The rim that looks down on Angels Landing
I have spent forty-odd years craning my neck at Zion's big walls, and there is exactly one spot where the whole pecking order of the canyon flips on its head. Stand on Observation Point, a shelf of pale sandstone perched around 6,500 feet up on the east rim, and you are no longer looking up at Angels Landing — you are looking down on it. That famous fin, with its chains and its queue of nervous hikers, sits a good 700 feet below your boots, a stone spine poking up out of the gorge. Beyond it the North Fork of the Virgin River threads the green valley floor roughly 2,100 to 2,150 feet straight down, and the view sweeps from the Temple of Sinawava clear out toward the canyon mouth.
People love to argue over which is the better hike, Angels Landing or here. I will not settle it, but I will say this: Angels Landing gives you the adrenaline, and Observation Point gives you the God's-eye view — The Great White Throne, Cable Mountain, Cathedral Mountain, and that dizzying ribbon of canyon all at once. It is the photograph that makes folks back home ask where on earth you were standing.
Navajo sandstone, stacked a thousand feet at a time
Everything you are standing on and staring at is Navajo sandstone, the pale gold formation that gives Zion its walls. It began as a Sahara-scale sea of sand dunes in the Jurassic, some 180-odd million years ago, buried and cemented into stone, then shoved skyward as the Colorado Plateau rose. The Virgin River did the rest, sawing down through that soft rock grain by grain. What is left is a canyon whose rims — Observation Point among them — stand roughly half a vertical mile above the water that carved them. Look closely at the cliff faces and you can still read the old dunes: long sweeping lines called cross-bedding, the fossilized angle of wind-blown sand from a desert older than the dinosaurs. The rock is beautiful, and it is also patient, and every so often it reminds us who is in charge — which brings me to the trail.
A masterpiece carved into the cliff — now buried
For generations the way up was one of the great trails in the park: from the Weeping Rock trailhead on the canyon floor, a roughly 8-mile round trip climbing about 2,100 to 2,148 feet through the slot of Echo Canyon and up a staircase of switchbacks chiseled straight into the sandstone. It was strenuous, unforgettable, and by pedigree an old road. Native peoples used a route up this slope long before us; pioneer rancher John Winder improved the trail in 1896, and in 1901 David Flanigan put its lower miles to work building the famous Cable Mountain draw works that lowered lumber off the rim. The Park Service rebuilt and hardened the path across the winter of 1918 and spring of 1919, then repaved it in the 1960s after flood damage. A century of hands went into that cliff.
Then, on August 24, 2019, a huge slab let go from the face of Cable Mountain and roared down onto the lower switchbacks, burying the trail between Weeping Rock and the Echo Canyon junction. Here is where I play the wet blanket: that section is still closed, and it has stayed closed for years. The Weeping Rock trailhead and its shuttle stop finally reopened in September of 2025 after their own repairs, but the Park Service was explicit that the East Rim Trail up to Observation Point — and neighboring Hidden Canyon — remained closed even then. As of the 2026 season the classic Weeping Rock route is still off the table, so do not lace up at shuttle stop 7 expecting to climb it. Always check the park's current-conditions page first; rockfall country keeps its own schedule.
The back door: the East Mesa Trail
The good news is that Observation Point itself never closed — only the front stairway did. The summit still gathers its crowds, and nearly all of them now arrive by the back door: the East Mesa Trail, which comes in across the high plateau from outside the park's eastern boundary. It is, frankly, the easier hike by a country mile. Where the old canyon route clawed up 2,100-plus feet from the valley floor, the East Mesa approach is a nearly level walk through ponderosa forest — roughly 6.5 to 7 miles round trip with only about 200 feet of gentle rise and fall — that delivers you to the same rim from above. Kids and grandparents who could never have managed the switchbacks can walk this one.
The catch is access. The East Mesa trailhead sits off the North Fork Road, which leaves State Route 9 about 1.7 miles east of the park's east entrance and runs north past the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort, then a few miles of dirt out to the trail. When it is dry those roads are usually fine for a low-clearance car; after rain or snow they turn to grease and you will want clearance or a shuttle. Several East Zion outfitters run seasonal shuttles from the resort, which saves both the road worry and the parking scramble. One honest trade-off: approaching at nearly rim elevation, you skip the canyon-floor drama of Echo Canyon — you swap the grand climb for an easy stroll and let the view do all the work at the finish.
A local's playbook
Carry water like you mean it — the East Mesa walk is exposed high-desert plateau with almost no reliable shade and nothing to drink on the trail, and that rim bakes in summer. Go early, for the softer light and to beat the heat, and mind the edge once you are up top: Observation Point is an open rim with a sheer, unrailed drop and gusty wind, so keep children and dogs well back and skip the acrobatics. Spring and fall are the sweet spot; winter can leave that access road snowed in or greasy for days. And treat every closure sign as gospel, not a suggestion. That buried switchback below is a standing reminder that the mountain writes the rules here — whether you take the back door or wait for the day the old front stairway comes back.
Nearby — make it a loop
Observation Point is the high seat over a whole gallery of Zion's greatest hits, so build a trip around the very things you can see from its rim. The obvious pairing is Zion National Park: Angels Landing, the fin you just looked down on — do both and you own the canyon from below and above. Straight down on the floor beneath you sits Zion National Park: Weeping Rock, the reopened trailhead of the old closed route, while the massive dome filling your view to the south is Zion National Park: The Great White Throne. For the water-level counterpoint to all this rim-walking, wade into Zion National Park: The Narrows up at the Temple of Sinawava, and since you are already on the park's quiet east side for the East Mesa trailhead, point the rig up Virgin: Kolob Terrace Road for another high, uncrowded corner of Zion country.