. Its Zion page says Bryce-Zion Trail Rides is an Authorized Concessioner of the National Park Service. The Park Service calls it Canyon Trail Rides, the name this page uses.
The 220-pound number
Both in-park rides cap at 220 pounds, the East Zion ride below sets the same strict limit, and this is worth planning around rather than discovering. If anyone in your group is near it, that decides your day before anything else does.
The minimum ages do similar work: a family with an eight-year-old can do the one-hour ride and cannot do the three-hour one.
Bringing your own horse
Unusually permissive, as national parks go. Day trips with your own horses, mules or burros need no permit. There is one overnight stock camp in the park, Hop Valley Site A, for one night and on a Wilderness permit. The condition that catches people who did not plan ahead: stock must eat certified weed-free hay for two days before the trip.
And a scheduling irony worth knowing: the Park Service lists “Sandbench Trail (open to public use from November 1 to March 1 only).” The trail the commercial ride uses is closed to private stock in precisely the months the concession operates.
What each ride actually is
The in-park one-hour ride follows the Virgin River for about a mile to the Court of the Patriarchs and back to the corral, in the concessioner’s own description. $60, age 7 and up. It is the one to pick if the point is being on a horse inside Zion Canyon itself, with children.
The in-park three-hour ride goes around the Sand Bench Trail, “gradually ascending 500 feet” to a view over the south end of the park. $125, age 10 and up. For a family whose youngest is ten, it is the in-park ride that gets you above the valley floor.
The East Zion ride below is on the land east of the park, in a group of six at most. It suits beginners: a short lesson at the stables, then about 25 minutes in the saddle to the mouth of the slot canyon at Red Hollow, where you dismount and walk on up it before riding back. Riders must be 8 or older and under 220 pounds. It is outside the boundary, which matters for the same reason it matters on the slot canyon page: guided activities are prohibited in Zion Wilderness, so the east-side country is where a guided ride can reach a slot canyon.
Pick the in-park hour if being inside Zion Canyon on a horse is the specific thing you want. Pick the East Zion ride if the slot canyon is.
