Zion National Park: Timber Creek Overlook Trail

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Welcome back to National Parks & other public lands with T! If you are seeing this on Twitter or Facebook, please visit the blog to see all of the photos and read the story by clicking the link.

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We drove from Las Vegas to the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park. This is the quieter end of Zion, about an hour northwest of the main entrance. There is one paved road here…a 5-mile scenic drive.

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We parked at the lot at the end of the drive to hike to the top on Timber Creek Overlook Trail. This is a fairly easy and short hike along a ridge with spectacular views of the Kolob Canyons and the Pine Valley Mountains.

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This was a good choice for our introductory hike to Zion National Park . We really enjoyed it, especially after being cooped up in the car for the drive from Vegas. I would call it a moderate hike…it’s a half mile out to the top with an elevation gain of about 100 feet.

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We were already starting off at a pretty high elevation, so I was huffing and puffing quite a bit…this was easily remedied by pausing to photograph the beautiful views that just got better the higher we climbed.

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It was amazing to see the red rock formations from one side of the trail and snow-covered mountain peaks from the other. Though there were some people sharing this trail with us, it wasn’t so crowded that we couldn’t relax and enjoy nature. It’s not a loop…you hike back down the same half mile that you walked up.

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Zion Park Posts:

Location: 3752 E Kolob Canyon Rd, New Harmony, UT

Designation: National Park

Date designated/established: 11/19/1919

Date of my visit: April 9, 2017

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15 thoughts on “Zion National Park: Timber Creek Overlook Trail

  1. WOW! These are amazing! The funny thing is my son did a project on national parks last semester and got assigned Utah and he was so into The Big 5 … he put it on his List. 🙂

  2. I’m a bit confused. I only one entrance to Zion NP on our recent visit there. I also thought the park was not accessible to vehicles. Do you drive past the main entrance on the public road to reach this destination?

    1. There are two entrances. The northern section of the park, Kolob Canyons, is where this hike is and is accessible via a 5 mile park road. That road does not connect to the southern part of the park and the two entrances are about an hour’s drive apart.
      You were probably at the main southern entrance. That’s the busier side of the park and during peak season, no cars allowed on the park road in that section.

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