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Thankfully, an exertion-filled day doesn’t necessarily need to end in a night on the hard ground. The motel rooms at the Zion Lodge may not be much to look at, but the lodge provides a front-row seat for the kaleidoscope of colors reflected off red rock at sunset. Your best bet for dinner is in nearby Springdale, where you can savor ancho chile–seared lamb paired with one of hundreds of wines at Spotted Dog Café. The town is so laid-back, you won’t even have to change out of your hiking togs.

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WHAT’S A VIRGIN TO DO?

Fourteen miles west of Springdale, it’s hard to miss the town of Virgin. Have your picture taken inside the ‘Virgin Jail’ or ‘Wild Ass Saloon’ before you feed the deer, donkey and llama in the petting zoo, or buy ice cream in the Trading Post. What pure kitschy fun! The tiny outpost town has another claim to fame – in 2000 the council passed a law requiring residents own a gun. It’s a $500 fine if you don’t.

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A more isolated and even-terrained hiking experience is to be had if you drive out to Kolob Terrace Rd, 14 miles west of Springdale. Stunning views of carved red rock pop up at every turn as you weave in and out of park lands. Thirty-eight miles north, turn off toward Lava Point for an excellent overlook, a six-site first-come, first-serve campground, and higher-elevation hikes that lead to cool, flower-filled meadows.

Stay over a second night because you also want to explore the one-10th-as-visited Kolob Canyons arm of Zion NP, 40 miles (70 minutes) northwest. In some ways the 5-mile scenic route starting from Kolob Canyons Visitor Center is even more stunning than the main drive. Here the cliff walls are closer and the roads are paved with red rock asphalt (yes, it’s really red), making the experience all the more colorfully intense. At the end of the road, follow Timber Creek Overlook Trail (0.5 miles) up a 100ft ascent to a small peak with expansive finger canyon views.

The next day, broad leaves and deciduous trees give way to evergreen needles and soaring pines as you make your way from Zion to Bryce Canyon National Park. Though only 77 miles northwest, a 4000ft elevation change sets Bryce a world apart. Here the freeze-and-thaw of winter snows has gotten under the earth’s skin. Expanding fissures created the spindly spires and sherbet-colored fins (thin walls of rock) that stand like sentinels in Bryce Amphitheater. Best viewed from Sunset and Sunrise Points, you can also hike below the lookouts and experience the awe of these sandcastle shapes from below. Zig-zag 521ft down from Sunset Point along Navajo Trail through Wall Street slot canyon, under arches and past hoodoos – all glowing an eerie orange. Follow the Queen’s Trail along the canyon floor up to Sunrise Point and back along the overlooking rim for a fairly strenuous 3-mile loop (you climbed down, you have to climb up).

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ASK A LOCAL

“For end of the day photography it’s the tremendous views off Kolob Terrace Rd. Here you stand at the extreme western edge of the Colorado Plateau and can see the land fall away beneath your feet. To the north are beautiful vistas into the Kolob finger canyons and Hop Valley. If you’re fortunate, you may glimpse the sizable elk herd that frequents the large meadow to the southeast of the Hop Valley trailhead.”

Michael Plyler, Director, Zion Canyon Field Institute, Springdale

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Bryce does have a lodge, but you can’t visit the park without noticing the sleep-shop-eat-and-outfit-for-all-adventures complex Ruby’s Inn, sprawling just north of the entrance. What was originally just a motel gained town status in 2007 and has been a family-owned part of the landscape since 1919. Everybody passing through to Bryce stops here at one time or another – to sleep, get gas, have a meal, or book a helicopter or horseback ride; it’s an experience.

Driving west from Bryce on Hwy 12, almost all you see south of the road – expansive plateaus, candy cane–striped sedimentary hills, uplifted ridges – belongs to the nation’s largest