We are urban vacationers.
We unwind in tightly wound metropolises with bigger buildings, better shopping, bolder restaurants and brighter neon than the town we call home. Miami, New York, San Francisco and Chicago are our kind of towns.
Then we became smitten with images of breathtaking canyons, brilliant red rock hoodoos and the sheer earthly beauty of sparsely populated southern Utah.
We started planning a tour through a pair of national parks — Zion and Bryce Canyon — but wondered how we’d survive in the slow lane. On the plane trip out West, we wondered:
Would the tiny towns outside the parks offer anything nicer than a dusty old lodge or place to pitch a tent when it came to lodgings? Would our dining options consist solely of biscuits and gravy at sunup, then steak and taters at sundown?
Would enough of the trails carved out of these natural wonders be accessible to a wheelchair user?
The answers, we’re thrilled to report, were: Yes, no and a big yes.
That last yes is the most important answer of all because Heidi uses a wheelchair to traverse all but the shortest distances. Severe rheumatoid arthritis and the aftermath of nearly a dozen joint surgeries means Heidi sees America from the seat of a chair on wheels.
As for our other concerns, we found plenty of dining and dwelling options around Zion and Bryce.
Zion
Springdale, the Utah town grown up along Utah Highway 9 on the way into Zion National Park’s gates, is the kind of place that makes even the biggest fan of urban excitement take pause to consider the charms of small town life.
But let’s face it, the real star in Springdale has nothing to do with creature comforts provided by modern development. The reason we endured a four-hour flight to Las Vegas, then a three-hour drive in a rental car into southwestern Utah was Zion National Park. Zion is not as big as the Grand Canyon or as famous as Yosemite, but for our money, it’s the best park in the West — and vies with Bryce Canyon as the most beautiful place on Earth.
The most dramatic entrance into Zion is on Utah 9, heading west into the park through a mile-long tunnel opening upon a spectacular view of canyons, deserts and waterfalls.
A series of switchbacks takes drivers to the base of the canyon. The visitor center is near the southern edge of Zion, also on Utah 9.
The visitor center is completely barrier-free and has plenty of handicapped parking, a wheelchair-accessible unisex restroom and a great gift shop with lots of very reasonably priced postcards, fridge magnets and other souvenirs.
Free brochures at the visitor center lead the way to several trails that are either completely wheelchair accessible or navigable by wheelchair with assistance from an able-bodied companion.
The Lower Emerald Trail provides both the best views and the most challenging inclines of Zion National Park’s accessible trails.
The trail itself is paved, but a bit steep in places. Still, the inclines are worth the effort because the trail eventually rises several hundred feet from the bottom.
A walk and roll a few hours before sunset provides fabulous views of the low sunlight on the rocky walls. The Lower Emerald Trail also has three waterfalls.
Of Zion’s barrier-free paths, the Pa’rus is the easiest to negotiate, but the least interesting. The 2-mile paved trail stays on completely flat land along the canyon floor. While the views of cacti in bloom and little lizards darting across the pavement is nice, the Pa’rus doesn’t offer the bird’s-eye views of the Lower Emerald Trail or the reach-out-and-touch-the-canyon-wall charm of the Riverside Walk.
The paved, mile-long Riverside Trail has gentle inclines that hug the eastern wall of a great, towering sheet of rock on one side and the lovely Virgin River on the other. That water feeds Zion’s hanging gardens — great growths of wildflowers that hang from the canyon walls. When we visited in late May/early June, the rocky, vertical greenhouse was in bloom with yellows, oranges, whites and other bursts of color.
After millions of years, the Virgin River continues to flow through Zion, carving out canyons thousands of feet deep. The park’s scenic wonders include formations such as the Great White Throne, the Watchman and Weeping Rock.
Because it offers outstanding wheelchair access, we stayed at the Zion Park Inn, a Best Western property. Located just a couple miles from the national park’s gates, the Zion Park Inn has wheelchair-accessible rooms, elevator access to all parts of the property, a pool and a fabulous cathedral-ceilinged great room overlooking a 1,300-foot sandstone wall.
Bryce Canyon
Less than two hours drive from Zion Park, most of it on U.S. Highway 89, is Bryce Canyon.
While the roads and majority of trails at Zion are on the canyon floor, Bryce is the opposite, with the park road and accessible trails running along the top of the cliff, offering breathtaking views of the deep canyon below.
There’s only one way in to Bryce Canyon National Park, on Utah Highway 63.
One of the first turnoffs is for the visitor center, which provides the same wheelchair-accessible features as Zion’s.
The drama at Bryce is provided by a walk through rows of pine trees that hide the stunning canyon nearby. We entered at Sunrise Point, which opens up to a spectacular drop off into the canyon below.
Everywhere the eye roams, it catches pink and red hoodoos — spire-like rock formations created by millions of years of wind and water. Throughout the day, the changing angle of the sun’s light creates new colors and highlights on the hoodoos’ spires, fins, pinnacles and mazes.
Spectacular views of those colorful limestone hoodoos abound along the Rim Trail that connects Sunset and Sunrise Points. The half-mile trail is not as thoroughly paved as those at Zion, and at points, wheelchair users must roll over crushed rock and soil rather than pavement. However, the Rim Trail does provide gasp-inducing views of Bryce Canyon.
There also are several trails that plummet down into the base of Bryce Canyon, but none are even remotely wheelchair-accessible.
Overall, while Bryce doesn’t provide as many lengthy, wheelchair-accessible trails as Zion, nearly all of the landmark observation points — such as Fairyland, Rainbow Point and Paria View — have wheelchair-negotiable trails leading to them from nearby parking lots.
The rim of Bryce Canyon stands at 8,000 feet, an altitude that makes for downright chilly days into June.
A stone’s throw from the entrance to Bryce Canyon is Ruby’s Inn, another Best Western property that’s a veritable city unto itself. We booked Ruby’s because it promised barrier-free rooms, but it proved to be a sprawling complex with camp sites, an RV park and its own lake as well.
Although we didn’t have time to check out half of Ruby’s ever-growing facilities, we did find time for the 24-mile drive into Panguitch. Panguitch is a classic old town with general stores, neighborly shops and classic diners along its main drag.
The Flying M Restaurant, on the edge of town on Main Street, serves up the most ridiculously huge breakfasts in Panguitch.
Fueled up from the M’s grub, we had a harrowing, blizzard-blown ride through Cedar Breaks National Monument on our way back to Las Vegas to catch a plane home. But even a brief battle with the June elements couldn’t tarnish our memories of outstanding wheelchair access, hearty dining, otherworldly views and utter tranquillity found in Zion and Bryce National Parks.
IF YOU GO
– Getting there
Las Vegas’ McCarren Airport the nearest major airport to the parks — is served by virtually all major airlines. Since our rental car agency didn’t have a wheelchair-accessible shuttle ready to roll, we used a cab and got reimbursed for the access it provided to the lot about a mile away.
– The parks
Zion National Park (435-772-3256) is about 160 miles from Las Vegas.
Bryce National Park (435-834-5322) is about 85 miles north of Zion.
Heidi wrote to her doctor in advance and got a letter stating that she has a permanent disability. That letter presented at the Zion gate produced a Golden Access Passport in a matter of minutes. Not only did the pass gain us free admission to Zion and Bryce Canyon, it also is good for a lifetime of free admission to all national parks, monuments and other federally owned recreation sites.
– Lodging
Zion Park Inn, 1215 Zion Park Blvd., Springdale; 435-772-3200 or 800-934-7275.
Ruby’s Inn is on Utah Highway 63 in Bryce (no street number — everyone knows where it is); 435-834-5341 or 800-468-8660.
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Travelers With Disabilities Awareness Week is Nov. 29-Dec. 3. It is sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped (SATH). For information, call 212-447-7284.
