USATourist Community

Hi all

 in a couple of weeks we'll be doing our trip around some of the national parks / canyons in around UTAH and I wondered if anyone could advise me on a couple of points ?

 From Vegas we're going to Zion Canyon and then onto Bryce Canyon, staying in Ruby's Inn for 2 nights.  At Zion we thought to do the tourist shuttle as we will only have around half a day there, does anyone know whether it's best to catch this in Springdale rather than the visitor centre in Zion ?  Has anyone done it previously and how did they rate it ?

 At Bryce we would like to take our own car into the park and do the scenic ride so we can do a couple of short walks etc (We'll have a full day to explore Bryce), but according to the guide books parking is supposedly horrendous and we'd be better off again taking the shuttle.  Would this enable us to do what we want to do ?  Is the parking inside the park as bad as they say ?

I'd really appreciate anyone's views on the park shuttles, waiting times, queues etc, or if we should chance taking the car into Bryce and risk not being able to park.  It would be early September so I thought it may not be quite so crowded.

Any info would be good

Thanks

ChristineB

In Zion National Park, you must take the shuttle into the canyon as they do not allow tourist to drive through the canyon unless you are staying at one of the campgrounds.  The shuttles depart from Springdale and from the visitor center at the entrance to the park.  The best place to catch the shuttle is at the visitor center.  There are plenty of parking facilities at the visitor center and the busses depart every few minutes.  If you catch the bus in Springdale, the departures will not be so frequent.

At Bryce Canyon, you can drive your car to various vantage points around the canyon.  You can park at one of them and hike down into the canyon.  Bryce Canyon is not that big, so you can see most of it in one day.  I do not think you will find any serious parking problems in September.

Ruby's is located just at the entrance to the park and it offers food, lodging and entertainment including a local rodeo performance. 

Thanks for the info Mike, unfortunately the e mail arrived whilst we were away !!

We decided to catch the shuttle to Zion from Springdale - dead easy, they came frequently and it was only a matter of a few minutes before they arrived at the park. It was just as well as there was NOWHERE to park around the visitor centre or around the entry to the park. Whether this was due to the time of day (around lunchtime) or it was just plain busy, I don''t know.  We  then jumped onto the park shuttle (after paying the entry fee  of course !) and did the tour, hopping on and off as we felt. Again no problems, the shuttles were frequent and we had no trouble getting on any of them.

In Bryce we had no trouble at all parking anywhere in the park and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hiking down some of the trails was amazing. We did stay at Ruby's Inn, just a mile or so straight down the road to the park and couldn't have been more convenient.

We also managed to fit in Arches, Dead Horse Park and Grand Canyon North Rim, so in all we had a fantastic couple of weeks.

Back to reality with a bump ..........!