Zion natl park in the spring with kids?
 

Hello. We are considering going to Zion natl park in early spring. Has anyone been? I can't get a clear idea of what the weather will be like. Also, my kids are 5 and 1. We'd like to go for walks and mellow hikes, ride bikes and sightsee.

Any thoughts on if this is a good time if year to go? Will we be able to find some kid friendly hiking?

Thank you,
Cheryl

I think it will be fine to visit then. Shouldn't be too hot. There are certainly some trails that are not too demanding either, and some that ARE. One of the really fun things is to hike up the slot canyon through the creek. You can rent boots for that. Edit: You'd have to "carry" the 1-yr old of course.

It's not my favorite Park (lots of people), but is spectacular in its own way. I liked Bryce Canyon and Arches National Monument much more.

- Jack

Zion National Park
 

It is good to have a goal in mind. This makes all the hrs ,of cleaning better with a planned trip in mind. Would you suggest she make reservations?

Oh definitely, if she plans to use the RV campground. The main one has electrical hookup in some of the spaces.

- Jack

Zion National park reservation
 

Would you be able to provide her with a reservation # or web site. Perhaps you can point Cheryl in the right direction for a site map and info. on which sites are electric.

OK, here's the Park's webpage. It has all the information she needs for Watchman Campground: Zion National Park - Watchman Campground (U.S. National Park Service)

From there, she can find links to other camping areas. Watchman is the most "civilized".

- Jack

Cheryl Zion is a good place to camp with kids. Watchman is a very nice campground South is nice too but they allow generators. The shuttle started on April 1 last year and is a great way to get around the park. Especially with kids. We have taken it to the end and with a picnic strolled down the river. The road is empty when the shuttle is running and most folks don't hike between the stops. It should be quite warm too. The Virgin river will be cold with the runoff in the spring and you would not want to take a child on the narrows when it's running high. We have often gone in the Fall because it stays warm into November when the other parks are cold.
Bryce and Arches are great too as jack said and I would recommend them.
@ Jack have you gone to Capitol Reef NP? Highway 12 between Bryce and CRNP is spectacular. The campground at Fruita is like a park and the apples in the orchards are free. As attested too by the fat and happy deer. It is a nice palce to camp because most folks only stay a day on their way between Arches and Bryce. There is much to explore from the desert canyons to the streams and pondorosa pines on Boulder mountain.
The picture is Zion canyon in November.

Thanks for the great info, and the links. It wasn't easy finding somewhere that we wouldn't have to worry too much about snow or rain. It seems like Zion is going to be perfect for us! :)

Jack and Janet, I can't help but think that we might enjoy Bryce or Arches more. I like areas with less people too and I went to Arches as a young child and it made such an impression on me. My 17 month old is just miserable in the car though. And I am sure you can guess what a miserable 17-mo old does.... Cries. A lot. Screams. A lot. Zion is about 8 hours from where I live and we are going to do it in two days, much of it at night while he sleeps. I don't want to go any further until he starts to have an easier time in the car.

Sam, it was better to clean the trailer with a trip in mind, that is for sure! :)

Rolff, glad to hear Watchman is nice. The sound of generators is really unpleasant to me. I'm glad they don't allow them there. I don't really care about having hook-ups for myself but I almost prefer to stay at places that have them just so I don't have to hear generators.

So, is it a tough drive to get there? A lot of tough grades or thin narrow roads? We will be driving from So. California. Will there be the chance of us having to drive through a snowy area to get there at that time of year?

Thanks!
Cheryl

ps - Great pic! I hope the trees are as pretty in the spring!

I have pictures of Zion park from 2004, I think. The camera I had then wasn't to good, slow shutter speed, if the camera wasn't held very steady pics were blurry, also detail wasn't to great and it took pics in Bitmap. I will convert to JPG and put in a PDF file, soon. I have none of the campground but think we had electric. Also some pictures were lost, due to a mistake on my part. 1999 laptop, small hard drive, deleted wrong folder, to make more room, had to use recovery software to restore pics.but some got overwritten before I discovered my mistake. More information than you probably wanted to know but I will post pics as soon as I can.

Trip to zion
 

I would suggest that the first time you go out that you have electric at your site. It makes life so much easier. Down the road you can boondock,dry camp.

Hook-ups are nice and I agree with Sam especially on the first trip. Especially with little ones. With Springdale right on the gate of Zion you have a short trip if you forget something. There is a ghost town of Grafton just off the road too. Coming from that direction you shouldn't have too much risk of snow. but it's hard to say about Spring in Utah and Zion does get snow. The Virgin River Gorge might be a little stressful - I haven't pulled my trailer on it.

Because we like solitude we usually boondock out on BLM dispersed camping if we can. We don't have kids to worry about and my wife and I have camped in a small tent on the cold ground with a 100 pound dog. I would never do that again. So a trailer is luxury.

Here is a link to my pictures of Zion, road in from the south east is very steep going down in. Nice pics Rolff. Call the park about the spring weather, we were there in the summer.
https://www.hilotrailerforum.com/f3/z...pictures-1642/

Richard,
Don't they charge trailers for an escort coming in from Mt. Carmel junction thru the tunnel, or is it only if you leave that way? We came in from the west and camped on BLM land along the Virgin river near Rockville. We spent a couple days hitting a bunch of dirt roads going up near Cedar Breaks. On Veterans Day the river was low enough and warm enough to swim in. My wife thought I was crazy but it was the only way to the other side.

Great pics, PopRichie! Thank you so much for the link! :)

Well, it is lookin' like we're outta luck. The Watchman is already booked up for the week I want to go. I guess I am not the only one with a kiddo who is out of school on spring break that week. I am going to keep checking back for cancellations but I need to come up with a back-up plan. I would be happy to stay at the South campground but I can't risk driving all the way out there and not getting a spot.

It is tough to find a place to go in early spring when you want to avoid possible rains and snow. We may go to Joshua tree but he have been there a couple of times and my husband wants to try something new. We considered anza borrego, which should have temperate weather at that time of year, but I'd rather go in the fall. if anyone has any suggestions of places to go in early April, I'm all ears.

Sam and Ralph, you both mentioned that I will be more comfortable if I have elec hook ups when I am first starting out. Inthought the only thing that needs electricity are the lights and the plugs. What else do I need electricity for? This April trip isn't going to be our first trip. It is just going to be our first "big" trip. We will be doing some local weekend trips and there aren't any hook-ups. I'd like to know what to prepare for.

Cheryl,

We prefer to camp with full hookups, but water and electric if sewer isn't available. Though we can and do dry camp.

If you do not have water hookups, then you need to fill your water tank. The fresh water tank is not very large for use over an extended period of time. On our old trailer, it was only about 17 gals. We would run out of water in 2 days. If you have water hookups, then you are running the water directly. If you do not have water hookups, then you must run the pump to use the water.

The fresh water pump runs off the batteries. The fan to the furnace runs off the batteries and the lights run off the batteries. If the batteries run down, it is difficult to lower the trailer to the traveling position. Running these items using shore electric and the power inverter on the trailer, saves the charge on the batteries.

Electric runs more things than just the lights in the trailer. If you need a space heater and do not want to use the propane furnace. The fridge runs on propane and electric, so running on electric saves the cost of propane - though you may pay more for a site with hookups.

Sewer hookups are nice. We leave the grey water knife open most of the time and close it a 1/2 day before we are ready to travel home, so we will have grey water to clear out the hose after dumping the black.

Can't remember for sure but I think they did charge a fee. You have to wait till they get a long line, before they take you thru. Tunnel is to narrow for two way trailer traffic. We didn't leave that way as we were heading north.

The tunnel charge, as I recall, was minimal (maybe $15?) and it's a "round-trip" fee. We had a very short wait. Basically, just long enough for the current traffic in the tunnel to clear.

- Jack

Spring break in Southern Utah is in mid March. In Northern Utah it's the first and second week of April. Always a good time to avoid. You don't need hookups unless something goes wrong so it is not a bad thing on your first trip. We usually camp away from campgrounds because if we wanted neighbors we'd stay home. Like I said my wife and I don't need the comforts beyond what the trailer provides. Or first trip in our Hi-Lo was to Zion in November and we camped along the river. After 6 days our Battery was low. So we used our little battery lanterns for lights. When we got home I bought a new Deep Cycle battery and carried the old one charged as our emergency spare. You could run the stove and fridge a month on a tank of propane. I don't know about the furnace don't use it much we bundle up at night because it is noisy when it runs. We carry an empty 6 gal water jug in case we run out of fresh water most state and National parks have it.
Sorry I don't have any other suggestions of where to go where it would be warm.
I was going to say that from the time I was 4 my folks took me and my siblings camping and it was some of my fondest memories and I love it to this day.

There are several private campgrounds in Springdale too. Are they full? Springdale is very close to the park and scenic too. There are shuttle stops there also. You might see if Watchman is full every night or vacant in mid week and move there.