The most overlooked real hike in Zion, and the reason is structural: it starts at the place everyone is trying to leave.
Stop 1 is where you line up for the shuttle. Almost nobody looks at the trailhead sign twenty yards away.
What you get
3.3 miles, 368 feet, no shuttle, no permit, no line.
A steady climb up the east side of the canyon to a bench on a bluff, with the Watchman opposite, Springdale below, and the Virgin River running between them. A short loop at the top gives you the whole view.
It is not the upper canyon. Nobody is going to mistake this for Angels Landing. What it is instead is a hike you can do at 5 p.m. on the day you arrive, before you have worked out how anything else here functions.
Why evening
The trail faces west and is fully exposed. In July, midday on it is miserable.
In the last two hours of light the whole thing inverts: the heat drops, the Watchman goes orange, and you are standing above a canyon with almost nobody else on the path. It is the best sunset in the park that does not require planning.
Bring more water than 3.3 miles suggests, because the climb is on the way out and the sun is on you the whole time.
Who it suits
Arrival day. You have driven from Las Vegas, the shuttle has stopped or the line is absurd, and you want to have actually been somewhere.
Families. No drop-offs, no scrambling, a clear turnaround point, and a parking lot at the bottom with restrooms and water.
Anyone staying in Springdale without a car. Walk in through the pedestrian entrance, hike it, walk back out to dinner.