dust and starlightUtah
Zion and Bryce Canyon
Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks: the Watchman over the Virgin River, the Narrows and Kolob Canyons, and Bryce's hoodoos from the rim at sunrise, from the Mossy Cave Trail below it, and under the Milky Way.
Part of Utah National Parks and Red Rock Country, with the map of all 4 of its regions.
2 places · 27 photos
Map of Zion and Bryce Canyon
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- Where photos were made
The places
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27 photos
Field notes
When to go
Our frames here run from June 2024 to December 2025. In Bryce: early June 2024 (Bryce Point at first light and at golden hour, Fairyland Canyon, Thor's Hammer, Mossy Cave and a Milky Way night over the amphitheater), May 2025 (Tropic Ditch running high on spring melt) and early November 2025 (a whole sunrise from the rim, after the summer crowds). In Zion: April 2025 (the Towers of the Virgin, the Watchman with the cottonwoods leafing out), late October 2025 (the Narrows) and December 2025 (the Watchman at winter dusk, the Milky Way over Angels Landing, Kolob Canyons in low winter light). We don't have a summer frame of Zion yet.
Getting there
The two parks are close enough to share a day: on April 24, 2025 we were on the rim at Bryce before sunrise and at the Watchman in Zion that morning. Each charges its own entrance fee, $35 per vehicle as of 2026, plus $100 per person for non-US residents 16 and older; Bryce doesn't take cash. While Zion's shuttle runs, from about March through November and over the late-December holidays, the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive is closed to private cars. Kolob Canyons has its own entrance at exit 40 on I-15, with no road through from Zion Canyon. The Mossy Cave trailhead is on Highway 12, about 4 miles east of the turnoff for Bryce's main park road. At night, use only red light at the viewpoints.
Our story
Bryce is where our first camera broke, on the trip that turned us from people who took pictures on vacation into people who plan trips around pictures, and Zion is one of the places we've returned to most.
In Bryce we've worked the rim at both ends of the day: Bryce Point at first light and again at golden hour in June 2024, Thor's Hammer, Fairyland Canyon under building clouds, and a few nights later the Milky Way over the amphitheater. In November 2025 we had a whole sunrise from Sunset Point and Inspiration Point, from a hiker on the rim trail in the blue light to the sun clearing the Aquarius Plateau. Below the rim, the Mossy Cave Trail follows Tropic Ditch, dug with picks and shovels by Mormon pioneers and finished in 1892, to a waterfall under the hoodoos.
Zion came in three seasons within a single year: the Watchman over the Virgin River with the cottonwoods just leafing out in April 2025, hikers wading into the Narrows in October, and in December the last light on the Watchman, the winter Milky Way over Angels Landing, and a midday in Kolob Canyons, the park's quieter northwest corner, with the low sun raking across the red walls.