Backpacking Zion's West Rim Trail: Jaw-Dropping Views and Wilderness Solitude

Backpacking the West Rim Trail in Zion National Park is a journey through some of the park’s most stunning and varied terrain, beginning in the high-altitude pine forests near Lava Point and descending into the dramatic sandstone canyons that define Zion. Over the course of 14.5 miles, the trail offers sweeping views of deep canyons, slickrock expanses, and distant plateaus, with each turn revealing a new and awe-inspiring perspective. Campsites along the rim provide quiet solitude and breathtaking sunsets, far removed from the crowds below. As you approach the southern end of the trail, the descent into Zion Canyon becomes increasingly dramatic, culminating near the spine-tingling heights of Angels Landing. Whether done in a long day hike or as a leisurely overnight trek, the West Rim Trail delivers a quintessential Zion backcountry experience filled with both serenity and grandeur.

Trailhead elevation 7,454

Water 3 seasonal springs/check conditions with the NPS

Don't miss campsite 5 if backpacking

Backpacking the West Rim Trail (Top-Down)

It’s mid-September, my second day back in Zion, and I’m up early at the wilderness permit office—an hour before opening—to see if I can swap the permit I scored online a month ago for the walk-in only site I’ve been eyeing: site 5. I’m first in line and strike up a conversation with a couple from San Diego on a five-week national parks road trip, hoping to snag a coveted Subway permit. When the doors finally open, I hit it big—site 5 is mine. I toss my permit in my pack and walk over to Zion Outfitter, where David from Red Rock Shuttle is waiting to take me on an hour ride up to the West Rim Trailhead.

The hour-long drive passes quickly as David and I trade stories about our favorite hikes in southwest Utah. He tells me he’s already tackled the West Rim Trail twice this year and calls it the best hike in the park—encouraging words to hear as I’m about to set out. Along the way, he points out a landslide scar left by an earthquake fifteen years ago, a spire featured in the 1980s classic Romancing the Stone, a series of lava builds, and other fascinating landmarks that speak to the area’s wild geologic history. As we climb higher on Kolob Terrace Road, he suggests a quick stop at Lava Point Overlook, where the plateau is capped by a lava flow a hundred feet thick. From the overlook, the panorama stretches to the upper rim of Zion Canyon, with The Sentinel, West Temple, Mount Kinesava, and North Guardian Angel rising on the horizon. It’s a preview of the grandeur to come before he drops me at the trailhead.

Ten minutes later, after a winding climb up the narrow road, we pull into the trailhead parking area. The place is nearly empty, save for a lone Honda CRF parked off to the side. It’s a perfect start to the day—mid-60s with a crisp breeze, despite a forecast hinting at scattered showers and evening thunderstorms. David and I shake hands, and with that, I shoulder my pack and set off down the trail.

The trail wastes no time in revealing its grandeur. From the trailhead, it drops gently down, spilling me onto the great Horse Pasture Plateau. It stretches before me like an outstretched finger pointing straight into the soul of Zion Canyon—an immense, level tableland that whispers of both distance and discovery.

Almost immediately, it slips past the junction with the Wildcat Canyon Trail, then presses onward toward the eastern edge of the uplands. Ahead, the horizon heaves upward in massive swells of earth, only to be broken apart by sheer, unforgiving walls of blushing limestone—rock faces that bear the scars of time and the weight of something eternal. The path holds its course atop the plateau, where the landscape wears its scars openly. Blackened stumps stand as solemn witnesses to the fury of lightning storms that rake the high country.

Soon, the pale cliffs encircling Goose Creek emerge below, glowing white against the sweep of desert sky. From this overlook, the earth suddenly falls away, revealing the yawning canyon of the Left Fork. Standing sentinel beyond it rises the South Guardian Angel, its massive form commanding the horizon. Just to the right, like a jagged fang tearing at the sky, thrusts North Guardian Angel—first glimpsed in profile, then slowly revealing its full, daunting stature as the trail bends southward.

The trail soon slips from the crest of the plateau, narrowing onto a slender ridge that juts eastward before funneling me into a steep gully. The descent carries me into Potato Hollow, where open grassy meadows spread like a secret chamber tucked deep within the high country. Here, thickets of trees hem in the views, guiding the path along a narrow valley toward a spring that still feeds an old, rusting stock tank—a relic of another era.

Around it, the forest tells a story of change: the once-mighty aspens that guarded the spring now stand in ghostly silence, their bleached trunks like monuments to time’s passage. Yet beneath them, a new generation rises, their green shoots reaching skyward, eager to reclaim the hollow and breathe life back into its shadows.

From here, the trail swings south and begins its steady push back toward the high ridgetops, the path rising with purpose beneath my feet. The climb feels like a threshold, and as I crest the ridge, the land suddenly exhales—dropping just enough to unveil another sweeping vista, a grand stage set before me.

The trail clings to the rim and winds upward along the spine of the ridge, threading through a sparse woodland of piñon, manzanita, and gnarled juniper. What had been a far-off rainstorm drifts closer, its gray curtain sweeping the horizon, yet I slip past its reach and remain untouched.

Between the trees, the view unspools like a grand curtain parting: alabaster cliffs sculpted by the restless headwaters of the Right Fork of North Creek, the pale prow of South Guardian Angel rising like a ship’s sail above a maze of blood-red stone, and farther still, the Pine Valley Range swelling broad and steady against the far horizon. The land feels alive, vast and eternal, and I am but a fleeting figure walking through its endless story.

Just beyond, the trail crests onto the summit of the plateau, and suddenly the horizon unfurls in every direction. To the west lies Phantom Valley—a grand canvas of sandstone and time. The pale crowns of Navajo sandstone rise as fractured monoliths, weathered into domes and beehives by eons of wind and water. Beneath them, rust-red layers rich in iron plunge into shadowy fissures, carved by erosion’s patient hand. Towering above it all, Inclined Temple and Irvins Mountain stand tall, solemn guardians of the wild expanse. To the east stretches a kingdom of stone—an endless expanse of towering mesas and radiant white cliffs.

Clinging to the rim high above Phantom Valley, tucked beneath a cathedral of towering Ponderosa pines, lies campsite 5, my home for the night. With just eight miles behind me, I shed my pack and sink into the moment, grateful beyond words that I was able to trade site 6 for this throne in the sky. To the east, another rain shower drifts across the land, and for a fleeting breath of time, a rainbow arcs into being before dissolving into mist. As evening descends, the horizon erupts—sunset setting the world ablaze in a fury of color, as if the heavens themselves were painting for me alone.

As another storm draws nearer, I fix my rain fly and brace for its arrival. No more than five minutes later, the wind howls, the rain hammers against my tent walls, yet the sky spares my home its lightning. Slowly, the fury wanes, the downpour softens, and I drift into sleep. It’s been an extraordinary beginning on the West Rim Trail, and I can’t help but imagine what tomorrow will deliver.

I wake to a breathtaking sunrise, the first light spilling across the crowns of West Temple, The Bishoprics, South Guardian Angel, and the distant peaks beyond. For ten, maybe fifteen minutes, I sit in stillness, watching the glow cascade down into Phantom Valley below. With the air crisp in the low 40s, I finally shake off the chill, break camp, and set out.

The trail traces the canyon’s edge, offering one final, breathtaking glimpse into Phantom Valley before surrendering to the cool shade of towering Ponderosa pines. From there, it bends southeast, dropping softly into a shallow draw thick with oak, its path gradually guiding me toward the far southern rim of the Horse Pasture Plateau.

Within half a mile, the earth seems to fall away: to the south, Heaps Canyon yawns in a chaotic tangle of sheer rifts and stone pillars. Swinging east along the rimrock, the views only intensify—Behunin Canyon opening in a vast cleft, perfectly framing the distant summits of the Mountain of the Sun and the Twin Brothers.

Across the nearer skyline, Mount Majestic and Cathedral Mountain sprawl in blocky splendor. Their flat summits are cloaked in a thick carpet of manzanita so uniform, so lush, that from a distance they resemble manicured lawns perched impossibly atop stone.

The trail swings wide around the southern tip of the plateau, then zigzags downward, peeling away from the caprock until it settles onto the rim of the Navajo formation, where it intersects with the Telephone Canyon and West Rim Spring Trails. From the junction, I spot the mouth of Mystery Canyon, its rim guarded by towering stone pillars that preside over The Narrows far below.

From here, the West Rim Trail begins its true descent, cutting boldly across a sheer sandstone wall. Switchbacks, carved decades ago by the hands of the NPS, steer me downward—one deliberate turn at a time—deeper into the canyon.

Near the canyon floor, I round a left-hand bend and slip into a shaded gulch. Here, the air noticeably cools and the forest shifts dramatically: Spruce and Douglas fir mingle with oak and bigtooth maple, a rare alpine community at such low elevation, nurtured by the gulch’s northern face and its deep reservoir of shade.

The trail plunges onward, bending sharply to the right while colossal sandstone domes loom to my left. I stop, awestruck by their sheer immensity and odd form, before pressing forward across a sweeping expanse of slickrock—an open stage of stone where the canyon reveals its magnificence in full.

The trail bottoms out at a small bridge spanning a small side canyon, then begins another steep switchback climb. To the north, the valley spreads wide, its floor etched from windblown stone where hardy pines cling stubbornly to cracks in the rock. Higher still, the Mountain of Mystery commands the northern skyline, while to the south the sheer, wind-scoured cliffs of Cathedral Mountain loom close at hand.

I power through the last switchback, when suddenly Zion Canyon bursts into view. The silence I’ve carried for a day and a half—an unbroken solitude without another soul in sight—quivers on the edge of collapse. For ahead lies one of the park’s crown jewels, a landmark so iconic and beloved that it draws the masses like a pilgrimage, and my private wilderness is about to give way to the roar of humanity.

A hundred yards later, the view explodes in glory: the Great White Throne standing in stately power on the far wall of Zion Canyon, while nearer, the blade of Angels Landing thrusts defiantly into the void.

Here, the trail ahead begins to lose itself, fading into bare stretches of sandstone where the path vanishes altogether, leaving only scattered cairns to guide me across the open spine of the ridge. The descent grows steeper, spiraling toward the base of Angels Landing until, at last, Scout Lookout is reached. And with it, the solitude shatters.

From Scout Lookout, the path swings right, slipping into Refrigerator Canyon. A sharp descent unspools into Walter’s Wiggles, a dizzying series of narrow switchbacks chiseled into the stone. The air cools in the canyon’s depths, where firs and maples flourish in the shadow of the cliffs. At the mouth of the cleft, the trail plunges one final time, dropping to the floor of Zion Canyon.

The Virgin River greets me here, its waters winding southward beside the path, guiding the way to the bridge that marks the Grotto trailhead—and the solemn, satisfying end of the journey.

The West Rim was everything I dreamed it would be—sweeping, wild, and unforgettable. Each mile revealed a new marvel, from towering stone cathedrals to hidden hollows where silence reigned, and the scenery left me awestruck at every turn. My time here was a gift, one I’ll carry with me and one I know I’ll return to again someday. But the trail doesn’t end here. Ahead waits another adventure: I’m off to meet my dad, and together we’ll venture into Great Basin National Park for four days of hiking and backpacking beneath a brand new sky. Until we meet again, West Rim.