A billboard view for the price of a stroll
I have sent more first-timers up the Canyon Overlook Trail than I could count, and the reason is simple: nowhere else in Zion do you get so much view for so little sweat. The whole thing runs about a mile round trip, and climbs only somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to 160 feet — a rounding error next to the big-name hikes in the main canyon. And yet you finish at a fenced cliff edge staring down into lower Zion Canyon, the pale desert temples lined up in front of you like a mountain range that showed up just for your photograph.
The Park Service rates it moderate rather than easy, and that is honest. This is no paved promenade: the tread is carved into the rock, with stone steps up to a foot and a half tall, a boardwalk bolted to the cliff over a slot, and low overhangs that will thump a tall hiker who forgets to duck. Plan on one to two hours if you linger up here.
Where the road disappears into the mountain
Here is the tidbit that ties this little hike to one of the great engineering stories of the National Park System. The Canyon Overlook trailhead sits on the east side of the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel — you park in a small pullout just after the road blinks back into daylight on the tunnel's uphill end. That location matters, because it means you cannot ride the Zion Canyon shuttle to get here. You drive yourself along the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway, which is the whole point.
That tunnel is no ordinary bore through rock. When it was dedicated on July 3, 1930, its 1.1-mile length made it a marvel, the crown jewel of a 25-mile highway that finally linked Zion with Bryce and the Grand Canyon. It took about two years and ten months to punch through the sandstone, and the crews were clever about it: rather than haul every ton of rubble back out the way they came, they blasted gallery windows out through the cliff face and shoved the debris into Pine Creek Canyon below. Seven of those windows survive as the arched openings you glimpse from the road and, better yet, from the overlook itself. The whole highway now sits on the National Register of Historic Places and was named a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2012. So when you stand at the rail and look back at little dark arches in the far cliff, you are seeing the inside of that tunnel from the outside — the same story told from two angles.
What the river and the wind built here
Every rock you touch on this trail is Navajo Sandstone, the thick, cream-and-rust formation that gives Zion its towers and domes. It began as an ocean of wind-blown dunes some 180-odd million years ago, when this corner of the world was a sand sea to rival the Sahara. Look closely at the slickrock and you can still read the frozen ripples and cross-beds of those ancient dunes.
The slot you cross early on is the work of Pine Creek, a modest stream that carved a deep, narrow gorge into the sandstone over a long stretch of geologic time — the same drainage the highway's switchbacks climb out of on the tunnel's west side. Halfway along you pass a cool, shaded alcove where water seeps from the rock and ferns cling to the damp wall, a hanging garden in miniature: water sinks through the porous sandstone until it hits a harder layer, then weeps out the cliff face and life follows.
The viewpoint itself perches atop the Great Arch of Zion, a huge blind arch — an arch-shaped alcove that never opened clear through — carved into the wall below your feet. You cannot see it from the overlook because you are standing on its roof, but drivers on the switchbacks far below get the full sweep of it — one of the largest features of its kind in the park, and you walk right over the top of it without ever knowing, unless someone like me tells you.
The view from the rail
The payoff is a wide, fenced platform of slickrock looking west and down into the mouth of lower Zion Canyon and Pine Creek Canyon. Dead ahead stand the great sentinels of the canyon's south end: the broad bulk of the West Temple, the tallest peak in this part of the park, and the sawtooth row of the Towers of the Virgin beside it. Swing your gaze around and you can pick out Bridge Mountain, the East Temple, the highway's switchbacks stitching up the far wall, and those tunnel windows. On a clear morning, with low sun raking across all that red and cream stone, it is as complete a Zion panorama as you will find without a permit or a chain — the great view that Angels Landing hands you only after a knuckle-whitening scramble, delivered at the end of a family stroll. Come at first light or the last hour before sunset, for the color and the thinner crowds.
Family-friendly, but respect the edge
Here is where I play the wet blanket, because the Canyon Overlook Trail lulls people. It is short and popular and full of kids, so folks let their guard down — and it has genuine drop-offs. This is not the chained, cliff-hanging exposure of Angels Landing; most of the trail is comfortably wide and the final overlook is fenced. But in between there are unfenced spots where the tread runs along a ledge and a careless step could go badly wrong. Hold little hands on the exposed pitches. In winter, ice and snow can glaze the rock and turn an easy walk treacherous; carry traction or skip it after a storm.
The other honest warning is parking. The lot at the trailhead is small — a couple dozen spaces — and it fills early and stays full through the middle of the day. Overflow along the shoulder goes fast, and stopping inside the tunnel is not allowed, so be prepared to loop through and try again, or come early. There are pit toilets but no water, so carry your own, and pets are not allowed. Keep your eyes open for the desert bighorn sheep that browse the slickrock out here; the east side is one of the better places to spot them.
Nearby — make it a loop
This hike is really a chapter of a larger drive, so treat it that way. Read up on Zion National Park: Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel before you go, because half the pleasure of the overlook is understanding the engineering marvel your car just passed through to reach it. Keep driving east on the same historic road and you will roll past Zion National Park: Checkerboard Mesa, the cross-hatched dome that is the signature of this upper-east country. For contrast, save Zion National Park: Angels Landing for a day you want to earn a similar view the hard way, then dip into the main gorge for a slow cruise of the Zion National Park: Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. When your legs are done, base yourself at Springdale: Zion National Park.