Utah, USA - Zion National Park

These wheelchair access travel notes refer to Zion Canyon National Park, Utah and my experience visiting the park as a wheelchair user. Hopefully, they will be of some use to any other disabled traveler interested in visiting the park.

The US Parks service is generally pretty good at providing information about their parks and accessibility. Before visiting any national park I recommend checking out their web site (and gleaning as much information as you can).

Route 9 runs right through Zion National Park and there are two entrances - a South Entrance at Springdale and an East entrance. You can drive into the park ($25 charge per car) but traffic is controlled and during summer months only shuttle busses are allowed to take the Zion Canyon scenic drive. There is a lodge in the park with handicapped accessible rooms although I did not stay there myself, and there are accessible camping sites.  There are also many accommodation options outside the park.

The visitor center is at the South Entrance and is fully accessible with accessible rest rooms. The shuttle busses run through peak season and are all fully accessible. Most of the trails are not wheelchair accessible. The Pa'rus trail runs from the Visitor Centre and is listed as accessible, although I did not try it myself. I was running low in energy having spent the previous day beating around Bryce Canyon Park! I did take the shuttle to the Riverside walk which is also listed as accessible. The Riverside walk takes you right into the canyon and is really beautiful. The path is fully paved but there are many inclines, some of them quite steep. A fit young wheeler could navigate the path without assistance, but I depended on the kindness of strangers to get me over the steepest gradients! It is no problem at all with a walkie for occasional assistance and is very worthwhile. It's about a 2mile (3.2km) round trip so give yourself plenty of time.

The restaurant in the lodge is fully accessible and open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Definitely worth a day trip although once you have done the two trails there are really not many other options left to you as a wheelie.