Hiking to Scout Lookout in Zion National Park

My first trip to Utah was on a 4 day solo trip back in 2018 over New Year. Looking back, it wasn’t the most ideal time to visit (there was a lot of snow and I was in a sedan), but in just a few days I got such an appreciation for the scenery of the state. Since that first trip, I went back with Teddy to Utah on a 12 Day Southwest Roadtrip which was one of the best road trips of all time.

The more time I’ve spent in the state, the more I want to explore it. So back in fall of 2022, a friend and I were to take a trip to Utah to see both Zion and Bryce. Some things came up for each of us so we ended cancelling the trip the day prior. So, when looking this year at where we wanted to go, we decided to take the trip that hadn’t yet happened.

The Hike

This was my third time visiting both parks, but her first. I was excited to see both park’s through her eyes as someone experiencing them for the first time. On our first full day, we decided we would hike part of Scout Lookout. I’d never done it before so I was excited.

This is the same route you’d take to get to Angel’s Landing, but to continue on that section you need a permit. Which I have no interest in, ever. I dislike heights very much and just seeing the pictures and videos makes me weak in the knees.

When you look it up the Scout Lookout Trail on All Trails, you’ll see it’s around 3.6 miles and 1100 ft elevation gain. While we can do the milage, it was the elevation I was worried about. So we got up early in the morning and parked to get the shuttle into the park. We arrived right around 7 when they started, so we were one of the first busses into the park.

We decided at the beginning of the trailhead that we’d go until we decided to stop and then would come back. If you’re familiar with this trail in Zion, you’ll know there’s quite a few switchbacks along the way. The first few switchbacks are long, and as you approach the rock face, they begin to be cut out into the rock. When you’re at the bottom of the trail looking up, you may be wondering where the trail is exactly. When you spot someone in a white or organge shirt walking against the rock and you realize, that’s the trail you’re going to be taking.

At the beginning, we did some of the lower switchbacks no problem. As we started to get closer to the steeper ones, we would stop at each end of the switchback and assess how we were feeling. Did we want to continue or turn back? I had my app on for All Trails so I could see about how far we were and about how far we had to go at each. The only other hike I had done that felt this steep this quickly was the Manitou Incline that I did on a solo trip in Colorado. I remembered that just stopping after a few railroad ties helped me catch my breath and continue on to the top. And that exact same approach helped on this one too.

At one point, we got to the top of the steepest switchback so far, and we considered calling it quits. But after looking at the map, we realized we made it to the top of that set of switchbacks and next up was the mostly flat area through Refrigerator Canyon. We rested, grabbed some water, amped each other up and continued on.

Once we made it through the incredibly beautiful canyon, we approached the last of the switchbacks called Walter’s Wiggles. This is an area where there’s 21 short switchbacks that lead you right up to Scout Lookout. At one point while navigating these, I felt like I was going up directly 90 degrees. They were tough but once you finish them you’ve made it and just have to walk across some sand to the lookout.

To get to the top took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes. This included lots of water and rest breaks. But once we got there, we realized how helpful pausing was to make the hike seem doable. Normally covering that elevation in under two miles would feel really difficult, but this approach made it doable.

While at the top, we took in some views and saw the groups getting ready to start the Angel’s Landing hike. Just watching them on what I assume are the easier sections made me nervous so that surely confirmed that’s not a hike for me.

After spending some time at the top, we started to make our way down. My knees didn’t love the way down but it felt much quicker than the way up.

Trail Navigation

If you’re using AllTrails to track your hike, I’d recommend downloading the map ahead of time and turning your phone on airplane mode so it doesn’t do what mine did while hiking. When we started, it tracked us well for the first mile or so, but because I had my data on, once we got about halfway up, it started to act like we left and reentered the canyon multiple times so it was clocking us at 12 or so miles rather than the 1.25 we were at. I tried to fix it while on the hike but it already did it’s damage so I figured out after our hike how to adjust it on my laptop. Even though I had downloaded the trail, it still was trying to figure out where we were so just make it easy and use airplane mode on the hike.

Time of Year

We did this hike in early April. There wasn’t any snow on the trail and That meant we started out in multiple layers and beanies and gloves and once we got back down, we were in much lighter layers because it warmed up. The canyon area was much cooler because it doesn’t get much direct sunlight while the other areas were more exposes. I’d recommend packing layers so you can adjust based on the weather.

Overall I loved this hike. It was both mentally and physically doable, but one where you feel very accomplished at the end. It was not too long and we were able to still have the rest of the day to explore, and it it had incredible views the entire time. If you’re looking for an alternative to Angels Landing or something shorter than the Observation Point via East Mesa Trail, this is a great option!