Zion National Park is a well-oiled machine. It is the Disneyland of hiking. The streets of Springdale, the town at the foot of the canyon, resemble those of a bustling metropolis, except every person has on some sort of pack and is either on their way to, or just completed, a hike. Never have I seen anywhere like this, but, this is my first big-time national park aside from the Grand Canyon. Little known fact: When angels touch down on earth’s surface, they must choose an animal to inhabit while on the ground. In Zion, they tend gravitate towards the chipmunk.<\/p>\n
The ride from Kanab to Zion is not a long one. We, however, had to make a side trip down to the St. George area southwest of Zion first, adding a bit to the drive. The purpose of this detour was to offload Miles for a few days, because, as with most national parks, dogs aren’t allowed on the good hikes and we didn’t want to leave him in the bus all day every day. He would have hated it and we would have been kicked out because of the (supposed) strict no barking policy. (I heard plenty of barking and saw no evictions.) While we hiked our butts off (and enjoyed eating inside of restaurants for a change), Miles got to enjoy air conditioning, lounging on a couch and making friends with a cat at the rover.com<\/a> sitter’s house.<\/p>\n We use rover.com<\/a> for most of Miles’ stays away from us. We find it to be a much better experience for him and us than kennels. If you use this link<\/a>, you can get $20 off your first stay through Rover.<\/p>\n If you feel like jumping in the driver’s seat for the run up to Zion from Hurricane, Utah, here is the Quick Run video<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>