The easiest way to get to Zion National Park is to fly into Las Vegas (LAS) and drive about 2.5 hours northeast — roughly 160 miles up I-15, then UT-9 east into Springdale and the park’s south entrance. Las Vegas is the closest major airport with full flight service; St. George Regional (SGU) sits just…
The fastest way to get to Moab is to fly into Canyonlands Field (CNY), just 18 miles north of town — about a 25–30 minute drive — but flights there are limited and pricey, so most visitors fly into Grand Junction, Colorado (GJT, a scenic 2-hour drive) or Salt Lake City (SLC, about 4 hours…
Arches National Park is about 231 miles from Salt Lake City — roughly a 4-hour drive south and east, with the park entrance sitting 5 miles north of Moab. The fastest route runs I-15 south to US-6 east toward Price, then I-70 east to US-191 south into the Moab area. There are no shortcuts and…
One full day is enough to see the headline arches — Delicate Arch, the Windows, Double Arch, Balanced Rock, and Landscape Arch can all be done in a single well-planned day. But two days is the sweet spot for a first visit: it lets you catch Delicate Arch at sunrise or sunset, tackle a longer…
Moab, Utah sits at about 4,026 feet (1,227 meters) above sea level. That’s high-desert elevation — high enough to give you cooler nights and stronger sun than most people expect from a “desert” town, but low enough that altitude sickness is uncommon for the average visitor. What makes Moab unusual is the range packed around…
Yes, it snows in Zion — but where you stand decides how much you see. Down on the Zion Canyon floor and in Springdale (around 3,900 feet), winter snow is usually a light dusting that melts within hours as daytime highs climb into the 40s and 50s. Climb to the East Entrance (5,700 feet) or…
Yes, it snows in Moab — but only lightly. The town averages roughly 9 inches of snow a year, almost all of it between December and February, and because Moab sits at about 4,000 feet in the high desert, the snow that falls usually melts within a day or two rather than sticking around. Winter…
Moab is the basecamp between two national parks — Arches sits about 5 miles north of town and Canyonlands’ Island in the Sky district is roughly 32 miles (about a 40-minute drive) away — so the top things to do are hiking to Delicate Arch (a 3.2-mile round-trip), catching sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands,…
It depends entirely on which rim you mean. Zion to the Grand Canyon North Rim is about 110 miles and roughly a 2-hour drive; Zion to the far more famous South Rim is about 255 miles and roughly 4.5 hours. The North Rim is the closest piece of the Grand Canyon to Zion by a…
Zion National Park is home to more than 78 species of mammals, 291 species of birds, 44 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 8 species of fish. The animals you’re most likely to actually see are mule deer, rock squirrels, and wild turkeys in the canyon bottom; the ones worth deliberately looking for are desert…
