Zion Utah trip advice/help for my 21 TRD OR

Hi Everyone!

Planning on going to Zion Sep 3rd - 5th. Im taking my stock 21 Tacoma TRD OF with pretty much every type of recovery gear needed, my buddy might join me with his stock Wrangler which would be great (would love to have a 2nd car just in case)

So I plan on doing some off-roading/wheeling (pretty new to this so not sure what the proper term is lol) and I also want to hit up a few hikes in Zion national park.

Offroading Trails I would like to go on
-The Barracks trail (South to North / bottom to top)
-Toquerville Falls Trail

Hikes I would want to do
-The Narrows in Zion
-Zion Observation Point

So regardless if my buddy with the Jeep comes or not I will have 2 other friends riding with me.
Due to our work we can leave till Friday 6pm (SoCal Time) so we wont get to Utah till about 1AM

We got a hotel in Hurricane/La Verkin area for 4th-5th and will probably sleep in the car on the 3rd/4th once we get there.

>>>>>Here is where I need some help/guidance<<<<<
Off-Roading=Will my stock Tacoma work on Toquerville/Barracks Trail? assuming river level has not gone up to the point where I might flood engine or something crazy like that.

Park Hikes= Anyone know what's the earliest we can get inside the park? (I looked all over online but cant seem to find something solid, some say 8am some say 6pm and some say anytime) Ideally I would like to drive into the free Park Parking Lot at 1am and sleep till 6am to wake up and hit the trails then go do some off-roading, but If I cant get into the park till lets say 8am then Ill camp out somewhere near Virgin area or on any BLM land till the morning and make my way unto the park.

Park first then Off-Road or Off-Road then Park= I also don't know which would be best, do I do the park hikes first in hope to skip some of the crowd then off-roading in the evening? or would there be less people hiking in the late afternoon/evening and thus I should get off-roading out the way in the AM.

I have never been to Zion National Park so I'm not sure if the AM get busier or the Noon/Evening.

Any help/suggestions will be greatly appreciated and I will post up pics/videos right after.

Thank you.

 

Hey man. I was down in that area just this past weekend. I didn't do Toquerville Falls or The Barracks but I do know a little bit about the area.

Recently that area has seen a tremendous amount of rain. More so than normal. They have had many flash flood warnings as well. That being said, the trails could be little muddy and might have some clay spots. Some of the AllTrails people have some good input (https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/toquerville-falls). But on a stock Taco you should okay. Their is a YouTube chanel called Matts Off-Road Recovery and he is based in Southern Utah. He has done a number of recoveries on this trail. You might be able to get an idea of the trail conditions by watching some of his videos.

The Barracks trail I am not very familiar with but again, the AllTrails folks seem to provide the latest conditions on the trail... https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/the-barracks-trail--2

Zions is going to busy the entire day regardless of what time you go. I would suggest using the shuttle system they have. Every time I've gone this is what we have done. It would be worth a call to the park to see what they are expecting for Labor Day weekend. Here is a link to the park information. It has phones numbers, social pages, etc. https://www.nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/upload/FY21-Summer-Infosheet-Final-Web.pdf

I know I didn't answer all the questions you probably have but hopefully this will get you started. Enjoy your trip! Zion is one of the coolest places!

 

I can’t speak on the off reading part but I would do hiking first to beat the heat and then off roading in afternoon

 

With all the rain we have had you should keep an eye out for flash floods in the narrows. I'm not 100% sure on southern utah but up north we have had random thunderstorms rolling in at various times of day

 

Man this is great help and a lot on info. You helped me out a whole lot, I had no idea all trails was for OHV too (I guess it’s in the name lol)

 

Thank you for the heads up, I will check the weather and warnings before/during the hike and trails.

 

We do the observation point hike regularly. Start early and beat the mid morning crowd.

Also, the afternoon monsoons can make the last leg of the drive (Fir Road) in a muddy mess. In general, the monsoons hit in the afternoon, hiking or wheeling in the am is preferable. A lot of the trails turn into baby shit when water is added.

Another good hike from the same general area is Cable Mountain.

There are some good hikes from the west side off Kolob Terrace.

Both launch points are better than going into the valley this time of year when valley basically becomes a Disneyland wait line.

My favorite hikes are a bit further out. The staircase has a lot more wheeling opportunities with BLM roads crisscrossing the monument easily accessible just east of Kanab. Some of the hikes in this area…including Bryce….put Zion to shame.

If you stay on the west side, there are some good off-road trails thru Pinto from Pine Valley….again with most dirt roads in Utah, it depends on wet/dry condition.

 

Had a great time in Utah!

Did some driving in San Hallow and did Toquerville Falls trails halfway. Left the hotel late by the time we got to the top where you start driving down towards the waterfall it got really dark so we decided to turn around. Doing Zion hikes in the AM was definitely the way to go, we saw 1hr+ wait times on our way back from the narrows hike at 10am, parking lot was full by 7am.
Car handled really well at about 25psi on Toquerville falls trail with 4x4 High and 4l in 1 area (which was mainly just to test it out) on the sand in Sand Hallow I had it down to 20psi with 4 high and all traction off maintaining about 2k rmp and it went through the hot sand with no issues.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZKR6kqguPk

some sand driving clips from Sand Hallow Utah trip.
I will start to post more videos on my channel.

 

Desert camo netting can let you car camp in areas that you otherwise could not.