Month guide
Cool mornings, the first warm afternoons, a shuttle that starts partway through the month and a river that is beginning to rise.
Up at Duck Creek Village, 8,400 ft and about an hour east of Zion, March is still winter. The village averages a high in the mid 40s and lows around 20°F, and the median snow depth on the ground is over two feet. You drive down out of the snow and into spring each morning, and back up into it at night. SR-14 and US-89 stay open through the winter, but storms close sections for a few hours while plows work, so check road conditions before you set out.
Checked against National Park Service pages on November 9, 2026. Dates that change every year are given for 2026 where 2027 has not been announced yet. Confirm on the park's conditions page before you go: Zion conditions.
Starts in March. In 2026 the first day was Saturday, March 7, 2026; when we checked on November 9, 2026 the park had not announced the 2027 date. Before it starts you can drive the Scenic Drive in your own car. Once it runs, private cars are not allowed on the Scenic Drive.
Open most March days, but closed whenever the North Fork runs above 150 cfs. Since 1989 that has happened on 10% of days in the first half of March and 19% in the second. The water is cold, 41 to 53°F in spring by NPS figures. Details
Required past Scout Lookout. The spring lottery for hikes March 1 to May 31 takes applications January 1, 2027 to January 20, 2027, with results January 25, 2027. Miss it and the day-before lottery runs every day. Details
Open, but NPS warns it may close in winter months for snow or ice. It is a separate entrance off I-15 exit 40, about an hour from Zion Canyon.
Open all year. No shuttle on this side, so you drive to Canyon Overlook and the Checkerboard Mesa pullouts yourself. Details
The road through Cedar Breaks closes for snowpack from about mid-November to mid-May on average, and the visitor center from mid-October to late May (NPS). Details
The dates the National Park Service lists for when the North Fork of the Virgin River ran consistently above 150 cfs from snowmelt. Flow can still dip below the line inside these windows, and storms close it at other times. Live flow is on our Narrows guide.
| Year | Closed | Reopened |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Open most of the time | |
| 2025 | Open most of the time | |
| 2024 | April 11 | May 19 |
| 2023 | April 8 | June 19 |
| 2022 | Open most of the time | |
| 2021 | Open most of the time | |
| 2020 | April 9 | May 18 |
| 2019 | April 6 | June 22 |
| 2018 | Open most of the time | |
| 2017 | March 11 | May 21 |
| 2016 | April 3 | May 22 |
| 2015 | Open most of the time | |
| 2014 | Open most of the time | |
| 2013 | April 30 | May 2 |
| 2012 | April 17 | April 28 |
Zion had 425,780 recreation visits in March 2025, about 13,735 a day. That made it the eighth-busiest month of the year, well behind May (589,279), but nearly three times January. Spring breaks run through March and Easter falls on March 28, 2027, so the second half of the month and Easter weekend are the busy stretches.
Recreation visits in March (solid bar) against that year's busiest month (pale bar). NPS visitor use statistics; 2025 is the latest full year published.
| 2027 | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 1 | 7:04 AM | 6:26 PM | 11 hr 22 min |
| March 15 | 7:44 AM | 7:39 PM | 11 hr 55 min |
| March 31 | 7:20 AM | 7:54 PM | 12 hr 33 min |
Computed for the Zion visitor center with the standard sunrise equation, Mountain Time. Zion Canyon’s walls hide the sun for some time after sunrise and before sunset, so direct sun on the canyon floor is shorter than this.
March favours low, sunny trails. Shaded routes hold ice early in the month, and anything up the Narrows depends on the river that day.
Just east of the tunnel, so it is on your way in from Duck Creek and needs no shuttle. The parking lot is tiny; arrive before 9.
1 mi round trip, 163 ft of climbing, 1–2 hours
East Entrance guideStarts at the visitor center and gets full sun. A good choice on a cool day, and too hot for many people by June.
2.8 mi round trip, 479 ft of climbing, 1–2 hours
Flat and paved along the river, the only trail in the park that takes dogs and bikes. A good first afternoon.
3.2 mi round trip, 152 ft of climbing, 30–120 minutes
Paved, to the mouth of the Narrows. Worth the shuttle ride even when the river is too high to wade.
2 mi round trip, 154 ft of climbing, 1–2 hours
The Narrows guideShort, from the Zion Lodge shuttle stop, to the waterfall over the lower pool.
1.2 mi round trip, 131 ft of climbing, 1–2 hours
Distances and climbing are National Park Service figures. The full list is on our best hikes in Zion page.
Duck Creek Village is 46 miles and about 55 minutes from the East Entrance, and about 58 miles and an hour and a half from the main visitor center through the tunnel.
In March that drive starts in snow country. It is a good base if you want quiet nights and plan to see Bryce Canyon too; it is the wrong base if you want to be first in line for a shuttle every morning, or if you are not comfortable driving a mountain highway in winter conditions.
Duck Creek Village Inn Hotel rooms Cabins The Zion to Bryce Canyon drive
Answers drawn from the same NOAA, NPS and UDOT sources as the rest of this page.
On the canyon floor the NOAA 1991 to 2020 normals are a high of 66°F and a low of 39°F, with 2.01 inches of precipitation and only 0.7 inches of snow for the month. Expect cool mornings, mild afternoons and the odd wet, cold day. Higher parts of the park, including the East Entrance and Kolob Canyons, are colder and can see snow.
For hiking weather, yes: afternoons are comfortable and the canyon is green. The trade-offs are rain, a river that may be too high or too cold for the Narrows, and crowds that grow fast over spring break and Easter. Early March, before the shuttle starts, is the quietest part of the month and the only time you can drive the Scenic Drive yourself.
It starts in March. In 2026 the first day was Saturday, March 7, 2026, and it ran daily from then on. The park had not announced the 2027 start when we checked on November 9, 2026. Until the shuttle starts, private cars can drive the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive; after that only the shuttle can.
Often, but not always. The park closes the Narrows whenever the river is above 150 cfs. In the record since 1989 that has happened on 10% of days in early March and 19% in late March, and in 2017 the snowmelt closure began on March 11. When it is open the water is cold, and most people rent a drysuit or dry pants in Springdale.
Yes. Any hike past Scout Lookout needs a permit all year. March hikes come from the spring lottery (applications January 1, 2027 to January 20, 2027) or from the day-before lottery.
Rarely on the canyon floor, where the March snowfall normal is 0.7 inches. It snows more often on the higher plateaus around the park, including the East Entrance road and Kolob Canyons, and at Duck Creek Village and Bryce Canyon, which are still in winter in March.
9 November 2026
Temperatures, precipitation and snowfall are NOAA 1991 to 2020 monthly normals for the Zion NP station on the canyon floor (USC00429717). Duck Creek Village figures are our estimate, interpolated from the NOAA normals of the stations above and below it, with snow depth from the NRCS SNOTEL record. Visitor numbers are National Park Service recreation visits by month. Shuttle, road and trail conditions were checked on the National Park Service pages on November 9, 2026, and sunrise and sunset are computed. Where we could not confirm a 2027 date, we give the 2026 one and say so.
The Zion guides behind the numbers on this page.
Other months, and the drive between the parks.
Zion in April: temperatures, the peak of Narrows snowmelt closures, shuttle, permits and how busy the park gets.
查看页面Bryce Canyon in March: snow, freezing nights, which roads close after storms, winter-safe trails and crowd numbers.
查看页面The 85-mile drive between the two parks, measured: mileposts, the elevation profile, the tunnel size limits and live road cameras along the way.
查看页面The official 7-day forecast for Duck Creek Village from the NWS grid point at 8,602 ft, with live weather alerts.
查看页面Rooms and cabins on the plateau between Zion and Bryce Canyon.
About 46 miles from Zion's East Entrance at 8,400 ft, with Bryce Canyon about an hour the other way.
