We just went to Horseshoe Bend yesterday, and that was a huge day, but instead of spending a quiet day…we went on an adventure. The weather looked nice, and we missed some things at Zion National Park the first time we went.

One of the most well-known hikes is the Canyon Overlook, and that’s been high on my list since I started scoping out potential visits to Zion. We’ve got a 1-year old kid and I’m pregnant, so we are pretty limited in our activities. I will say that this hike is fairly difficult, with steep drop-offs and not a lot of railings, but we really enjoyed it. It was also quite busy.

We saw some mountain goats on the steep slopes as we climbed!

There’s really no way to describe the vastness of the Canyon Overlook views. Photos do not do justice to this phenomenally gorgeous overlook. But I still tried.

We almost always cajole a stranger into taking a family photo, with varying degrees of success. (We make sure to offer a photo of them in return!)

After our hike it was time to stop for lunch. There is an area of switchbacks as the road descends down into the valley, and each hairpin turns usually has some extra asphalt to park and explore the views. We stopped at one of those, where the drop-offs looked mild enough that we could let a 1-year old burn off some energy without putting himself in too much danger.

From our vantage point down below, we had to use binoculars to spot people on the canyon overlook. Line up the contrails in the photos below and see if you can figure out where where the canyon overlook cliff is located!

The West Temple was already covered in a snow, a sure sign that late November is too late to be camping in Utah.

We picked out a couple other quick stops for photos, but all-too-soon it was time to start working our way back towards home.

We made a final stop to recreate an old family slide – for more about the slides, read this post. This one is a little more meaningful because we are literally standing where my Grandma stood with her kids (including my dad!) 50 years ago. This was one of the toughest slides to recreate because the entire east entrance road landscape all looks exactly like this. Kyle asked me later “How on earth did you find this spot?!”

And that’s a wrap! Or so we thought…

During the dark winter months, the Zion shuttle stops running and the scenic drive is open to regular vehicles. Monday, November 28th, was the first day the shuttle wasn’t running this year. We weren’t planning on a third visit to Zion, but the weather was nice and we wanted do go do something.

I tried to do a little photography, but our son was being a maniac. Kyle was essentially chasing him around the most scenic place in the world while I tried to take good photos as fast as I could.

Since we were there late afternoon during the darkest time of the year, most of my shots ended up blurry. However, the ones that did turn out okay look like they could be paintings.

While it is high time for us to move on in search of warmer weather, we have definitely cherished our time in southern Utah. The national parks, the local hikes, the beauty of the rocks and the elevation around us – we are blown away.

We can’t wait to come back here some day when our kids can truly take advantage of this wild and wonderful landscape.