Zion National Park

Utah’s first national park is a canyon about 24 kilometers long and up to 800 meters deep, carved by the Virgin River through towering walls of Navajo sandstone. The colors shift from deep red at the bottom to pale cream at the top, and hanging gardens of ferns cling wherever water seeps from the rock.

For most of the year the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive is closed to private cars, and free shuttles stop at every trailhead. Ride to the last stop for the Riverside Walk, which leads to the Narrows: here the trail is the river itself, and you wade between walls that close in to just a few meters apart. Angels Landing, a narrow fin of rock with chains bolted to the cliff, needs a permit from a lottery.

There is much more than the two famous hikes. The Emerald Pools, the Canyon Overlook Trail on the east side and the quieter Kolob Canyons in the north are all excellent. Mormon settlers named the canyon Zion, a word for a place of peace and refuge.